Opinion | The School Bake Sale, Revisited

To the Editor:

Re “Down With School Bake Sales,” by Deb Perelman (Sunday Review, Nov. 4):

I agree that it is time to retire the traditional school bake sale, but for very different reasons: not because one has to burn the midnight oil to bake the cake but because the baking described involved only the mother and not the child.

Preparing food with children should be considered a valuable opportunity to serve as a positive role model for a healthy lifestyle and an occasion to engage in regular unstructured conversation.

Introducing age-appropriate tasks while preparing meals, even something as simple as pouring a bag of prewashed salad greens into a bowl, provides one of the best resources we have to ensure that our children grow into healthy adults and evolve into positive role models for future generations.

Alice H. Lichtenstein
Boston
The writer is a professor of nutrition science and policy at Tufts University.

To the Editor:

As an adolescent, I constantly begged my 40-hour-a-week working mother to bake cookies for a bake sale the next day. After reading this article, I truly understand why she said no.

Mothers should not be working in a mold that was created decades ago just to please the PTA. In today’s culture, they’re working toward pleasing themselves.

Dara Williams
Chicago

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