Smug fruit shoot feeders - don't you ever worry about 20 years down the line?

[welliemum]

Lots of people here talk about feeding their dcs crap food as a badge of honour - it's a weird kind of street cred.

"My kinds eat junk food - so shoot me, ha ha"
[subtext: I am a laid-back cool person and people who fuss about junk food are so up their own bums it's unbelievable]

But.... there's a big worry out there about obesity, about additives in food, about the way bad eating habits often have their beginnings in childhood...... and the concerns are likely to get stronger with time.

Don't you ever worry that 20 years from now when times have moved on, one of your dcs will read your light hearted comments and actually feel a bit that you seemed so proud of feeding them crap?

Whereas what I'd hope for with mine is to be able to say, "Well, you did sometimes eat rubbish at parties and I wasn't all that happy about it, but I let you because I didn't want you to feel left out. I didn't stress about it too much because I knew you ate well the rest of the time."

[subtext: I was never a perfect parent but I did my best to find the balance between feeding you well and not being obsessional about food].

Countto10:

Eeek, good point, why am I positng at all.

I think [pause for navel gazing] that it's because I'm feeling increasingly uncomfortable about the fact that when people take up a "smug junk food feeder" position on mumsnet, it might come back to bite them on the bum later.

I put myself in the position of a child reading these posts and it makes me feel uncomfortable.

Does that make any sense?

ie, A child might be disappointed at the attitude, without giving a flying foot about what food they actually ate.

Well, I am 20 years down the line, or pretty nearly (DS was 19 at Christmas)

I was told to put DS on his tummy to sleep so he wouldn't choke on his vomit. I weaned him at 4 months because that was the advice given then, I probably fed him all sorts of crap because I didn't have the internet to tell me how bad it was.

On the other hand DD was weaned at six months using what I now recognise as BLW because she refused to eat puree.

Every day on Mumsnet, I come across all sorts of things that have changed since I had my babies, but I can't go round feeling guilty about it all - some of the things I did were wrong, some might well have been right.

And yes I did give them fruit shoots sometimes.

Talking of which, how were your beans in the end, SCummy?

(and just in case anyone thinks I am being defensive or badge-wearing...I do not buy Fruit Shoots or give them to DS. Although I think he has had them with othe people. To no ill effect so far)

misdee, I didn't know what felching was until I was pootling around on here the other day.

In fact, although I did follow the links, I've forgotten what they said.

So, I can claim, for the record, quite simply that I was almost corrupted by Mumsnet ...

(It was something repulsive, wasn't it?)

WB - like Clinton didn't actually have sex with ML either, did he? You see...moderation. Just moderateley tampered about under her dress.

But he still got impeached and sacked...maybe WellieMum has a point!

has this thing kicked off yet?

I'm really struggling to explain myself, you're all welcome to believe I've lost my marbles.

But sometimes when I write, I imagine my children reading this a long time in the future and think: I wonder how things will have changed - how will they see the issues we're discussing now?

Well someone has to do it - and it was comic relief on Friday...

Isn't it amazing that we expend so much anxiety/guilt/angst over what we feed to out children, when virtually half of the world's population still does not have enough to eat?

It's a stange world we live in!

So there we have it, since no food thread would be complete without the African angle!

felching? im intrigued...

Am i not right in thinking that most mums would be somewhere in the middle of your suggestions as it can't be all or nothing surely ?

google it lady of the flowers [evil grin]

The chief prob I have with FruitShoots is that they ming.

I mean, IrnBru and Coke are much better.

I find this idea that children will be saddened by their parents having fed them junk food when they're older utterly bizarre tbh.

does anyone really feel sad at the things you were fed as a child? really?

tbh I would imagine it would be the other way round "all my mates were always allowed to go to parties, and were allowed to eat the cake, and the biscuits, and drink the water, but my mum made me eat grapes and drink water and said that the other food was evil".

already have misdee, thanks!
[puke emoticon]

i always check things out on urbandictionary.com

eewwww......

felching

Sorry, LadyofTheFlowers, I really can't remember ... there was a link to a dictionary of slang, or something.

(And I am even hesitating to write this much because your name sounds so nunly).

I agree expat - mine do get full fat coke now and again, but not fruitshoots (although DH does forget and buy them now and again)!

I just don't like artifical sweeteners. Happy for them to have suger (in moderation of course) PMSL!

Thanks soapbox, was worrying that no-one had mentioned Africa....

Rustybear, I agree, we don't know how things will change mostly, and there's nothing we can do about it.

But with junk food - we do have some proof that it's not great. And we can see a shift in attitude happening now. So we can sort of predict that in a few years time, people might see it differently.

icant remember what i ate yesterday let alone 20 years ago!

Spot on, Soapbox.

I mean, vanilla ice cream Coke float or minging FruitShoot on a hot summer day?

No contest!

lionheart! nunly! pmsl

They'll probably all be laughing their socks off at the fact that we got our knickers in a twist about global warming...as the ice capos cyclicly freeze over again....

SAdly, i suspect that Fruit Shoots will be seen as old-fashioned health drinks- the trend is to more processing , not less, in manufactured consumerables.

I'm mostly with you Wannabe. I can just about imagine a situation where a child was very obese and attributed this to poor parental guidance/food provision so did have strong resentment of a blithe attitude towards nutrition, but I just can't see any real generally applicable worry about kids trawling the internet for old posts about attitudes to junk food.