Cupcake Ban in Alexandria, VA
Once Just a Sweet Birthday Treat, the Cupcake Becomes a Cause
By Brigid Schulte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 11, 2006; Page B01
Once a cupcake wasn't something to think about. It was just what your mom
brought to school for your birthday. But this year, as schools across the
country begin enforcing new federally mandated "wellness policies," many are
banning the little treats. And parents are fighting back.
When the principal at George Mason Elementary School in Alexandria explained
to the PTA earlier this year that cupcakes were out, a furor erupted.
"A lot of people are really angry," said Karen Epperson, a George Mason
parent. "They think this is really stupid."
Mind you, Epperson said, it's not the kids who are upset. Kids are not the
ones who are so devoted to cupcakes.
At the same time they're being booted from classrooms, cupcakes have become
the latest hipster chic food. Entire blogs are dedicated to cupcake culture.
Expensive Johnny Cupcakes "Make Cupcakes Not War" T-shirts are in demand.
Cupcakes were raved about on "Sex in the City" and rapped about on "Saturday
Night Live."
Just last week, the bakery, coffee shop and dessert lounge Buzz, decorated
with flattened cupcake liners, opened in Alexandria, joining a growing
number of high-end cupcake-specialty bakeries from Magnolia in New York to
Citizen Cupcake in San Francisco.
Why on earth does this little four-ounce treat -- a 19th-century accident of
history that was created when a baker poured leftover cake batter into cups
-- carry such heavy emotional weight? When Texas tried to ban cupcakes in
schools last year, the furor was so deafening that legislators passed the
"Safe Cupcake Amendment" to protect the right of parents to tote cupcakes to
school. After the vote, one lawmaker remarked, "We didn't realize how
important cupcakes were."
A cupcake, it would seem, is classic Americana, up there with hot dogs and
apple pie. It's a comfort food, as common as meatloaf and as friendly as
mashed potatoes.
But, mostly, cupcakes are about memory.
Derek Bush is a 30-year-old man. Yet the other day at Buzz, he was as
excited as a little kid as he carefully chose a red velvet, a chocolate chip
and two vanilla cupcakes with bright pink and green frosting.
Cupcakes are "really retro right now," he said. They say "it's a special
occasion." They look pretty. It's cool to have one all to yourself. And they
make him happy -- like when his mom made devil's-food cupcakes with
chocolate cream cheese frosting for his birthday. He shrugged. "They just
remind me of simple pleasures and my happy childhood."
The cupcake-as-symbol- of-childhood is powerful: It's wrapped in the cultural
definition of what it means to be a good mother, something that's a moving
target in this society, said Kathryn Oths, an anthropologist at the
University of Alabama who studies food and culture.
"I don't have children. But I guarantee that if I did, I'd make them
cupcakes for their birthdays," she said. "It's just ingrained in us as the
proper thing to do."
So when that cultural norm is threatened by cupcake bans, she argued, people
feel compelled to rally to its defense.
"Think about it. Banning cupcakes is almost like an assault on the national
identity," Oths said. "It comes at a time when there are fears of terrorism
and the immigration brouhaha that they're 'watering down' our traditional
American culture -- meaning middle-class white America -- that's slipping
out of our grasp."
The reason school districts are writing wellness policies is because
childhood is so much different today from when boomer parents were young.
Every day, we're told: More children are dangerously overweight. More
children are diabetic. More children have life-threatening allergies to
everything from peanuts to wheat to milk. More children sit around watching
TV and playing video games. And, as many schools know, every classroom is
divided between the cupcake-haves, the ones whose mothers dutifully lug in
trays of them, and the cupcake-have- nots, whose mothers can't afford to or
don't know that it's expected.
Epperson used to tutor a child from an immigrant family who was saving every
penny she could find in order to buy her own cupcake mix. She wanted her mom
to bring the treat so she could fit in. "That broke my heart," Epperson
said.
While several school districts have outright outlawed cupcakes, candy or
anything home-baked, others are just trying to limit them. Technically,
Alexandria's wellness policy bans only the use of food as a reward or
punishment. Principals at some schools, such as George Mason, took that to
mean birthday cupcakes as well.
"We don't want to say no to school celebrations, but we want to think of
ways to encourage more healthy snacks," said Becky Domokos-Bays, director of
food and nutrition services for the system. "There are alternatives. "
Melynda Wilcox, George Mason's PTA president, was never a cupcake mom. One
year, she brought plastic leis and tropical fruit to school and had the kids
make birthday kebabs. Another year, she brought in freshly baked bread with
jam.
Still, her school's cupcake ban has been hard.
"I'm torn," she said. "I see the desirability of the health goals. But I
feel for parents who think we don't offer things just for fun anymore at
school."
Oddly enough, once cupcakes were banned at school, she found herself baking
them at home. For the first time in her life.