Unsolicited Advice...
My friend has recently mused about parenting and sharing parenting advice. It made me think of the worst and most mean spirited parenting advice I've ever gotten. It's also a good example of why you should keep your thoughts to yourself when you don't know the whole story...
So Elizabeth has always been small for her age. She pretty much always hovered around the 10th - 15th percentile for both height and weight. As long as her personal growth curve was normal, her pediatrician was too worried about it. Some people are just petite.
But somewhere around two years old, Elizabeth dropped off her growth curve. She dropped down so far, she was completely off the graph. The doctor had to draw the negative "x" axis to plot the point. He was clearly worried. He said he was going to give her 1 month to show some positive gains (both height and weight) and if he wasn't satisfied at the end of the month he would start testing her for abnormalities. Now I don't know if he was trying to motivate me with fear, or what, but he warned the tests wouldn't be pretty.
Then he gave me advice on how to feed her... he said to feed her as much healthy fat as I could. Some of the examples he gave included: returning to whole milk (he had told us to use 2% on her second birthday), avocados, granola, and peanut butter.
Afraid, but armed with my list of healthy fats and other healthy high calorie foods, I went out into the world to fatten up my child. (This had to be one of the most ironic moments in my life.)
For the most part, I was successful in getting Elizabeth to eat the suggested foods. In a lot of cases, she wasn't even aware of the switch... to her yogurt was yogurt whether it was made with low fat or whole milk. But one day we ran into a little problem. We were shopping. As part of my regular weekly shopping trip, I was stocking up on foods for her to take to daycare.
She was in a pudding period. She was really enjoying pudding. So, we stopped in the diary isle to get some of the pre-packaged single serve puddings. At this point in her life, Elizabeth hadn't realized that pink and red were THE girl colors. Instead she chose her favorite color based on what color actually appealed to her. That month we were going through a green phase. But this led to our little problem. You see, fat-free foods are packaged in green. So Elizabeth was insisting that we buy the fat-free pudding because of the color of the package.
I could not let this happen. If I let her buy the fat-free pudding; then she wouldn't gain enough weight, and she would have to have all the horrible painful tests, and they would surely find a dreaded disease because I didn't follow the doctor's orders. Of course, this completely disregards Schrödinger's cat, but I was a fearful mother. I didn't have to be logical.
But I was more than fearful... I was stressed beyond the limits that any human being should have to endure because of other situations going on in my life at the time. So, with the fear for Elizabeth's health, the culpability I would feel if I allowed her to go against the doctor's orders, and the other stressors from my life pressing down on me, I proceeded to get into an argument with my two year old daughter. I actually heard myself saying things like, "The green means it's fat-free and there is no way I will allow you to eat anything that is fat-free."
As we argued I noticed a well dressed, young, upwardly mobile, urban professional watching me from the margarine section. He was wearing a suit. It was an expensive suit. Even though it was the end of the day, his shirt was pressed and starched and except for the unbuttoned collar and the silk tie hanging loosely undone around his neck, his shirt was without any signs of having been worn that day. His expensive shoes were polished. Based on the number of Healthy Choice frozen dinners in his basket, I would guess he was single.
Elizabeth and I continued to argue. In hindsight I should have either skipped the pudding or just picked one and put it in the cart. But I wasn't thinking clearly and I felt like I needed her approval. Well, actually, there is more to it. Elizabeth can be pretty stubborn and she has a long memory. If she didn't agree to the pudding she wouldn't have eaten it... ever.
So, we continued to argue... "You can't have fat-free! No! No green! You have to pick one of the blue ones." After a little while the well dressed, young, upwardly mobile, urban professional couldn't stand it any longer. He walked over to me and said, “What are you trying to do; turn her into a fat pig like you? Someone should teach you about being a good mother and nutrition!”
So Elizabeth has always been small for her age. She pretty much always hovered around the 10th - 15th percentile for both height and weight. As long as her personal growth curve was normal, her pediatrician was too worried about it. Some people are just petite.
But somewhere around two years old, Elizabeth dropped off her growth curve. She dropped down so far, she was completely off the graph. The doctor had to draw the negative "x" axis to plot the point. He was clearly worried. He said he was going to give her 1 month to show some positive gains (both height and weight) and if he wasn't satisfied at the end of the month he would start testing her for abnormalities. Now I don't know if he was trying to motivate me with fear, or what, but he warned the tests wouldn't be pretty.
Then he gave me advice on how to feed her... he said to feed her as much healthy fat as I could. Some of the examples he gave included: returning to whole milk (he had told us to use 2% on her second birthday), avocados, granola, and peanut butter.
Afraid, but armed with my list of healthy fats and other healthy high calorie foods, I went out into the world to fatten up my child. (This had to be one of the most ironic moments in my life.)
For the most part, I was successful in getting Elizabeth to eat the suggested foods. In a lot of cases, she wasn't even aware of the switch... to her yogurt was yogurt whether it was made with low fat or whole milk. But one day we ran into a little problem. We were shopping. As part of my regular weekly shopping trip, I was stocking up on foods for her to take to daycare.
She was in a pudding period. She was really enjoying pudding. So, we stopped in the diary isle to get some of the pre-packaged single serve puddings. At this point in her life, Elizabeth hadn't realized that pink and red were THE girl colors. Instead she chose her favorite color based on what color actually appealed to her. That month we were going through a green phase. But this led to our little problem. You see, fat-free foods are packaged in green. So Elizabeth was insisting that we buy the fat-free pudding because of the color of the package.
I could not let this happen. If I let her buy the fat-free pudding; then she wouldn't gain enough weight, and she would have to have all the horrible painful tests, and they would surely find a dreaded disease because I didn't follow the doctor's orders. Of course, this completely disregards Schrödinger's cat, but I was a fearful mother. I didn't have to be logical.
But I was more than fearful... I was stressed beyond the limits that any human being should have to endure because of other situations going on in my life at the time. So, with the fear for Elizabeth's health, the culpability I would feel if I allowed her to go against the doctor's orders, and the other stressors from my life pressing down on me, I proceeded to get into an argument with my two year old daughter. I actually heard myself saying things like, "The green means it's fat-free and there is no way I will allow you to eat anything that is fat-free."
As we argued I noticed a well dressed, young, upwardly mobile, urban professional watching me from the margarine section. He was wearing a suit. It was an expensive suit. Even though it was the end of the day, his shirt was pressed and starched and except for the unbuttoned collar and the silk tie hanging loosely undone around his neck, his shirt was without any signs of having been worn that day. His expensive shoes were polished. Based on the number of Healthy Choice frozen dinners in his basket, I would guess he was single.
Elizabeth and I continued to argue. In hindsight I should have either skipped the pudding or just picked one and put it in the cart. But I wasn't thinking clearly and I felt like I needed her approval. Well, actually, there is more to it. Elizabeth can be pretty stubborn and she has a long memory. If she didn't agree to the pudding she wouldn't have eaten it... ever.
So, we continued to argue... "You can't have fat-free! No! No green! You have to pick one of the blue ones." After a little while the well dressed, young, upwardly mobile, urban professional couldn't stand it any longer. He walked over to me and said, “What are you trying to do; turn her into a fat pig like you? Someone should teach you about being a good mother and nutrition!”
posted by Liz at 2:21 PM
2 Comments:
I don't even know what to say ... that's just too mean for words.
In a sick way, I love that story -- it makes me gape in horror just about every time I think about it when I'm in the yogurt aisle. It's just so totally ridiculous of someone to say that. So beyond the pale.
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