Here is a list of all the things I do that make me mean:
1. I don’t buy white bread and if a sandwich is purchased in my presence, it’s gonna be on something whole grain.
2. We only have dessert once a week, on Friday nights. Birthdays, holidays, and times when there are guests may be exceptions to this rule.
3. I don’t keep snacky things like chips in the house. There are exceptions: twice a week my son gets PopChips in his lunch — they have a gram of fiber and aren’t high fat. We keep Lundberg Organic Sesame Tamari rice cakes and Newman’s Organics high-protein pretzels. The former are kind of rationed because Son and Husband will eat a whole package in a sitting. Nothing, though, that’s bright orange or contains non-food items is in my pantry for snacking.
4. I only let Son buy lunch once a week and insist he has salad at that meal. He’s pretty good about that.
5. We don’t eat fast food. We typically try to stick to no more than one meal out (or taken out) per week, and if we are going for a burger, it’s usually a trip across the lake for the best burgers in the Seattle area: Red Mill, or in a pinch, Kidd Valley. The usual fast food joints don’t offer me anything I want to eat for my money. I’d rather pay more and get Food. That probably not only makes me mean, but a snob.
6. Even the good stuff I get is tainted by being organic. Apparently, neighbor kids don’t like to come here for snacks because my granola bars say organic, which apparently means lentil-flavored.
7. I insist on whole wheat pasta.
8. I hide my stash of dark chocolate chips. That’s because I can eat a handful and put the rest away. I don’t eat spoonfuls of (organic) sugar or entire packages of other sweet food. Unlike some people in my house, nor do open packages say to my brain that they must be finished. Now.
9. When someone is hungry a half hour before dinner, I tell them to eat a piece of fruit.
10. I talk about appropriate portions and serve them on plates in the kitchen. Salad is the only food that’s on the table family style.
11. No soda in the house. I used to buy this stuff called NutriSoda by a company called AirForce Soda, but they’re no longer in business. One local store has a few dozen cans left that are of the decaffeinated variety and I’ll probably buy them out. We have about 40 cans in the garage. We each get one a day. They’re 8 ounces — a reasonable serving size — and don’t have scary artificial sweeteners. They also have some vitamins and minerals, but that doesn’t matter. Soda is soda — it’s a daily treat type thing for us.
12. Juice isn’t a substitute for soda. Son drinks two glasses of calcium-fortified orange juice a day (he’s not a milk lover). Otherwise, drink water. I’d let him have iced tea if he liked it, but he’s not interested in tea, black or green (tastes like straw, says he about the latter — and I agree).
13. If he doesn’t eat what’s on his plate, he doesn’t get a snack later — no redos for dinner. Nor does he get the weekly dessert if he doesn’t eat protein and vegetable. Bread isn’t a substitute for a meal.
14. I don’t buy regular jam except to mix with my lower-sugar home made jam. Mostly because the aforementioned discussions of portion size apparently don’t apply to jam. A peanut butter sandwich (of which my son can eat four or five on a big eating day) apparently needs about a quarter cup of jam.
15. Other reasons which have yet to be imparted to me.
I have to say that these things seem kind of familiar: I’m raising my son largely the way my mom raised my brother and me: that treats and desserts and restaurants are for special occasions, not a daily norm. I remember hating unrefined sugar (you needed a hammer to break it up in those days) and whole wheat bread. Now I prefer bread with substance to it. We always had salad. There was a rule that only two boxes of cereal could be opened at a time and none of those were sugary. Same rule applies here, but no one seems to mind that one.
So hats off to my mom for teaching me how to be a Mean Mommy. I do it with all the love in my heart and hopes that when Son is older, he’ll love healthy eating because that’s the way (Mean) Mom cooked.
#8 — ultra important for a mother’s sanity, I think.
I am mean because I insist on bedtime. Among other things.
My mum would stash her dark chocolate. Totally sensible in a house full of rug rats!
#11 – soda is bad, bad, bad for you. My French mother-in-law used to serve Coke to my kids when they visited. I never bought it, so I guess I was mean mommy back then, too.
Well, I call this good parenting, not mean mommyhood. Because if you’re a mean mommy, then I’m basically a tyrant. 😉
I can only imagine what a tyrant looks like Christina!
As for #15 (and, actually, most if not all of these)…that will be the list that, when your kids are older, they will love you the most for. That’s just the way it seems to happen.
You don’t sound mean to me. You sound like my kind of mama.
(I hide the chocolate too.)
We follow most of these same rules. I hide my dark chocolate too. I allow them to order soda in restaurants and we only eat out maybe twice a month. There was much complaining about the bread, until I found soft whole wheat which doesn’t have “chunks” in it and is acceptable.
I guess I’d fall into the same mean mommy category. My kids protested, yes, but now that they’re in their 20s, I see the same eating habits (whole wheat pasta, brown rice, salad) shining through. Success~!
As a mom, you will be called mean for many decisions that you make. Wholesome food is just the beginning. Stick to your beliefs and you’ll watch your children follow them as adults.
My kids have never really liked soda so we’ve never struggled on that one. After spending time living abroad, I reach for seltzer instead of soda anyway. My kids have picked up that habit too. We drink mostly water but when we want a treat, we either have La Croix or my husband makes the best fresh limeade.
I am totally a mean mommy too! We do a lot of these things except the kids can only have juice once a week, on Shabbat. Still, a lot of candy has been creeping into our house lately. Not sure how…
Your rules household sounds a lot like ours (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and all!). Love number 10 – we seldom do family style anything, but I like the idea of making salad a free for all at the table.
Be still my mean-mom heart! Are you my mother, writing in disguise? (The only difference between you and her is that there were no organic products back then.)
I am certainly a mean mom. Here’s my take on the food issue:
http://www.confessionsofameanmommy.com/yes-you-do-have-to-eat-your-vegetables/
You may be an even stricter foodie than I am — and I’m co-opting some of your rules. Thanks!
Denise
I was brought up with sesame seeds and brewyers yeast in my scramble eggs, snacks usually consisted of homemade granola. If, for a treat we did get soda it was of the Hanson variety.Our Milk was delivered by a magician/milkman. He’d deliver our milk and then would treat the family to magic shows. I forgot to mention the milk was non-fat dried milk. I too was brought up in the clean plate era.
With my own family, I gave my kids the options of choosing what foods they prefer. They choose to eat vegtables, because they love them. Ive found my kids have more mature taste buds that I have. While growing up, I can remember recenting not being allowed process foods. when visiting with friends I was treated to Lucky Charms and Coca Cola. Sorry to say I still in my middle aged years enjoy these foods. I definitely enjoy a big mac from time to time. Our local Mcds is clean, and consistently good.
With that said, I try not to obsess to much with what my kids are eating. My son would prefer a home made lunch to school food. His lunch consists of a Turkey with mustard on whole wheat, an apple and a bottle water, seems to satisfy. I cook a lot of Mediterranean foods, my husband of 29 years is Italian. I use so many vegetarian recipes I could easily quit meat all together. Unfortunately that wouldn’t set in with my family. We eat our fair share of homemade pasta’s, soups, with an occasional Pot Roast or Chicken pot pie. I love to cook for my boys. They prefer my cooking to anyone elses and can be somewhat snobby when it comes to eating at their friends home.