Gardens, Kids, and Sharecropping...

Sounds like some sort of sick little child labor joke in the making, right?  

Not if your name is Caitlin Flanagan.  She "penned" the four page atrocity that is titled "Cultivating Failure" for The Atlantic.  Thank you Stacy for linking me to this train wreck.  My head exploded reading the first page of Caitlin Flanagan's elitist and racist rant.  I didn't even get through the second page and I just had to stop.  How can someone who is permitted to write and be published, even if only on the internet, be so unbelievably ignorant?  *head desk* 

She thinks that school gardens = sharecropping and lowered test scores, because Algebra 1 is where it's all at and writing recipes < essays on novels.  I'm new to cooking and the math and precision that goes into cooking and baking is staggering.

Luckily Kurt Michael Friese posted a response on Civil Eats.  He points out her many inaccuracies and the straight up bullshit (sorry, there's no sugar coating it).  I mean come on in her tirade she managed to get in jabs at liberal Obama supporters in her description of Chez Panisse, owned by Alice Waters whom founded Edible Schoolyard.

“an eatery where the right-on, ‘yes we can,’ ACORN-loving, public-option-supporting man or woman of the people can tuck into a nice table d’hôte menu of scallops, guinea hen, and tarte tatin for a modest 95 clams—wine, tax, and oppressively sanctimonious and relentlessly conversation-busting service not included.” 

Yep, because wanting kids to engage with their food and learn about healthy eating habits is so drastically left wing that it has liberal agenda written all over it.  Puh-lease.

Honestly I'd love for my kids to have a garden to tend to, and they'll surely help me with my meager back yard garden I will be doing this summer.  I don't have a green thumb by any means, but it reminds me of my grandparents and growing up spending summers in their almost totally self sustaining garden.  Watching my grandmother can and preserve the stuff that came from her garden was normal for me.  Now at almost 30 I am learning to do it, though I wish I had taken the time to learn from her 15 or 20 years ago when I had the chance.  

I don't, nor have I ever, felt like a sharecropper.  I feel proud when I pull out a jar of jam or applesauce that I made on my own for my children (granted I did not grow the fruit, but I made the effort!).  And of course just like my grandmother I enjoy giving to my family and friends.  Even better when they come back to me and tell me how good it was, and ask when will I be making more.  ;) 

If learning about your food from seed to stomach is cause for lack of intelligence then by all means I want to have the dumbest children alive.  At least my sharecropping kids would be able to feed themselves and their family should the need ever arise, or just because it's the best thing for them and the planet.  :P  

As an aside I can assure you that my Grandparents were not liberals.  In fact I am fairly certain that their beliefs were so far into the conservative territory that it would make my liberal self look like a moderate.  I can also say with a level of certainty that my grandparents would have been more than happy to teach those who had a desire to learn gardening and self reliance.  

This is something that I feel rather strongly about, and will continue to post to this blog.  One would think that food choices would be a simple matter, but that's just not how it works.  For as many people as I get to "see the light" in regards to food there are just as many who either understand and are not proactive, or simply do not care.  10 years ago had you sat me down and talked to me about this I likely would have smiled, nodded, then hit up Arby's on the way home.  Change is slow, and people will resist, but if I can impact even a few people then my efforts are not wasted.  :)