Los Angeles elementary school students are going hungry. The young scholars are not eating breakfast at home and often arrive to school running to the breakfast line, but by that time it is 7:45 a.m. and Ms. Jones has closed the cafeteria doors.

Now, little Johnny has to go to class on an empty stomach depriving him from academic concentration.

Little Johnny has had the same luck everyday for the last couple of weeks, but due to this new program called the No Kid Hungry Campaign, signed by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, little Johnny can have a breakfast meal while he sits in class.

Though the campaign is a great program for kids to have, due to the million kids in the Los Angeles area that lack balanced meals, it is an eye-opener to the way our society is heading.

This alludes to the lack of attention that parents give their children.

I remember as a child my mother would make sure I arrived to school early. Not only that, but would watch me as I stood in line for a morning breakfast at school.

Whenever I was running late to school, my mom made sure to fix me a quick bite before heading out the door.

The No Kid Hungry Campaign is designed to stop child hunger by the year 2015. Though it will be ideal for child hunger to be defeated by this year, odds are that it won’t.

Though the program considers the best interest of today’s youths, it is the reason why many parents neglect their children.

 Parents become reliant on programs like this one to pick up the slack. 

You see, little Johnny’s mother doesn’t have to put the extra effort for her child to make sure he has breakfast in the morning. Little Johnny’s mother knows that the No Kid Hungry Campaign will take on her motherly responsibilities.

While working for the Los Angeles Unified program, I discovered much of these theories to be true. Parents would become dependent on school programs to give their children all of their wants and needs.

I worked for an elementary after school program, which was very supported by the parents.  Why?

Well, because not only were their kids taken care of during school hours, but this after school program held their children until 6 p.m., where they were helped with their homework and, of course, fed. 

I often ask myself: When was there ever any interest shown from parents to their kids?

If children were at school from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m., at what point during the day did parents share quality time with their children?

According to an article published in 2010 by the New York Times, in 2007 “numbers had risen to 21.2 hours a week for college-educated women and 15.9 hours for those with less education.”

So if there are 168 hours in a week, parents are allowing themselves to spend only about 8 percent of their time with their children.

By incorporating a program like the No kid Hungry Campaign, we are accepting that parents slack off.

Though it is understandable that parents need to work to be able to support their kids, parents are constantly focusing on other priorities rather than their children.

With hectic life schedules that parents have, they should be able to prioritize and feed their children in the morning instead of making little Johnny remember how the No Kid Hungry Campaign fed him every morning.