Jeff Bogle identifies a handful of seemingly harmless and common parenting decisions that don’t make much sense.
Soda
The corporate American stuff is basically poison in colorful cans. High Fructose Corn Syrup? Check. Caramel Color with the carcinogen 4-MEI? Check (although Coke has finally switched to another kind of caramel coloring not yet known to have potential health issues. Give it time.) No one should be drinking this swill, let alone children. If your kid needs to quench their bubbly water fix, take a look at Izze, sweetened with real fruit, and Maine Root, made tastier with fair trade evaporated cane juice. I use their Cream Soda to make homemade butter beer for the Harry Potter fans in my family.
A Trip To Las Vegas
Sure, it looks bright and super rad, but sin city is caked in the stench of desperation, empty sex, and out of the closet alcoholism. Vegas is the most electrifyingly depressing place in the country and is no place for a child.
To Be Hurried Through Childhood
What in the hell are we doing as parents? We seem to have willfully ushered in an age where being 6, 7, and 8 is less about being goofy innocent kids and more about prepping for adulthood and the dating circuit. Are we that stupid? You and your kids have a singular chance at childhood, don’t fuck it up by treating it like a speed bump on the way to becoming an adult.
Pop Music Over Kindie Music
This is not completely unrelated to the above: At least some of the brilliant modern indie kid’s music being made today should be in every family’s iTunes library. And I’m not talking just They Might Be Giants here. Try Recess Monkey, Justin Roberts, and Lucky Diaz. That’s a good start. Maybe then your little kids won’t ever twerk like a stripper to “Blurred Lines.”
To Be Overscheduled
You know the latest parenting method to get lots of buzz online this summer, CTFD? Well let’s adapt that a bit to Slow The Fuck Down. Frantic adults are a pain in the ass enough to deal with in life, kids shouldn’t be pulled in every direction either, going from one adult-led structured activity to another, missing normal meals, spending their days in the back of a van staring at a screen as they are shuttled from one thing after the next.
Prohibition From Life’s Simple Pleasures
You may not know it, but you’ve seen the kids who weren’t ever allowed an ice cream cone, screen time, or a good piece of chocolate. They are the teens and adults who now have no self-control, who began binging on the forbidden goodie as soon as they scored a bit of freedom from their warden parent(s). To deny absolutely is to set yourself, and your children, up for abject failure. Moderation, people. Embrace it, live it, teach it. Except for soda, see #1 above.
Forgetting to Say ‘I Love You’ Every Single Day
This seems blatantly obvious, I know, but there are many parents, too many!, who choose not to be affectionate with their children, or each other. Both are needed badly in this cold, hard, and often scary world. Kids, and not only little ones, need to know that they are loved and cared about. Every. Single. Day.
But wait, there’s more…A Bonus Boneheaded Parenting Move!
For You To Live Vicariously Through Your Kids
Hey sport, I know it sucks that you never made it to the big leagues, but if junior isn’t that into playing third base, and would rather, I dunno, spend his weekends building LEGOs all day, that’s gotta be okay. Ya know? His life is not yours, so stop trying to reclaim your past glory through your children. It’s selfish and kinda gross.
—photo by Eje Gustafsson/Flickr
There’s some life lessons that a dad can teach kids of any age in Vegas. It all depends on how you approach the trip. Fact is, in Vegas and in life, there are some people who will drink too much, smoke too much, gamble too much, and spend altogether too much time chasing after ephemeral glitter. Show your kids what is going on when they’re young, both so they won’t be seduced by it later on, and also so they understand why so many people are. There’s a heck of a lot of financial lessons to be taught. The only… Read more »
I wonder how many kids are reading this article and saying to themselves, “Oh, that’s what it is called…living vicariously through me…”
That is probably the most worst form of selfishness I’ve ever witnessed in life.
Oh yes yes yes!! The food one – yes. I’ve seen it. Time and time again, I’ve seen it. My kids learnt moderation and balance from the get-go. You know, the old version of teaching nutrition before it became all about ‘only’ good food and ‘only’ healthy things. We don’t let our kids eat crap all the time but we didn’t make junk food a reward, or in any other way pedestal it. Which I think can also hurt. It was just ‘another food’ that was less common than some due to nutrient content. My kids choose bananas over cake.… Read more »
A great read Jeff. Especially like the last one.
Well done, Jeff! Thanks for keeping it simple. We never gave our son sweetened drinks of any kind. He’s eight now, and when he’s thirsty? He drinks water. Sometimes he squeezes a lemon in it. Shocking, I know.
I’m a hypocrite when it comes to soda. My kids drink water, milk and juice with the occasional Sprite thrown in but my wife and I drink our fair share of soda. We’ve definitely cut back from what we used to drink but we still drink it.
It’s fairly obvious you don’t understand Las Vegas at all if you think it’s that depressing and consider it merely a den of inequity and vice.
That said, would I raise a family there? No – which has nothing to do with the tourism industry, by the way. It has to do with the fact that as a city of transients, the infrastructure isn’t there to have a quality health care or educational system (and actually there’s other reasons for the poor education here, starting with Sandoval in the governor’s mansion, but I digress).
Our children do NOT need us to be their friend. We are their parents. They will have plenty of friends. And if we do our job well, they will choose their friends well (we hope), Every meal does not have to be their favorite foods. They need to learn to eat balanced meals AT HOME. Knock off the fast food and garbage. It’s not hard to make chicken and rice with seasonings, ya know? Children should NOT generally have any control over what goes on the dinner table. Barring allergies – they need to learn to eat what is put… Read more »
Wow, Andrea. That is harsh in a blisteringly totalitarianism kind of way. I agree with your initial point about being parents 1st and friendly but not friends, necessarily, with our kids. But as a lover of conversation with my 9 and 6 year old, and as a dad (not a warden to their prisoner) who respects them for their tastes and opinions even though I understand that they are both still being developed, I want to know what they want for dinner and for school lunch and for breakfast and for snack. Because I’ve raised them both to fancy a… Read more »
Children should NOT generally have any control over what goes on the dinner table. Barring allergies – they need to learn to eat what is put in front of them. “What do you want for dinner” does not belong in the conversation I’d have to disagree with that. Strongly disagree, in fact. I want my children to appreciate good food, the appreciate cooking, and to learn to recognize about what they like, what feels good, when they are hungry and when they are full, and so on. This is the basis of making sound choices – and they need to… Read more »
I would have to agree with you wholeheartedly on this Lars. And one way our family has found to make those conversations more productive is to make the getting of good, wholesome ingredients more of adventures and less of “chores”. And to allow the kids into those food as adventures along the way. How? Easy ones, like making rituals out of apple-picking, or strawberries, or blueberries. Growing a garden with not just your typical tomatoes, but things that are fun and experimental. Who knew you could grow peanuts in cold New England? Or the time we sent away for seeds… Read more »
Those are great ideas, Lisa. I’ve also had good experience asking my kids to help with cooking. A 3 year old can peel and chop a carrot; it may take more time than doing it yourself, but it’s a great time with the kid – just as good as playing with LEGOs – and the kid get a chance to feel they are contributing to the family. And before you know it they *will* be a real help. One can also experiment with where we buy stuff. Go for a walk or ride with the kid, buy some carrots at… Read more »
Just checking to see if my system is working
What do we do about all those kids growing up in Las Vegas? This suddenly occurs to me.
Gint, I am still trying to wrap my head around the idea that people live there. It’s like living in a fiction.
I’ll tell you, being an out-of-the-closet alcoholic (or otherwise called ‘writer’,) I lived in Vegas for several years. It is a mean city but Heaven if you drink. Then I met my wife, a rare Las Vegas native who wasn’t a stripper and surprisingly well adjusted and educated.
We moved away after our first year married. That is the secret to our success and a true Las Vegas story. 🙂
People live in NY NY, Chicago and LA too.
YES!
My 7 year-old is a root beer fan and has even talked about having a blog about root beer. I’ve been teaching him that in our house, soda is a dessert, not a beverage. Water is a beverage. Milk is a beverage. If he wants a root beer, then that is the dessert.
That’s a great distinction, Susan, and one that is nutritionally equivalent. My 7 year old boy loves root beer, too. Ima try the dessert distinction, make trade offs with the negotiator, then we’ll both be pleased. He’ll want root beer to be the meal.
Root Beer is the best, Susan. With no caffeine and being readily available from small batch breweries that don’t put junk inside, I’d certainly sign off on that kind of beverage as the finest carbonated drink option.