This is the first installment in what may turn out to be a series on working mother guilt, which as near as I can tell is bottomless. Straight up "mother guilt" (working or not) may be bottomless too.
We have had Kaiser Permanente as our health care provider since I started at Georgia Tech in 1993. When you take your child for the annual well child checkup, you have to fill out a form documenting various developmental milestones (e.g., "rides a tricycle") and other information the pediatrician wants to know. My kids were always in good shape on the developmental timeline. But there is another question that has caused me parental and working mom angst over a long time. The question is about the child's diet, and there were only two answer options: Ok and Terrible. I love that these are the choices. However...
One of my kids is a great eater, or in Kaiser terms "Ok". The other is picky.
Being a high-achieving sort, I could never bring myself to check Terrible. And really, she drinks a lot of milk, which is healthy except it has to have Nesquik in it. And a straw. She's a starch-aholic, fond of potatoes, rice, bread and pasta. She's also a connoisseur. Reheated Kraft mac and cheese will not do, nor will Original Flavor, only freshly made Creamiest Flavor. Panera's broccoli cheddar soup rocks, but my homemade version not so much. The nearby Italian restaurant has beloved fettucini Alfredo, but my attempts to duplicate it have failed.
I love to cook. I am a good, even great, cook, and I love to eat good food. I'm proud to say that I cook a homemade dinner almost every night of the week. (There goes that high-achieving trait again.) My husband does a lot of cooking on the weekends. The last thing I want to do at the end of a work day after making dinner is argue about eating. And there is the working mom angst that can apply to so many kid issues: how much have I contributed to this issue by working, being tired at the end of the day and ready to take an easy out?
Once the pediatrician asked her what her favorite food was, and she replied "cheetos". I had to jump in and say that she rarely ate them. Sadly, that isn't so true anymore. Another wisely crafted question on the child form asks "do parents agree about discipline?". (Whoever wrote these questions was really smart.) They don't ask if parents agree about the tradeoff between calories and nutrition, a tough issue for sure.
I'm not looking for advice on how to get my child to eat more healthfully. I've read it all and tried lots of it. My favorite is, of course, the advice that comes closest to meshing with my own philosophy. Namely, it's my job to offer food, it's her job to eat. But also, always offer at least one thing you know she will eat. I keep hoping she will outgrow it, and she is probably epsilon more adventurous now than she used to be. I don't think not working would have made a difference. Right? :-)
We have had Kaiser Permanente as our health care provider since I started at Georgia Tech in 1993. When you take your child for the annual well child checkup, you have to fill out a form documenting various developmental milestones (e.g., "rides a tricycle") and other information the pediatrician wants to know. My kids were always in good shape on the developmental timeline. But there is another question that has caused me parental and working mom angst over a long time. The question is about the child's diet, and there were only two answer options: Ok and Terrible. I love that these are the choices. However...
One of my kids is a great eater, or in Kaiser terms "Ok". The other is picky.
Being a high-achieving sort, I could never bring myself to check Terrible. And really, she drinks a lot of milk, which is healthy except it has to have Nesquik in it. And a straw. She's a starch-aholic, fond of potatoes, rice, bread and pasta. She's also a connoisseur. Reheated Kraft mac and cheese will not do, nor will Original Flavor, only freshly made Creamiest Flavor. Panera's broccoli cheddar soup rocks, but my homemade version not so much. The nearby Italian restaurant has beloved fettucini Alfredo, but my attempts to duplicate it have failed.
I love to cook. I am a good, even great, cook, and I love to eat good food. I'm proud to say that I cook a homemade dinner almost every night of the week. (There goes that high-achieving trait again.) My husband does a lot of cooking on the weekends. The last thing I want to do at the end of a work day after making dinner is argue about eating. And there is the working mom angst that can apply to so many kid issues: how much have I contributed to this issue by working, being tired at the end of the day and ready to take an easy out?
Once the pediatrician asked her what her favorite food was, and she replied "cheetos". I had to jump in and say that she rarely ate them. Sadly, that isn't so true anymore. Another wisely crafted question on the child form asks "do parents agree about discipline?". (Whoever wrote these questions was really smart.) They don't ask if parents agree about the tradeoff between calories and nutrition, a tough issue for sure.
I'm not looking for advice on how to get my child to eat more healthfully. I've read it all and tried lots of it. My favorite is, of course, the advice that comes closest to meshing with my own philosophy. Namely, it's my job to offer food, it's her job to eat. But also, always offer at least one thing you know she will eat. I keep hoping she will outgrow it, and she is probably epsilon more adventurous now than she used to be. I don't think not working would have made a difference. Right? :-)
I'm not sure why I'm commenting, since we've talked about this so much over the years. But maybe just to confirm that you've done all the right things and sometimes you just have a picky eater. And who knows why? Sensory issues? Taste issues? Stubbornness?! All of the above? We moms beat ourselves up over so much (and yes, it's "mother-guilt", working or not). Sometimes, you just have to let some things go.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kris. Your friendship and increased number of data points (!) have meant a lot to me on this and many other issues!
DeleteYeah, there is nothing quite like a survey to twist the knife... basically, anything that highlights something you already think might be a problem. It's like reading course evaluations. Perhaps a bunch of students thought something was great, but you thought there was one thing that could be improved. The evaluation that points that out is always the toughest to read. Last year, I didn't want to take my son to his 3-year-old well-child checkup because he was not yet potty trained, and I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't know when I would be able to dedicate two or three solid days to getting started, and I knew it wasn't going to happen at daycare. It just highlighted how I was feeling like working in a career where spending two or three days completely focused on my kid was not happening, and it was totally ruining his life. (I realize that it isn't ruining his life, but it felt that way.)
ReplyDeleteKK, I have a friend with GT/GVU connections who once told a group of working moms this story: she was completed frustrated with her son's resistance to potty training. She was changing his diaper and she was keeping her sense of humor by saying out loud "its ok if you still wear a diaper when you go to college. its ok if you still wear a diaper when you have a job. its ok if you still wear a diaper when you get married." He interrupted at that point and said "no mommy, when I get married I'm going to wear a PULLUP."
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