To despair at the crap some people feed their kids

[Apotofrealcoffee]

Currently watching a kid who can’t be more than age 3, tuck in to a packet of ‘squashie’ sweets on the bus. No sign of a tantrum, kid seems perfectly happy looking out the window, but out come the sweets. And to pre empt the ‘snobbery’ thing, the parent seems middle class to me and certainly eloquent.

I regularly see kids tucking into chocolate bars, packets of crisps, lollies, all on the school run. Many of them toddlers in their buggies dropping off older siblings. Parents meeting kids at the school gate with full packets of Oreos, bottles of pop, doughnuts.

I’ve been trying not to judge for years and have been repeatedly told it’s ’just one snapshot of their day’ but honestly, I feel like the time for judgement has entered. I have never fed my toddlers crap like that, let alone just after breakfast. My 3 year old has never had a fizzy drink.

Why, just why! AIBU to feel there needs to be some kind of very direct public health campaign at this point? Maybe even a ‘no sweets at the school gate’ rule?

Yes, I agree with you tbh. My response was just a cynical quip really. I don't disagree with @Apotofrealcoffee at all, but I've seen so many versions of this thread and we all know exactly how they're going to go.

There will be posters who agree. There will be those who are genuinely moderate in their own offerings of crap and believe most others are too, and there will be some who know that they are the target of OP's judgement and react with claws and teeth like snarling cornered badgers.

I guess it's not a bad idea to keep the issue in the public eye.

I was appalled when I saw a woman on a bus empty a can of Dr Pepper into her baby’s bottle. But a pack of sweets or crisps would not bother me - it’s the chicken nuggets and chips on repeat that gets me - even my friend who is an excellent cook ended up giving her son that for dinner as he refused to eat anything else (and she made him pancakes every morning). Fortunately my kids loved most foods and vegetables were no issue. I didn’t give my son any sweets til he was two, but he certainly developed a sweet tooth anyway! Both my kids (21 and 23) are very healthy eaters and enjoy cooking.

It’s almost as if we are constantly trying to find individual solutions to systematic problems...

Of course they should. But my kids are in and out of their 6 monthly appointments in seconds. My point is that if they’re practicing good dental hygiene and limiting sweet foods they will not NEED a dentist to keep their teeth healthy.

Sometimes I look the obesity rates in children and the amount of children having teeth extracted due to rotting teeth and wonder how it’s came to this. Then I come to Mumsnet and see someone saying there’s no nutritional difference between a Freddo and a banana and it all makes sense 🤦‍♀️🤣

Totally with you OP. My daughter's at a school nursery and the crap that kids get given on pick up - not even e.g. as a Friday treat, or on a birthday day or anything like that, but on just any regular weekday. Chocolate lollies, pink hundreds and thousands donuts, yumyums, chicken shop chips. One 3-year-old was collected from school and immediately given a Domino's pizza.

Our daughter has sweets sometimes, but only from birthdays/parties and we'll stretch them out over a period of time - it is never a default. I don't want her to be deprived of them but I also really don't want sugar to become a cornerstone of her daily diet. Our default snacks are fruit, coconut oatcakes, cheese, breadsticks/cheese twists. Not the most virtuous, totally convenient, but just far healthier.

I’m happy to concede that I knew some of the replies would be outraged, but tbh I think that’s the reaction needed. It’s hit a nerve, for obvious reasons - these parents know they’re giving their kids too much junk, but they rush for affirmation from other junk food parents and clamour to paint me as some kind of thin control freak who feeds my kids lentil cakes at birthday parties.

I think judgement is a good thing and standards decline when people don’t feel any pressure to do the right thing.

And there will be posters that feed their children sensibly and restrict sugary food but just get their kicks from disagreeing with strangers on the internet.

By nutrition I mean vitamins and minerals. Freddo is mainly fat and sugar but does have a tiny bit of fiber from the cocoa beans and some protein from the milk. No vitamins or minerals though.
ETA just saw your username - you should be championing bananas with me

Doesn’t it just! Or they think a ham sandwich, cheese string, frube, chocolate bar and apple is a healthy lunch as ‘it contains fruit’

My MIL thinks I am mean and uptight for not putting sugar on my DCs weetabix in the morning (which they eat perfectly happily without said sugar). Apparently their breakfast looks "sad and boring" 🙄.

Oh yes, them too. How on earth could I forget them 😄

Are you talking about me?! Because my post was about how there is literally a difference in nutrients. Not no difference. And not no nutrients. My point was that they’re different but contain the same sugar. Oh dear, back to school for you and no freddo at home time!

Is that a serious question? Should we not care if people harm their children's health now?

You are being totally reasonable and all the posters giving you grief need to give their heads a wobble. It is not “parent shaming “
to care about the health of young and vulnerable children.

A Dominos pizza ??
I find that hard to beleive!

Judgement and shame have literally never had a positive outcome though. So why do we insist on doing the same thing over and over but expect a different outcome?

Of course they have! Less shame has correlated with worse personal choices

Well you are judging now.

many yrs ago, well before the reduced sugar levels in pop, I saw a woman take a short drink from her can of coke then remove nipple from tiny (in pushchair) toddlers bottle & unbelievably poured coke into it! Bottle was shoved into child’s mouth & left resting against his chest! no wonder children get bad teeth?!

I don’t, sadly.

I told my DC weetabix was a pudding and they believed me till they started school. They still remind me now of my deceit. Thing is though they liked it. W does have sugar added just less than other cereals.

Giving children what they need, rather than simply what they want, is part of parenting. That's why we restrict alcohol to adults. We recognise that some things are harmful to developing bodies and brains, even if they're enjoyable.

Apparently, the organic hummus mums are the boring ones, while the energy drink and Haribo mums are the fun ones.

I'll happily take the boring label. I'd rather be the mum who sets boundaries and protects her children's health than the one who mistakes giving in for being fun.

DDs had a better (and certainly more varied) diet than me but probably still slightly too many sweets and snacks. In the 1980s I'd buy and eat sweets and chocolate most days from the shop or we had it in at home and still eat my dinner. Dinner which was something like a 'Steakhouse grill', potato waffles and peas followed by a Mr Kipling cake or biscuits. We had salad and fresh veg at the weekend but in the week it was quick dinner and a reliance on convenience food. I only became very slightly overweight by the age of 16 - largely because we had a tuckshop and a ton of unhealthy food easily available at school and massive queues for proper food in the hall. Plus a lot of it was being bored and fed up with GCSEs and school. When I went to sixth form college we had a better canteen and I started to do more exercise and just enjoyed life more so I lost weight.

Ah well, DDs got to adulthood with very good teeth and they are also fit and slim and lovely people so I guess we did something right.

How is silently judging a chid on a bus and thrn starting a frothing thread about it caring about young and vulneable children?