Okay so I am having one of those sleepless nights where I am
doing everything but sleeping.
Could be the birthday low (yes I turned another year wiser
when I wrote this but I argued this point with a friend today who asked ‘so do you feel a
year older?’ and I thought ‘no because I haven’t aged one year today, I
have aged one day each year since my last birthday so the year is not felt in
one day …..until perhaps I turn 50! Yikes:)
Anyway, whatever the reason, there was much unsleeping
going, wrestling the doona, making a prioritised list in my head of things I
should get done tomorrow, what was on my meal plan for dinner tomorrow night,
how pissed off I was today at some people…. On and on but very little counting
of the fluffy baa fellows.
And the sleeplessness won this battle and here I am typing
this blog to you, to me, to anyone who has children or thinks they will one
day at 1.45am. Read this because you should care. No more babbling. Promise. Here goes.
I witness things on a daily basis which may annoy me to some
degree; people driving poorly, rain on my almost-dry washing, smoking in front
of or near children etc. But today I was at a ‘meeting’ where I picked up a
child’s drink cup and handed it to his mother saying ‘he dropped his tea : )’
Notice there's a smiley face inside the speech marks because I said it with a smile
in my voice as if to say how cute he was drinking tea on such a cold day
aaaaaaaaaand was about to gently, gently hint instead of giving him caffeinated drinks, she
could give him Rooibos tea which is almost exactly the same. I know they are
opposing words, my blog…tutt!
But she laughed before I uttered my thought (so I was
relieved automatically thinking ‘it already is Rooibos, phew’until she said
‘naaaah, ‘sjust cordial’. Stop. What? Ok why does a toddler need cordial? Maybe
she could see the shock in my face as little as I did try to hide it.
Apparently ‘…he is a bad eater so we try to get calories into him anyway we
can’ Oh dear God give me patience & Jamie Oliver to knock some sense into
this woman. Wanted to ask if she had ever heard the term ‘empty calories’ but I
felt like I was looking at a wall. Any way we can huh?
Why do I care about this kid? I don’t really. I mean I do
but not enough to get personal with his mum. What I do hate, hate, HATE, (yes
there will be hating in this article in UPPER CASE no less), is that my child,
my children have to share their world with him and her. Sounds selfish. Tough.
My kids don’t need to learn behaviours from an over-sugar comatose kid drinking
cordial from a sippy cup no less because he is still that young that he still
needs to call it that. Abuse my friends. Plain and simple.
Don't get me wrong. I love sugar, we go way back. And even McArches. I ate it as a kid and was not really guided into a healthy eating way of life. I used to eat nutella sandwiches for lunch and have soft drink with dinner every night. But I turned out you might argue (for those who know me, at least I hope you will argue I turned out at the least alright!) but I choose that. Their is a risk other children raised this way will not. Is that a risk you are willing to take? As well as all the diabetes, liver failures, cancers, heart related diseases that are out there?
And on that topic, WTH [that is 'what the hell' for you
swearers out there who couldn’t work that one out : ) ] is with kids bedtimes??
Why not? Since I'm having a rant.
At our recent parent teacher night I met my child’s friend’s parents (so many apostrophes editor please fix before publishing)(there, blame passed), who confessed with a shrug
of the shoulders that their kids went to bed at 11pm most nights (we are
talking about first graders aged 6 and 7) and the others ‘just whenever they
fall asleep on the couch watching tv’
I really think it’s a sad day when parenting has come to
this. Are you the fricken parent? Then tell them what they NEED to do. You
don’t ask a child that age if they would like to drive the car to their
friends, do their own washing, pay the bills online, wear make up (I hope)
because………they’re not old enough to. See easy. You say ‘hell no’ and it doesn’t
happen. You give a child only food that they like, how about giving them food that likes them sometimes?
I know some kids are not as easy but parenting has to be
from the parent, not the child getting away with whatever they can to the limit
of it just being ok with the parents. I know that’s the easy way to avoid
confrontation & arguments but guess what, still happens right?
Call me old fashioned but that’s the way it goes.
I can’t change any ones children nor do I have any desire to
but when it affects the world in which my children live in and watch and learn
from, then whose responsibility is it? Not the schools, not the neighbours, not
mine. The parents… oh yes, them.
Very sensitive issues I know and there are many other to
worry about like world hunger and more local issues at community level but
yeppers...... I do worry about them and do my part for those things too. This is
not at all about me & what I do so please don’t pat me on the back. This is
about what the masses are doing out there to their kids, not with their kids,
it’s ‘to’ their kids. They are abusing them.
I will start a Jamie Oliver revolution at our new school
if I can because I feel the principal there will support it but for everyone else, it
has to come from someone like you. And if not from who you, from who? If there is someone out there who cares more about your child's health more than you, then please ask them.
(Study on children drinking caffeinated drinks http://indianapublicmedia.org/eartheats/75-young-children-drink-caffeine-study-finds/)
(photo credits various all through Google Images.)
