Parenting Humans Who Eat

I follow a blog called "A Fine Parent" and a recent post featured a quote from Maryanne Jacobson, author of From Picky to Powerful, who noted that "Forcing and pressuring causes kids to eat less and dislike certain foods." Sumitha, the blogger, noted that Jacobson's talk at a recent Positive Parenting Conference was packed.

I also just saw an article in NPR yesterday talking about kids and finicky food preferences, "Want Your Child to Eat (Almost) Everything? There is a Way."

I suspect picky kids are a relatively recent phenomenon. Affluence, changes in food production and consumption have played a part. But I'm wondering if seismic changes in parenting styles is the greater variable.

Things that used to be perfectly acceptable for kids but can now lead to phone calls to Child Protection Services and legal actions taken against parents include:

• walking alone to school
• playing outside alone, in public spaces or at the child's own home
• waiting in the car while a parent quickly enters a building for an errand (or receipt from a gas pump, as often happens to me)

Small children didn't use to have to be in car seats or other restraints. The safety is important, don't get me wrong, but the necessity of bulky car seats and the like means carpooling, a key timesaver, is largely non-existent now. 

Other changes include both parents working full-time outside the house, potentially a sizable commute away. Parents are expected to attend all athletic, music, church, etc events and activities. You're expected to be actively engaged with your kids at all times. Parents organize playdates that they generally attend themselves instead of kids wandering outside to informally meet up and play with friends. Many kids have smartphones so their parents can get a hold of them. Research suggests that students who spend time on their phones during the school day are usually being contacted by their parents. Many families with small kids live far away from their own parents, or, their own parents (the grandparents here), aren't really involved. Other family members and close friends likely also live far away so the support system for many of us is weak, if it exists at all. 

I suspect the rise in pickiness and over-parenting are related. 

I know I come close to panicking at the thought that my child won't eat something. My thought process goes something like this: It's already 6:20pm and we start bedtime at 7pm. She's already a shitty sleeper. If she doesn't eat enough will she sleep even worse? She's refusing to eat X. I don't want to feed the drama, but I don't want her to think this is a restaurant. If she's really hungry she'll eat. Right? But what if she doesn't and we have yet another hard night?" Dinnertime feels like a huge gamble. Or a game of chicken. And a couple of days of heightened stress with no real support system to turn to creates a colossal nightmare. 

I suspect a lot of parents give their kids the few tried and few "kids" dishes they know their kids will eat for similar reasons. We can't handle one more thing on top of everything else we're almost single-handedly dealing with. (See the title of this blog for even more examples!)

This means I and many of my peers are parenting in a stressful, high stakes environment where you feel one small crisis away from totally losing your shit. It's a challenge to find the joy. There's a book on that. (All Joy and No Fun by Jennifer Senior.) I'll have to read it. Right after I get through the 6 francophone novels, book club book, dozen books stacked on my bookshelves, favorites I want to re-read, and longer books I want to read with J now that she's older. Yeah. I'll get right on that.