Bad Parent: Gimme Sugar
My kid loves junk food, and I’m not ashamed.
by Nan Mooney
June 11, 2009
I got my first inkling this wasn’t going to work out when I took Leo to a party when he was about 3 months old. I watched a father try to steer his two kids away from the chocolate chip cookies and towards a plate of shrimp. Could I pull a lie like that over on my son? That shrimp is a viable choice over a chocolate chip cookie? Surely my kid is going to be smarter than that.
Then there was the friend who told me she never fed her three kids sugar, but that she and her husband pulled the ice cream tub from the freezer every night the second they went to bed. And another friend whose mother raised them on applesauce-sweetened date bars and told them they were cookies. And the mom I met at the park who proudly informed me that she’d baked her daughter a tofu-carob birthday cake for her second birthday and swore up and down this was celebrating. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that building a junk food-free life for Leo would involve a lot of lying — and that’s one dynamic I don’t want unfolding between us.
I can’t say I get any support in the popular press with this one. Every time I turn around there’s another parenting magazine or newspaper headline warning me my child’s going to be an obese and angry underachiever if I offer him any snacks besides apple slices and baby carrots.
Do we really have to do every last thing that’s good for our kids?
Of course, those articles never mention the other side of things. But those of us who grew up around health nut families know the truth. There’s something wrong with kids who don’t ever get a taste of the darker side.
Children who are never exposed to junk flip out when they enter an environment that might potentially contain an M&M. I remember how, the second my mother left us alone in the kitchen, my friend Sarah would leap to the countertop like Cat Woman and begin scouring our cupboards for stale redhots and open bags of chocolate chips, anything that might smack of a sugar high. Kids like Sarah never learn the art of moderation. When they go off to college, instead of binge drinking, they’re likely to hole up at McDonalds and inhale five Big Macs at a time.
When it comes down to it, I don’t want to deprive my child of the experience of indulging in wanton pleasure. Sure, technically junk food is not good for him. But do we really have to do every last thing that’s good for our kids? Does that honestly make them better people or just uptight, inflexible, and holier than thou?
For now, I’m trying to model reasonably healthy behavior on my end and pretty much letting Leo eat what he wants. If he starts angling for ice cream and candy morning, noon and night, that may have to change. Until then, I cast my vote for raucous over restraint. When it comes down to it, I’d rather be raising a fun, inventive, original ,sugar-hyped little boy than a kale-and-brown-rice-eating , mind-your-manners bore.
About the Author
|
|
Related Articles
|
 |
Nan Mooney's third book, (Not) Keeping Up With Our Parents: The Decline of the Professional Middle Class, comes out in May. She lives in Seattle with her son Leo and lots of rain. |
|
|
-
by Babble Editors
Eat, play, love.
-
by Brett Berk
Why giving kids only what's “good for them” is a bad idea.
-
by Rebecca Odes & Ceridwen Morris
Nine ways to get your toddler to eat vegetables.
|
