Ironically, Ursula Fricker’s father died of colon cancer by all accounts. On his deathbed, she looks back on her childhood in a family she describes as a kind of “four-person cult”. In addition to the morbidly healthy diet, the children were not allowed to swim, for example, because of the chlorine in the water.
Totally exaggerated, no doubt about it. But as a parent you are responsible for the health of your children – and I find the question of whether it is right to consistently apply one’s own standards very difficult. At the very beginning there are still guidelines, at least with regard to nutrition: four months exclusively breast milk, cow’s milk not before the first birthday, vegetables for fruit puree, as little sugar as possible.
After that it gets complicated. When my kids were younger, I had very common parenting ideas in my head that I never questioned. For example, that children should eat as much vegetables as possible and as little sugar as possible. So we had a rule that only who eats the veggies gets the dessert. In hindsight, I’m not a big fan of this anymore – because it gave the veggies a negative touch. But you can’t just let the kid eat spaghetti without sauce for weeks. Or is it?
A few friends of mine with two primary school age kids eat vegan. The fact that no animal products are consumed at home is normal for them and their children. Once a week, the two children eat in the BSO, where they also get meat. And when they go out to eat, they can have a burger. This seems perfectly reasonable to me – unlike the unknown mom I once saw at a birthday party hurriedly stuffing her son with a handful of jelly beans and whispering, “But don’t tell Dad” (whether he bought them because of the sugar content) . or not) who was not allowed to eat animal fats, and the latter for health, ideological or religious reasons, I don’t know).
The older the children get, the more complicated it gets. When I was in elementary school, my son wasted all his pocket money on sweets. Should I ban him? Can I forbid him to do that? Should I forbid him to? I still don’t have an answer to this – except looking back, this sugar consumption didn’t do him any harm.
The most important thing, the experts agree, is the role model function anyway. Although I have my doubts about that too. My father was a heavy smoker and my mother smoked occasionally. I never touched a cigarette because as a child I found the smoke so scary. My brother has been smoking since he was 15. We both had the same role models.
My children rarely ever saw me eating sweets – for the simple reason that I don’t like it very much. That’s why we only had an ice cream or a piece of chocolate in the house, because we didn’t have much else in the house. Sweet drinks were only available outside (this also partly due to educational measures, but also because I don’t like them). Sometimes I wonder if they wouldn’t have so many candies and cokes in their room today – they are 18 and 16 years old – if there had been more of them back in the day.
The question of how much I can still talk to them about health problems has been resolved at least at their age. The answer is: not at all. When they eat at home, they eat what is on the table. Otherwise, I’ll have to settle for well-intentioned advice, which is usually just overlooked anyway: “There’s no harm in going to bed before midnight.” – “You can go somewhere on foot.” (“Don’t you think ice cream is enough for dessert?” And hope that at some point they’ll come and say, “You were SO right, Mom!”
how do you see it? How much healthy behavior can you force children into? Or do you even have to? I look forward to your opinion in the comment columns.
