What Makes Mama Mad?

There is no dearth of parenting opinions out there. Just stand around your local school yard and gossip with a clutch of moms. Or surf the Internet parenting sites. It may be possible to name a group of people more maligned than parents but I'll be darned if I can think of any right now. Perhaps the worst part of all of this is the most harpy-like voices amongst a cacophony of criticism are those of parents themselves. For doing a job that requires heroic daily feats of tongue biting and battle choosing, they sure are a shockingly judgmental and contentious bunch.

To wit: try googling "Picky Eaters." You will be treated to a feast of opinions on whether or not choosy children are born or made. I, of course, know the definitive answer to this. But you don't have to take my word for it. There are people with infinitely more impressive qualifications than my own field experience who have studied this very subject in great depth following rigorous clinical procedures. It pleases me to tell you that those with bona fide Ivy League letters trailing their surnames have arrived at exactly the same conclusion as I. Here is one of them.

What makes me mad are the sanctimonious bunch who declare they know all about how to keep a kid from becoming a picky eater; who through their superior parenting skills have unilaterally molded their children into accepting any food put in front of them. To this I reply a word that begins with B and ends with ollocks. What these folks have managed to do is have the great good fortune to be delivered of a compliant, easy going, young human. They have no more engineered their child's non-pickiness than others have chosen not to raise their children to be autistic.

Part of my journey this year while I'm studying at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition is to not only amend my own food habits, but to also improve the health of my family. If I hope to help others implement changes in their diets I had better learn exactly how to go about it myself. One of my particular challenges is getting my strong willed 6 year old to leap aboard the nutrition train. Since she is a phenomenally picky eater, I have my work cut out for me. Let me define picky for those who suffer from some mistaken notion that we are talking about kids who prefer chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, pizza, and grilled cheese to chicken stir fry, brown rice, pasta marinara, and panini. I wish. No, I'm speaking of a child who eats a sum total of thirteen foods. Count 'em. 13.
1. Yogurt.
2. Pancakes.
3. Chocolate milk.
4. Red grapes (under duress).
5. Bananas (under even more duress).
6. Macaroni and cheese but only if it's orange.
7. Scrambled eggs.
8. Toast with margarine.
9. Oatmeal.
10. Corn (under extreme threats of prolonged physical torture [kidding] {kinda}).
11. Hot dogs
12. Crackers.
13. Sugar. Under this single food category I lump baked goods, candies, ice cream, and Dunkin's Boston Cream doughnut.

I dragged this child to more than a year of occupational therapy including weekly trips to the feeding group which temporarily added string cheese, canned pineapple, and deli meat to her diet. All were lost again to the annals of history along with the carrots, sweet potatoes, rhubarb, spinach, peas, rice, broccoli, beef, and salmon of her toddler years. If I can shift her diet this year, I will be able to say I have accomplished something huge and true. Notice I say shift, not change. I am an optimist, not a saint. Nor a fool.

Tonight's dinner, for instance, included a shift. Hot dog, corn, chocolate milk (where's the shift, you're thinking), and a slice of bread spread with margarine. There it is. Did you spot it? If you, like me, are endowed with a picky eater you'll have picked it up right away. Yes, you in the back there? Right! The bread was not toasted. Good, very good. You're paying attention. Untoasted bread has a radically different texture than toasted. This is the level of picky with which I am dealing.

Let me elaborate: the margarine is Earth Balance's organic non-GMO expeller pressed oil spread. Don't want anyone calling the Department of Social Services on me for feeding trans-fats to my kid.

And lest you think it was as easy as simply not putting the bread in the toaster this time, let me tell you that there has been a steady march of margerined, buttered, jammed, or peanut buttered slices from my kitchen counter to the lunch box back home again to the fridge to, eventually and finally, the trash can. Since she started kindergarten. More than a year ago. You can see why I laugh derisively (some may say maniacally) at the standard Pediatrician/Registered Dietitian directive that a child must be exposed to a new food up to fifteen times before they accept it. Oh yeah? Try fifteen months.

Which is furthermore why I have nothing but ire for that sanctimonious lot who declare in that oh-so-self-satisfied tone that they single-handedly wrested their children from the fate of being picky eaters. Or that any child who is one, is solely and exclusively the fault of (say it with a sneer!) the parents. I see your Superior Parenting Techniques and raise you one former rhubarb-consuming 6 year old (see enclosed photographic evidence). Go ahead. Tell me she's picky because I made her that way. That doesn't make me mad at all. Bring it.