I confess, my three-year-old eats only white foods.  Despite my early efforts to offer a rainbow at every meal, she now lives on yogurt, bread and butter, pasta, tuna with mayo, crackers, and sometimes mild cheddar.  My mom friends are shocked but try not to show it.  “Have you tried disguising tiny pieces of broccoli in her mac-n’cheese?” one suggests.  This woman’s toddler loves lentils, kale, and veggie sticks dipped in hummus, so her advice doesn’t hold much clout.

My daughter is like the K-9 unit when it comes to sniffing out vegetables:  she refuses cauliflower (although white), mashed potatoes, and any casserole in which I might hide something green.  Occasionally she enjoys brown foods such as a hot dog in a white bun, and she would eat maple syrup for every meal if permitted.  Maybe she inherited her taste buds (like her fair skin) from her hardscrabble Irish ancestors, who lived mainly on soda bread and farm butter. But then I’d expect her to like potatoes.

“Look at her.  She’s not sickly,” my husband says when I despair that she’ll get scurvy.  Indeed, she seems thriving and healthy-bright eyes, thick hair, falling ill about as frequently as her vegetable-fed peers.  One kind friend comforts me with the evolutionary theory behind picky eating.  When early human children were foraging for survival, bright-colored, unfamiliar plants and berries could be a deadly mistake.  Those who stuck to pale and safe foods were less likely to get poisoned.

But how can my child grow on yogurt and air?  One savvy handbook (The Pocket Parent) reassures me that you can only expect preschoolers to average one good meal a day.  In time, if their families eat healthily, the fussy eaters will grow curious and try new tastes.  Still I’m filled with parenting guilt.  If only I was a better cook, more creative and happy in the kitchen.  If only I included my child in the cooking process rather than fretting about messes, maybe then she’d eat more than one tier of the food pyramid. 

But I must be vigilant not to convey my worries at the dinner table.  The parenting mags caution me not to fight food battles with my child or use food as a reward or punishment– I could create unhealthy eating issues in her future.  It’s a fine line between a reward and a bribe, I’ve learned this winter.  I confess I’ve lured my girl out into the cold with a pocketful of chocolate chips.  Will I become the unwitting origin of her emotionally-fraught relationship with sugar?

I remember my mother’s slapdash dinners of fish-sticks and tartar sauce with cukes and carrot-sticks.  We were content to munch and look at the turquoise and yellow-flowered wallpaper while Peter Tosh played on the tape-deck.  It was the late 70’s.  We rarely wore seatbelts, let alone the 5-point harnesses of elaborate car-seats.  My parents drove 18 hours up to Maine in the summer with us roving free in the Ford Torino station wagon.  They thought it was safe if we lay down in the way-back and read books.  Now a person could get pulled over and fined for such an offense. 

I admit I’ve driven my children around the block “Britney-Spears-style”– so named after poor Britney was caught cruising in her Mercedes convertible in Malibu with her toddler on her lap.  “I grew up in rural Louisiana,” she said when persecuted by the press.  “My Dad drove me on the back roads like this.”

And I confess I once left my daughter asleep in the locked car while I did my grocery shopping.  This is one of those extreme parenting no-nos, like letting your kids swim unattended–Never, ever leave your child alone in the car.  Even in rural New England, a parent must be always on alert.  My mother-in-law routinely let her third baby (my husband) sleep in his carry-cot in her wagon while she ran errands. I picture him snoozing like puppy in his tiny bed while his brothers did their swim lessons, then sliding across the floor as the car turned a sharp corner, sliding back again, still asleep.

Was it easier to parent back then, or is it just my dark imaginings?  Nowadays we’re bombarded with warnings about lead poisoning, fluoride poisoning, vaccinating, not-vaccinating, chemical-rich sunscreen, too much screen-time, recalled cribs, BPA baby bottles, and the million mistakes we can make to harm our beloved children.  In this culture of fear, how can a mother relax and trust she’s on the right path? 

My common sense tells me that my child will grow out of her white food phase.  And if it wasn’t this issue, it would be something else– another kind of power struggle.  I know I’m blessed to have abundant food and the privilege of worrying about picky eating. Children in Africa survive on a single staple grain, and here I am in Vermont worried about mine not eating spinach!  So I try not to measure my girl against preschoolers who love three-bean medley and carrot-leek soup, for comparing your children to others is a dangerous road to start down, about as hurtful as comparing yourself to other parents.

Tags:   Parenting · picky eater · toddlers1 Comment