Judgmental mom rears her ugly head

There are very few times you'll hear me say I'm a better parent than anyone else. You know, besides parents who smack their kids around. I'm better than them. Or parents who lock their kids in closets. I'm better than them, too. Oh, and parents who spend all their money on drugs and alcohol instead of food or clothes. I do better than that. Oh, I guess you will often hear I'm a better parent than other people. Look at me, all judgmental-y.

To be serious, though, within reason, I almost never think I'm a better parent than anyone else. We all have different parenting styles, different strengths and weaknesses, different aspects we are better at. That doesn't make us good or bad parents, just parents.

But today, I'm stating for the record I'm a better parent than an entire group of people. And do you know who those people are? The parents who ignore food bans in the schools, getting all annoyed that, god forbid, their child can't eat peanut butter for lunch.

This has always been an issue for me, long before I had a child with food allergies. When I was student teaching, I saw many parents with this attitude. It was just too much trouble to tell their precious little children that they'd have to eat something else, so they would just flout the school rules.

And now I have a child with food allergies. Luckily, it's just peanuts and tree nuts. We got off pretty easy in terms of food allergies. It's not that hard to avoid nuts for the most part, and it doesn't require huge diet changes. And nut allergies are shockingly common these days, so it's not that unknown.

Double luckily, we're not the only family with food allergies in my kids' preschool class. There is someone else in the class with egg and milk allergies. So that means the approved snack list is fairly small, but who cares? It's easy enough to follow, even if we don't have a lot of variability in our snack choices. Most days I send my kids with cut up fruit, or maybe pretzels.

But earlier this week, N-man desperately wanted a cheese stick for a snack. He begged, he pleaded, he cried, he threw a patented three-and-a-half-year-old-temper-tantrum. You know what? TOUGH. How hard was it for me to say no? Not that hard! Was it worth sending a food that could make another child potentially sick just so I didn't have to deal with a tantrum? I'm sorry, but that's bad parenting. When a parent gives in to a child; tells them that their fleeting happiness of having the desired snack/lunch is more important than the well-being of another child, well, frankly, that makes them a bad parent. Yes, I said it. So what if I'm being judgmental...it's true. Is that really the message to send to our children? To be completely without compassion for another child all in the name of eating a peanut butter sandwich (or a cheese stick or whatever it is)?

"Oh, but my little precious darling won't eat ANYTHING but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches". Well, I'm sorry to say, but that is bad parenting as well. Oh yes, I said it again. Is there a doctor's note about the child's feeding issues? If so, well, sorry, then it's not bad parenting. But most of the time, it's not that the kids *won't* eat anything else, it's that the parent doesn't want to have to say no to their child. Bad parenting! Everyone has food preferences. Heck, I'd like to eat pizza and chocolate cake every day. B-man would like mac and cheese 3 times a day. N-man would like chips and hot dogs. I understand that lots of kids love PB&J. But if your school has a nut ban, please follow it. Please remember that by failing to follow it, your child could potentially kill another child.

Yes, I'm being dramatic. Food allergies aren't often fatal, though they certainly can be. Mostly, they just require a shot of adrenaline followed up with a ride in the ambulance to the emergency room. That sounds like a lot of fun, doesn't it?

I'm not going to get into whether a food ban is an effective means of protecting children, or if it's an equitable solution, or if it's a good idea at all. But when there is a food ban, the school has fewer other policies in place. There's no nut-free table if the whole school is supposed to be nut-free. If a parent is SOOOO annoyed at a food ban, then work within the system to try to change the policy, but don't just ignore the existing policy. It's not fair to the children with food allergies. It's not fair to the teachers/lunch monitors/administrators who have to deal with the non-compliant family. But mostly, it's not fair to the child who is given the message that their own minor happiness is more important than the health of another child; that they are above the rules of the school; that they don't need to have any compassion or empathy for their fellow students. These are not the right messages to send to our children.

Okay, off my high horse. Allergies have been high on my mind recently. B-man has his 1 year follow-up retesting next week. I don't expect him to have outgrown his allergies, though it would be insanely exciting if he had. I'm also in a funk about Halloween. I just don't know what to do. There are very, very few Halloween snacks that are nut-safe. Dum-dum lollipops, mostly. Even those Snyder Halloween packaged pretzels aren't nut-safe (I know! What's up with that??). I certainly don't expect any of our neighbors to have stocked up on nut-safe snacks. I bet this year I can probably get away with doing a presto-chango quick switch for safe snacks, but maybe not. B-man is pretty observant. What would you do for trick or treating if your child was allergic to all the treats? I know I've got a few readers with children with food allergies: what do you do?