Sometimes the apple falls far from the tree

The frog recently turned three and it's amazing how she gradually turned into a fully sentient being in the last year. As she learned to speak in sentences and then in paragraphs, her thought processes became recognizably coherent and we were able to get a window into her wacky little head. Somehow, two introverted and mildly misanthropic nerds have produced an extroverted artist. She's an extremely sensitive soul who gets upset when other kids are being mean to each other and seems to have an intuitive understanding of other people's feelings. This is very different from both of us who struggle with knowing (dad) or caring (mom) too much about what the people around us are feeling. I have learned how to play tolerably well with others as an adult in part because I've come to understand myself better. I tend to prefer solitude and have few close friends, despite being encouraged otherwise as a child. I don't want my daughter to think that the way she's designed to relate to the world is odd or discourage it even though we're very different and it's been a bit of a challenge to understand.

Strangely, it wasn't the frog's conversations with total strangers or her rarely needing reminding to share that made me realize how different we are. Something really minor happened one night a few months ago while I was cooking dinner that made her cry. I want her to learn to calm herself down and mistakenly assumed that she needed the similar tools that I do in this situation. I gave her a hug and told her to find a cozy, quiet place to calm down. She hadn't hit the "I refuse to listen to you because I'm three" stage she's currently in at this point and went to her room. She climbed into bed and proceeded to sob bitterly. A casual observer would have probably thought someone had told her that she wasn't a fairy or that Hello Kitty wasn't her friend. I went in and hugged her until she stopped crying and we finished making dinner. I realized on my way to work the next morning that I had made her feel worse instead of giving her the tools she needed to calm down. I mulled this over and tried to remember what made me feel better as a small child. Turns out, I sought quiet places away from people when I was upset. I remember turning my closet into a secret hide-out and pretending that various creatures lived there. These creatures weren't really buddies; they were mostly sentries that kept other people out so I could mope. Hiding in closets has its shelf life and metaphorical hiding (mostly) replaced the literal kind, but I remain someone who prefers to work things out on my own. 

I realized the toad is built differently and that I needed to ask someone more like her about this. I have a very dear friend who is the definition of an extrovert so I asked her whether she would feel punished if someone told her to sort out her own emotions when she's upset. She replied that she would and I felt one of those "aha" moments. My daughter thought I was punishing her instead of giving her what I thought was the space she needed. She started crying hysterically because she thought I was mad at her for being upset and she was confused that a person she relies on for comfort was seeming to do the opposite.  I may have learned the hard way, but I now ask her if she wants to talk about it when she's upset or if not, whether she wants me to sit with her. I'm also learning that she's never going to volunteer to be alone or even see this as desirable. Her third birthday party brought this one home. We had at least thirty kids and grown-ups running around blowing giant bubbles, painting faces, and being wild on a large lawn next to her favorite playground. When it was over, the rest of the family hid in dark corners to read or otherwise be alone while she went looking for someone to play with. We let her watch Charlotte's Web that afternoon... I'm hoping she maybe learns to be more content with solitude as a result of having us for parents and maybe we'll learn to be less misanthropic. Regardless, I hope she grows up knowing that I'm not going to try to force her to be something she isn't and that it's ok for the apple to fall far from the tree. 

Kid Food

I'm going to take a break from gender/class issues and write about food instead. Unfortunately I'm a picky eater especially when it comes to meat because my mom did most of the cooking growing up and she wasn't that good at it. I've tried to broaden my horizons as an adult and have succeeded to some degree. I now eat and enjoy Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, beef, and all sorts of stinkily delicious Korean food. I still won't eat lots of things unless forced to in the name of good manners and believe my eating habits have a lot to do with how I ate as a child. We sat down to a home-coked meal most night and ate very little processed food. I also grew up in NYC and was taken to all sorts of restaurants so I liked spicy and/or somewhat odd food before joining a Korean family. Still, I can't eat chicken without cringing thanks to years of simultaneously burnt and raw drumsticks (yes, it's possible). All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I think a person's attitudes about food and their food preferences are shaped by their families. 

This is why the idea of "kid food"; bland and/or processed things of questionable nutritional value that are marketed towards children annoys me. I love Reese's peanut butter cups, Oreos, DD breakfast sandwiches, and other junk food. I imagine Ms Frog may come to love similar tasty abominations and that doesn't bother me. I'm not one of those parents that is the junk food police as long as these things are a treat and not a major component of her diet. Plain buttered noodles, hot dogs, and the ubiquitous chicken nugget are not things I think a child should be eating at every meal. There are exceptions and I understand that parents of children who have fallen off the growth curve or have sensory issues just want their kids to eat something. 

However, the growth curve is a normal distribution so most children will fall within one standard deviation of the mean height and weight for their age and gender. Neurotypical children who are growing normally ought to be eating what their parents eat in my opinion. Here's where it does come back to class. It's hard to know what to feed a growing body if you don't know what to feed yourself, can't get to a grocery store, or don't have time to cook because you're working multiple jobs to survive. The lack of access to good food, information about what to do with it, and an economy that allows hard-working people to live in poverty is a crime. That is a subject for another time, but my judgement on the issue of kid food is tempered by the knowledge that the above is the reality for lots of families. Consequently, my frustration is directed at people who have the means and the knowledge to make what I consider to be the right choices. Food is an easy way to experience new things and connect to people from different cultures. Someone raised on a diet of kid food makes it really hard for them to be adventurous later on in life and might cut them off from these experiences. Then there's the whole childhood obesity thing. Habituation to highly processed food makes eating healthy harder later in life and contributes to the epidemic of children with type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and other highly destructive and costly diseases. 

I guess I question why someone would put up barriers to healthy eating and enjoyment of food when they don't have to. I'd like to hear the other side of the story because maybe I'm not understanding something. Do your kids eat a different meal from you? If so, why?