On Chocolate-Chip Pancakes And Eve's Eating Disorders

As with every other parenting path, when it comes to "food," there's no one way that's right. Of THAT? I'm sure. But that's about the only thing.

So the question is: After spending a lifetime trying to figure out my own Relationship With Food (and even that phrase makes me roll my eyes), how do I best prepare Eve to not even have to think about hers?

Eve is holding the pancake to her ear, answering it like a phone.
Answering your food is not a classifiable eating disorder.

Someone commented on one of my recent posts thusly:

I don't want to make you feel bad and I'm sorry if this is an unwanted comment...But at some point this year I saw a picture of Eve eating chocolate chip pancakes at home. Are you okay with passing that same sweet tooth along to her? I am an overweight mama, too, and I'm trying to avoid sugar with my 14-month old, because I don't want him to want something I know isn't good for him. In a few years, I'll have to deal with McDonalds and birthday cakes (which he'll have, I know) but while he's a baby, I'm keeping him on whole foods. My 2 cents. Sorry to be a pain.

While I know that this remark was kindly meant, it upsets me for precisely the same reason the trip to the nutritionist upset me.

As a totally different commenter wrote:

I think that your (understandable) reaction to this nutritionist and her "song and dance" could also come from a lifetime of dealing with all of the stress, worry and unfounded guilt that comes with struggling with maintaining a healthy weight. After all, isn't that struggle what actually started this blog? And, aren't you still mightily fighting the good fight with regard to your weight? I would have totally been hurting having to hear this ridiculous oversimplified approach as though you did not grasp the concept of healthy diet/eating--when in fact, you've spent a lifetime learning all there is to learn about this topic. I am sorry this happened, and wish you the best of health!

The second commenter is right, of course. I think about everything I ever put into my mouth. Always have, always will. To be clear: When I went hog-wild with the sugar this pregnancy, it wasn't with ignorance or thoughtlessness. It was with deeply considered abandon. I CAN DO THIS IF I WANT TO, I'd tell myself before tearing off the head of another unsuspecting Sour Patch Kid or 193.

It's no different with Eve. I think deeply about anything and everything she eats.

Eve also appears to be in deep thought about her breakfast.
That it's smeared across her face is clearly of no consequence.

I was raised with very mixed messages about food. My mom did her ever-loving best to try to make sugary foods seem unimpressive and uninteresting, to complete failure. All that did was make me feel like eating "bad" stuff was "bad."

And while yes, she tried to get us to eat vegetables -- oh, how she tired -- I wanted nothing to do with them. (In my defense? There is nothing good about green beans from a can.)

ALL of this preamble is to say: there are two things I'm working on with Eve.


1. I don't want my daughter to fear food.
I don't want her mixing up fear or guilt or a sense of "wrong" with eating, whatever the food may be. Food Shame surfaces in all kinds of eating disorders, from the most mild to most severe. Usually along the lines of It's bad but I want it anyway, which means *I* must be bad.... Or some variation thereof.

My personal version of Food Shame is almost comical. I don't like being told what to do or how to feel, so it's almost as if I approach eating a good, big, rich meal like a cowgirl with a chip on my shoulder: Go ahead, TRY to make me feel bad about eating you! And then when I don't feel bad, it's like I've overcome something. I don't hate myself, I don't hate the way I feel. I win!

(And while no, I don't relish being overweight in any way, getting motivated to lose weight is hard when eating whatever I want is actually emotionally rewarding.)

I want to do my best to avoid assigning "bad" and "guilt" feelings to food.

To be clear, though, I do NOT want to try to neutralize food having any emotional value. I know some parents who try very hard to make food a non-issue altogether. I get that, I just don't live it and don't want to pretend to. I love eating, I think food is a wonderful, enjoyable part of life.

It's not the enemy.

Who said this was bad???

2. I want Eve to be exposed to as much healthy food as possible.
Like most of the kids I knew, I was raised on very basic, very bland, very processed foods. I loved McDonald's and I loved Skippy Peanut Butter & Welch's Grape Jelly sandwiches on white Wonder Bread. We ate casseroles. We ate meat and potatoes. We believed that Fruit Roll-Ups and Kudos granola bars were healthy snacks. We gagged at being fed vegetables. We ate all kinds of meals borne of the freezer aisle.

I was a teenager before I tried salsa.

I didn't know how limited my palate was. I didn't know how limited my exposure was. And I mostly didn't care. Food was a pit of emotional confusion and losing weight meant eating even less of it. I didn't want to learn how to cook it. Why would I?

But then a few things happened. America started growing more sophisticated. At the same time I was becoming an adult, the Food Network came into being, grocery stores changed, "foodies" were appearing everywhere...and I moved to San Francisco and started dating a vegetarian.

My entire food world changed.

True story: When I arrived in California, I couldn't identify fresh garlic in a grocery store. I didn't know what it looked like.

Nearly 10 years later, I'm still learning. I've greatly expanded my palate and preferences, but I'm still missing some basics and sometimes even basic recipes will trip me up. My knife skills are laughable. But I make good food, when I get the urge to try.

This means, though, that I find it critically important to get Eve to try everything. She doesn't have to like it, but she should know what fresh, whole, delicious foods taste like. She gets tons of fresh fruit and veggies and meats and cheeses and beans. She loves Indian food and Thai curries. She happily eats pesto and hominy and salmon and grapefruit. (She does not like eggs.)

She also loves french fries -- although given a choice, she prefers sweet potato fries dusted in chili powder to the regular kind.

And yes, I get it. I know there is basically no reason for me to give a toddler french fries, especially if she's happy eating non-fried foods in the same setting. Except in my head, there is: I consider it a total win if she gets that the fried foods exist and are tasty, but they're really just a component of a meal that has many other delicious (and healthy) things to offer.

That's a skill I still haven't mastered.

* * * * * * * * * *

A few weeks ago, on a whim, Ish and I decided to grab brunch after running some errands with Eve. We stopped in at a local place. Their special children's menu item that day was chocolate-chip pancakes, and I ordered them hastily.

At that brunch, Eve ate bits of raisins, melon, oranges, ham, cottage cheese, potatoes, toast, water, juice, and milk in addition to the pancake. I don't know what food she liked the best, but I know what food was the messiest and most fun to eat.

So to answer the original commenter: I didn't order the pancakes because I want to pass on my eating habits to my daughter. I ordered them because I don't.

Will you stop blogging now so I can eat in peace?