On The Very Very Best Mommy in All The Land

Rosalind Little is amused at this woman on her favorite parenting web site, who starts a thread like this:

"Is there no one else out there who still makes sure their kids eat HEALTHY? I mean, my 2 year-old son never eats any cookies, candy, chocolate, or sugar. He doesn't even know you that you put butter or syrup on pancakes, or what fast food is! I used to eat at McDonald's myself when he was a baby, but now I definitely don't because he's old enough to know what I'm doing and I want to set a good example. It seems like I'm the only one left doing this. Is there nobody else out there like me?"

Put differently: I strongly suspet that I'm the Very Very Best Mommy In All The Land, and that my child will grow up to be a sandy-haired, strong-boned athlete with white teeth who calls his mother every day to thank her for not putting syrup on his waffles and leading him down the primrose path to childhood obesity like those other kids with the Bad, Stupid and Lazy Mommies. I can't understand why there has been no public acknowlegment of my mommying so far. My play group has never even given me a certificate or medal, if you can believe it! (Lol, What's THAT all about?) But anywho, I just wanted to point out in a public forum that no one else there has gone to the Great Mommying Lengths I have. Thanks for serving as my foils.

My imagined response:

A promising start. But I must say, I am a little shocked to read that you ate at McDonald's while your child was a baby. That implies to me that a healthy lifestyle is a fairly recent change to your family, so I'm worried that your pride in feeding your child healthy food might be a little premature -- the zeal of the newly converted, if you will.

I myself HAVE never and WOULD never eat fast food, and its difficult for me to imagine why anyone who claims to value healthy eating would. To be honest, it's a little strange that you think it's okay to risk your health like that when you are your son's mommy! When you put that stuff in your body, you are taking the risk that you have fewer years of life, and those are fewer years with him! What if he needs you when he's forty, and you've keeled over from a double coronory? Pretty selfish to value those fries over your son's needs.

Every time I eat any bite of anything, I ask myself: would my daughter, when she's forty, want me to eat this? Is this the best food choice I can make to be the best mommy I can be? We make healthy food choices together!

Sometimes, we eat raw spinach together and make a game out of it! I say: "Okay, who can eat the most grams of fiber in one sitting?" And she says: "I can, I can, Mommy!" True, I do give her a time out when she uses the word "can." In our house we only eat vegetables fresh, to maxmize the nutritional value! No "cans" here! Only "can't" -- as in, "can't eat that cookie!"

However, I did want to congratulate you on taking some of the first steps to being a mommy in a household living by a truly healthy lifestyle. A suggestion for the future from my own home: put up a large picture of a little boy in the kitchen. Should your son ever make bad food choices - "sneaking" junk food or eating cupcakes or pizza somebody brought to school -- add a little extra cardboard fat to the picture of the boy. (First add it to his tummy, then his legs, and so forth.) When he gets too obese to fit on the posterboard any more, your son loses a privilege. It's a very clear and visible way to demonstrate to him the pitfalls of unhealthy choices! Good luck! You'll get the hang of it!