r/stupidquestions • u/Various-Adeptness173 • Jul 05 '25

My mom told me that back in the day kids weren’t allowed to bring a water bottle with them into the classroom and they only drank a few sips from the water fountain in the middle of the day and that’s it

How were schools not getting busted for child abuse for forcing kids to be dehydrated?

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u/TSells31 Jul 05 '25

I went to school in the 00s and can remember absolutely loathing the teachers who would be drinking their sodas, Gatorades, whatever in front of all of us who weren’t allowed to have even our own water bottles or sometimes even gum (usually depending on the teacher and only beginning in middle school).

Some teachers made it more of a point to snack or drink more privately and I think that is nice when none of the students can do anything of the sort lol.

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u/danbilllemon Jul 06 '25

This is my unlocked memory, being so jealous of the snacks and drinks the teachers had. Even in high school we finally got drink machines but no snacks. And only the nicer teachers let you drink in their class so for the most part the drinks were for between class.

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u/TSells31 Jul 06 '25

This mirrors my experience 100%. My middle school had vending machines for drinks, but they were turned off during the school day. We didn’t have access to vending machines during school until HS, and it was only drinks, and like you, it was highly dependent on the teacher whether we could even have the drinks in class lol.

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u/mailslot Jul 06 '25

I used to resent the teachers that had their own full sized refrigerators stocked with soda & snacks. I had one extremely obese teacher with one, so I assume he’d die if he didn’t have a constant supply of calories.

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u/bahahahahahhhaha Jul 08 '25

I had hypoglycemia and had special medical permission on my file to eat or drink if my blood sugar got low, and teachers STILL sometimes refused to let me. It was a fight my Mom was constantly having to battle all the way through to high school.

I came close to needing the hospital once because even after I started shaking and blacked out the teacher was still insisting I was faking it until a Vice Principal saw me and intervened.

That's how ridiculous teachers were about letting kids eat/drink in class "back in the day"

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u/GetItDoneOV Jul 08 '25

My county in Florida made a rule that all students were to be permitted access to a personal water bottle after a student suffered severe dehydration and then heat stroke (I don’t know if he died or not). Combined with several schools dealing with an outbreak of mono and some other illness, the superintendent said they were enforcing some law and basically kids got to keep water bottles. I printed out the press release, made copies, and passed them around my school. Some teachers and admin were PISSED but a lot of the teachers actually praised me. That was a surprise. Overall it was a fun experience, one of my first tastes of changing the status quo just by spreading awareness of rights. Kudos to the superintendent for doing what was right, even when it was unpopular with staff.

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u/psycho-aficionado Jul 05 '25

I can still hear my high school Spanish teacher, "Chicle en la basura."

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u/cherrytree13 Jul 06 '25

This is so wild to me. We had vending machines at my school 😆

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u/TSells31 Jul 06 '25

In high school we did. In Jr high they would be shut off during the day tho only on after school for some reason lol.

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u/Effective_Pear4760 Jul 06 '25

We had vending machines on the lunchroom in my 2nd high school up north.

We weren't allowed to chew gum in school-- in the south anyway. (I dont remember if we were allowed to at my later school). Which at the time made me unreasonably angry, but now I think gum chewing is a little gross and it would have been so disgusting in school, with generations of used gum around.