We love to cook and love to eat. But as I always say when DD complains that she's hungry and dinner's a half an hour away: "It's not like there's a famine on."*
DDs life is like a rolling buffet, far beyond the bounds of what's logical or reasonable. Every week is some kind of celebration and the last week of school, it seemed like every one of her classes had some kind of unhealthy treat. Sporting events always involve an after game snack (lest the little darlings perish on the 15 minute drive home -- or to the nearest drive through. And every parent she comes into contact with seems to want to feed her. Any expression of hunger is greeted with a reaction of horror by adults in the vicinity.
A busy day starts to look like a Hobbit's meal plan: Breakfast, second breakfast, brunch...
A friend of DDs is pre-diabetic and needs to avoid refined flour and sugar, yet every place he goes he's confronted with temptation. And then we hand wring about childhood obesity.
While this trend probably explains the urge adults have to press food on every child within fork range, it has to be a nightmare for parents of allergic children.
If a child has extreme allergies, I'm happy to NOT feed them. I want the child and the parent to direct that conversation and experience.
* Of course I realize that in places there IS a famine going on and that even in the US some children go to bed hungry... which makes the context even more upsetting IMHO.
Didn't want this to get lost in the shuffle--
love this observation.
I have to think that most parents are simply not even
aware of how often their kids are being fed by-- well, by pretty much everyone in their lives.
I have an infamous line-- it's one that cracks people up, but it's also something that I recall
actually asking with some wariness when my daughter was about four.
"So-- and pardon me if this sounds peculiar to you-- will the children be having any snacks or anything while they are dissecting the OWL PELLETS??"
Experience suggests, however, that as ludicrous as it seems, that was not a foolish or paranoid question.
