Plastic School Cafeteria Lunch Punch Cards

Where to begin? I don't like them.

Yes, they make life convenient, particularly for the cafeteria workers. And busy parents. And the children themselves, for that matter. But as with most things, I find there is a price to pay for convenience.

It's not a tax, or tip, or a service fee you pay for the privilege of using the little plastic card. It's not a minimum balance, and it's not a loss of value if you don't use full amount by a given deadline.

No, the price is much greater than any of the above.

Most of the time, my child takes her lunch to school. This is a policy in my house. I'm hoping she will learn that she can have a very good lunch every day without having to pay someone else to make it for her (disclaimer: she's in second grade, so I'm the one preparing it for now.). 

I do want for her to have the school lunch occasionally, however, so there are days when she needs to buy it. Here is where my next policy comes in. She has to pay cash for it. Cold, hard, dirty, wrinkly, labor-intensive cash. The greenbacks and coins. 

Yes, I've been questioned about this practice by well-meaning parents who look at me as if I'm just a little bit crazy for not putting my daughter on the Plastic Card Plan. After all, it is soooo much more convenient. And I will admit that there are days when I scramble for lunch money or when my daughter's little change purse or wallet are nowhere to be found. And still I insist. But why?

I'm no rocket scientist. I'm not even that great at math. But I am generally a logical and reasonable person, and I do attempt to follow that line of thinking known as "common sense". My eyeballs have been known to hit a newspaper or website from time to time, and it seems fairly obvious to me that our plastic card mentality has not done us any favors. Personal debt is a tremendous problem in our country, and considering that so many of us grew up handling actual money, what can we expect for our children if they don't even know what it looks like?

Walk with me here. The child selects lunch items, which are placed on a tray; said tray is delivered to said child, who advances to the head of the line where the lunch lady is waiting. The child hands over the card, which is swiped and handed directly back to the child, who then returns the card to a pocket or wallet. Where is the sense of transaction in that? The child gives up nothing and yet receives lunch all the same. At least with old-fashioned cash, the child must give it up permanently. He or she learns that there is a cost involved and that the money just given up will never see the inside of his or her wallet again. Nor will that same money later be available to use for a different purchase.

Not so with the card. The card is the "gift that keeps on giving." Any time the child wants lunch, ice cream, seconds, or whatever, the card comes out and takes care of everything. Hmmm. It sounds  to me like we're contributing to the financial delinquency of minors. If this is the message we are sending our children in early elementary school, we should not be at all surprised when they have no idea how to handle money or finances when they are older. It is well known that the only way to learn a language (or any other skill for that matter) is regularly and frequently to practice it. What, then, is the expected outcome if our children regularly and frequently use the plastic card?

To loosely borrow and abbreviate a quote from Booker T. Washington, "Nothing worth having ever comes easily." So I will continue to scour the furniture for loose change and ask cashiers for my twenty dollars cash back in the form of one dollar bills, and my daughter will just have to make sure she remembers where she put that little wallet. Show me the money.