Try to End School Pizza Days and I Will Try to End You

I want to raise healthy kids. Since day one, I’ve made an effort to feed them well, limit screen time and introduce them to activities like hiking, swimming, and good old-fashioned outdoor exploring. They dance, ride their bikes around the neighbourhood and climb trees. I put fresh fruit and veggies in their lunches alongside healthy proteins, and breakfast is usually a bowl of hearty, boring oatmeal. I’m not a perfect mom, but I make an effort to teach them habits that will serve them well in life.

That said, I eff’ing love pizza day.

I LOVE IT.

Pizza day makes my life easier. Ours happens every Wednesday, and I look forward to it like Christmas morning. It’s the one time a week I can throw a few things into my kids’ lunch bags and call it quits. My brain doesn’t even have to fully turn on in order to pack a pizza day lunch – I grab a banana, a container or yogurt and maybe a few of those tiny oranges that every kid loves. If I’m feeling particularly nice, I’ll add a cookie.

Boom. Lunch is served.

There has been talk lately of pizza days happening too often, and this teaching our kids bad habits. Apparently, having pizza every single week teaches children that it is a regular food and not a treat. But guess what? I know it’s a treat. It’s a treat for ME, because it offers a much-needed reprieve from handcrafting healthy meals for my offspring. It’s a treat because I can check something off my nightly mothering to-do list with minimal effort, and I need that mental break. (I need ten more mental breaks like this, if anyone can help me find them.) It’s a treat because my kids love it, and I love it, and the money goes to the school which means THE SCHOOL loves it, too. Everyone wins on pizza day. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to modern parenting. Tell me otherwise and I will fight you (respectfully, with words).

On Wednesdays, my kids still eat a healthy breakfast and a decent dinner. They don’t come home in a cheese and pepperoni induced rage because they’ve been fed a greasy slice of heaven instead of whole grain crackers and organic hummus. They still grab an apple off the counter after school, and generally seem to be in good health. I would even argue that this sort of balance is good, just like permitting ice cream and Timbits in moderation. Pizza is teaching my kids BALANCE, guys. Plus, it’s Italian, so it’s totally allowing them to share in another culture and that’s great.

If you don’t want your kids to eat pizza every single week, that’s cool – I certainly don’t think you’re ruining them by sending a sandwich instead. Just do you, moms! But if you don’t like pizza day, just ignore it and let the rest of us enjoy it for the gift it truly is. It may not be the best meal my kids eat all week, but you will have to pry those pizza forms from my cold, dead, overworked and exhausted mom hands.

And that’s never gonna happen.