Dear Care & Feeding: Little Free Pantry Misuse

[minoanmiss]

Dear Care and Feeding,

Dear Care and Feeding,

I have a “little free pantry” in front of my house that I’m happy to host for neighbors in need. I live in a neighborhood that’s somewhat mixed-class—many single-family homes, town houses, apartments all on the same block. But the neighborhood is on the higher end of well-off, or at least it was before the pandemic hit nearly everyone, and at least my immediate neighborhood is very white. One of the only Black families in the area has a 7-year-old boy “Joe” who is on-again-off-again friends with my 6-year-old boy. I often see Joe coming to the pantry, and when he comes to play in our yard, he sometimes opens a bag and snacks on it—but leaves it there. (I’ve recently seen him do this with both cereal and a box of dry spaghetti.) Usually the food I see him get is on the snacky side. He’s occasionally told me that he hasn’t eaten a meal, and they have a lot of people to keep up on a single income: He lives with a working-class father, an elderly great-grandparent, and a small cousin, but I’ve only met the GG as he seemed hesitant to go get the dad when I went to introduce myself. So to my question: Part of me thinks I should talk to the dad about his son’s (mis)use of the pantry—I’d want someone to tell me if my son was doing this. But the other part of me isn’t sure it’s my business, and I don’t want to embarrass the father or cut off a source of food for Joe if he really needs it. What should I do?


—Concerned Neighbor

Dear Concerned,

First off, I think it’s wonderful that you’re providing free food to families in need. I’m also glad you’ve noticed that this boy may not be eating well, because that could be a sign of serious issues.

Before you get the family involved, I think you should contact the school to mention to the school counselor what he has told you about possible food insecurity, so that they can ensure—if needed—that the boy is getting free meals at school. Many kids of that age may be unaware of the resources schools provide, and that could potentially solve the problem without having to endure an uncomfortable encounter with his dad. I’d go that route rather than talking to his guardians directly about food resources, because you don’t want to come off as a white savior who is taking it upon yourself to rescue this child (you mentioned that you live in a predominately white neighborhood, so I’m under the assumption you are white as well). I offer that warning because many Black people despise receiving unsolicited parenting advice from random white people, regardless of their good intentions.

Regarding the lower-stakes issues, maybe I’m missing something here, but this seems to be a pretty simple fix. It doesn’t matter if your concerns are with how he’s disposing of trash or with him taking food that requires cooking—if you have something on your property that’s being misused, you have every right to instruct the person how to use it. Even though we’re talking about a 7-year-old child, it can still be done effectively as long as you approach him with kindness and empathy. I mean, how many kids that age would understand “free pantry etiquette”?

Don’t talk about the things he’s doing wrong when you speak with him, because that will only make him feel a sense of shame over something he has no clue about. Instead you should discuss the desired outcome by saying something as simple as “Hi, kiddo, just so you know, this is how we should use the pantry. Let me know if you have any questions.” Chances are that will be the end of it and you can move on.

In the event the undesired behavior continues, you’ll need to determine how high the personal stakes are for you to have that behavior corrected. Personally, it wouldn’t be a big enough deal to me to escalate matters by approaching his dad, but you may feel differently and that’s perfectly fine. In doing so, you should be aware of the potential of his son being disciplined over his misuse of the pantry, and I’m pretty sure we can both agree that would be awful.

I think the best move here is to coach the child in private—maybe even more than once if necessary, but outside of that, I think you should let it go. As annoying as the behavior may seem to you, the main thing is you’re providing a food source to a child who apparently needs it, and that’s worth a lot.

Comments

[melannen]

I know some people like that too!

I also knew some people who grew up thinking it was normal because they were told to eat raw pasta when there was nothing else in the house. If he's growing up super food insecure or was responsible for his own meals way too young, he might not have the same categories of food that LW is working from, so talking about snack vs. not snack might not get the expected results. (Opening a package, eating some, and leaving the rest laying around also sort of sounds to me like someone who has been feeding himself since he was a toddler with very little guidance. :/)

But I have still met very few kids who would pick raw pasta over pop-tarts.

[lilysea]

I also knew some people who grew up thinking it was normal because they were told to eat raw pasta when there was nothing else in the house. If he's growing up super food insecure or was responsible for his own meals way too young, he might not have the same categories of food that LW is working from, so talking about snack vs. not snack might not get the expected results. (Opening a package, eating some, and leaving the rest laying around also sort of sounds to me like someone who has been feeding himself since he was a toddler with very little guidance

Yeah, I regularly ate uncooked instant noodles as a kid because they were what was available. I'd even open the flavour sachets and eat the flavour powder straight out of the packet sometimes.

I also ate the petals of random flowers in the garden.

And paper.

I also regularly helped myself to the bottles of sweet flavoured medicine for diarrhea and sweet flavoured medicine for constipation that were in the fridge, because I was hungry, and I craved sweet food, and they were the only sweet food in the house [in addition to food insecurity from poverty, my parents also had a horror of sugar causing diabetes]. My parents were confused and perplexed by my stomach issues...