MOM’S BEST
I come from a long line of healthy, if odd, eaters. My grandfather was known for his onion sandwiches and for his robust consumption of sauerkraut, long before it was touted as a superfood to support healthy gut bacteria. My grandmother ran the kitchen in my father’s elementary school and wrote her own cookbook, which her great-grandchildren still use to make cupcakes. Her recipes contain plenty of butter and even occasionally lard, but never margarine, which she called fake food.
My parents continued in their footsteps. Whole grains, low sugar, plenty of fruits and vegetables, with sweets and treats in moderation. I learned what good nutrition was and where it came from. Though I never did eat onion sandwiches.
Once away from home at university, I ate Fruit Loops every single day for breakfast and ice cream every single night for dinner for six months. I gained 15 pounds. My kids are clearly in the Fruit Loop and ice cream phase. If I focus only here and watch the sugar consumed and the weight gained, I panic.
If I can take a deep breath and a step back, I notice that there are other changes happening.
The incessant snack requests, as well as the gum requests, have ceased.
The bickering in the house, about everything, has decreased dramatically.
Recently, we received a last-minute invitation to a museum exhibit opening, which I gingerly suggested would be very interesting. I expected the usual reflexive No!, but instead I got three, Hmm, maybes. In the end, two of the girls decided to go, no coercion required.
I do not dread dinner time anymore, probably because we no longer spend time arguing about who eats what or how much.
Without these arguments, I notice that we have more time to get past How was basketball practice? to What are your dreams for this summer? or What is baptism anyway?
I try to put myself back to age nine, or 12, or 15, to imagine how I would have reacted if my parents had tried self-demand feeding. Probably just the same as my girls. I would have eaten way, way too much sugar. I would have gained weight, and likely been called fat.
But what a relief it would have been to feel free to eat another piece of cake after dinner, rather than sneak it in the wee hours of the morning before everyone was awake. Or to be honest about how many cookies I ate at the coffee hour after church on Sunday. To feel confident that my parents really knew everything that I was consuming, and were ok with it, without my having to pretend.
When it comes to what our kids eat, we as parents have a lot of control when our kids are small, less when they hit middle school, and almost none from high school on. It is our responsibility to teach them what healthy food is, and to make it available for them.
But to truly know what our kids eat, all we have is our relationship with them. There is something about self-demand feeding that seems to be improving my relationship with my kids, as well as the relationship between the three of them. I don’t know why. I do know know that what I want more than kids who eat vegetables is relationship that can nourish them long after they realize that Fruit Loops do not.