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That Dark Brown Taste
I was going to blame my bad attitude on August again, but that would be making excuses for myself and I really can't.
It is apparent to me that on top of not getting enough work done (and I really must start staying up later and exerting myself more because I'm currently feeling that unpleasant sweaty pre-exam-haven't-studied feeling and the school year hasn't started) I'm also behind on various Ultramother endeavors.
Consider food. I actually don't consider food nearly enough. I want my children to be nutritionally fortified and certainly don't want them to be hungry, but I don't have elaborate rules for them. I do my best, and I know that my best is embarrassingly shabby by the standards of many.
Recently I found myself chatting with another parent about school snacks. Her child does not eat any sugar of any sort (including fructose), because she feels that all sugars are quite unhealthy, hard to digest and cause horrible problems for the body. (She may be right. I was just glad we were having this conversation in a month that was not October, December, February or April because during those phases more than others I surely must seem as if I am wearing eau d' candy corn/ candy cane/ conversation hearts/ jelly beans, and I would be really ashamed. )
But then she said that she was concerned about the snacks at preschool because some "lazy mothers" as she put it, would just show up with stuff like graham bunnies or sweetened yogurt packs and fob those nasty things off on the kids. And I was a bit taken aback. I have done snack at school and nothing I offered would have been acceptable. I am a lazy mother. I know I took in grapes at least once and clementines on another occasion and pretzels... and the one time I really was trying to earn my wings and exert myself I did something that would have really offended. I made oatmeal raisin cookies from scratch.
She asked what I thought she should do, and I suggested that perhaps the best thing to do was behave as if her child had a food allergy and sensitivity (which she may actually have, I don't know) and just supply all snacks herself (because, while it is unlikely in my neck of the woods, she might find there are other "lazy mothers" slacking around waiting to poison the world with fruit and crackers). So of course this interlude filled me with the standard tug-of-war of irritation and guilt: irritation for being forced to think about yet another non-issue that makes me impatient and doesn't have much relevance in my own affairs and guilt that I don't force a more virtuous set of eating parameters on my children, and myself, I suppose (though I have actually suspended about 93% of my candy eating).
When it comes down to it, in this moment, I'm sick of virtue. I'm tired of feeling that maybe a second cup of coffee in the late afternoon is a questionable thing to drink (of course I DO drink it without hesitation, what do you think I am?) or that I'm not applying myself well enough in the gym, at my work, with my children, in the dog run. It is unfortunate that people don't talk with enough relish about the lovely, decadent things of the world: melting ice cream, beefy red wine, sleeping late, forgoing the gym, voluptuous lounging.
I want to see some dissipation in my face.
posted by Elise at 5:01 PM
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said...
Trust in your instincts. Hard as it is to withstand the PC Police's judgment of your relationship with your kids, I believe (and have experienced the reality) that in the long term they (the PC Police) will play an inconsequential role in that relationship, and the sooner you benefit from this insight (if you're so inclined) the sooner you'll be more at peace with yourself and your loved ones -- at least I was.
8/31/2008 8:16 PM
said...
Absolutely NO kinds of sugar?!?! Every fruit out there has a sugar derivative in it, and I feel sorry for the kid who isn't even allowed to eat fruit. Don't worry about being "lazy", because you are not. You are normal, if nothing else.
9/14/2008 10:06 PM
Lisa said...
Good GOD! That sounds extremely unhealthy to me. Sure, people can live and develop just fine without refined sugars (although, if she's denying her kids sweet foods and fruits, it could be physically unhealthy as well). But it sounds like a recipe for extreme food hang-ups later in life.
Maybe the mom was just having a tough day after trying to raise her kids on natural food and seeing how many obstacles there are to that - kinda like a mom trying to raise her kids to be vegan or follow religious dietary laws who finds herself opposed by society at every turn. But so often when you see this kind of thing it's all about the FAT.
9/18/2008 11:51 AM
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