posioning by chips ahoy
Posted on April 27, 2007
Filed Under kids, parenting, snark, suburban joys | 16 Comments
Almost every day at my house we have a discussion about food; a loud discussion with tears and defiance and barbed accusations. Because, according to my kids, they are the only unfortunate children in their entire elementary school of six hundred children that are sent to school with ‘healthy snacks’. It is their observation that ALL their friends get to gorge on Oreos and Doritos and Cheez Doodles, washing it all down with Lemonade or Gatorade or some other high fructose corn syrup concoction on a daily basis while they are stuck with yogurt, apples, Kashi crackers and Nutri-Grain Breakfast Bars.
When helping out in G’s classroom this morning, I was careful to observe what delicacy each child pulled out of their pack at snack time. And truly, my kids are NOT exaggerating. I could find only two children in a class of twenty that had brought something that met my healthy snack standards and one of them was my G. The other little boy whose parents share my aversion to junk food had sent in a nice little trail mix of nuts and dried fruit and something else that looked like twigs. He seemed content with his mother’s snack choice though I’m sure he gives her hell about it every morning while she’s lovingly stirring up a big pot of cashews and dried apricots and leaf litter from the yard.
Let me explain what the four children I helped with their tadpole project this morning ate for morning snack. Valerie had a Capri Sun lemonade and Ritz Bitz Peanut Butter Crackers, Danielle had Hostess Ding Dongs and a juice box, Madison ate Doritos and Gatorade and Mark relished some Keebler Fudge Stripes and a chocolate milk.
G walked up behind me while the feasting was in progress and whispered in my ear, “See, Mom. I’m the only one who has to eat this stuff.” And she held out her Stonyfield Farm smoothie (which in my opinion has way too much sugar) and her apple with disdain. I whispered back, “Yes but they will all be obese and diabetic when they get older and you’ll be just perfect.”
WTF parents of elementary aged kids. Didn’t you get the memo? This stuff is not nourishment, it’s nothing but sugar and fat and chemical additives the names of which we can’t pronounce. No wonder we have a rash of kids who can’t sit still during class time and have to take medication to remain on task. The meds are just the antidote for Chips Ahoy poisoning.
The way I feel about school snack is similar to the way I feel about boob jobs and sun tans. If all children brought yogurt and fruit and nuts and leaf litter to school as snack then there would be no discontent. If all the world’s women would eschew breast augmentation then there would be fewer women suffering from the I-must-have-the-breast-of-an-eighteen-year-old-even-though I’m-forty-two-syndrome and clothing manufacturers would stop making spaghetti straps and tube tops. And if glamorous people would just stop showing up to awards events all bronzed up and exuding the warmth of St. Barts then we could all embrace our natural grayish pallor, strutting our glaringly white legs with the confidence that comes from avoiding Basal Cell Carcinoma.
This mom of the slightly deflated breasts with the handbag full of sunblock and raisins and cereal bars is off to the grocery where I will buy organic milk and whole wheat frozen waffles and, because I’m feeling kind of crazy, a bag of SmartFood. Afterall, a kid’s gotta live a little.
(Painting lifted from Artchive website done by Paul Cezanne in 1899.)
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