Sunday, November 16, 2008

Confession: My children were raised on Drive-Thru

I've been watching the news lately about schools banning snack and soft drink machines and even checking kid's lunches to make sure they don't have any snack foods in them. I feel like such a bad mother when I see that stuff.
I confess, I did raise my daughters on fast food. We drove through so many times that the clerks knew who we were and what we wanted. "A #2 plain and dry, meat and cheese only and a upsize the Dr. Pepper to a medium", "A kids fish meal, extra hushpuppy and upsize the drink", "A kids chicken, mashed potatoes with NO gravy and an extra bisquit instead of cole slaw".
A lot of this was because they hated leftovers and the two of them never wanted the same thing. Megan only ate "white" food. Mashed potatoes, chicken, noodles, bread.
And school lunches were a nightmare. Jackie would NOT buy her lunch because the first time she did, she dropped her tray. But she would eat a sandwich and chips. Megan hated sandwiches, vegetables and anything half way nutritious. She wanted something like chips and a Little Debbie cake and a juice box. If I put a sandwich in her lunch she would not eat it.
It was pure torture coupled with the guilt that I felt with not providing a nutritous meal for them. I did, however, make sure they took a multi-vitamin every day.
So they managed to grow up and they're both healthy and happy. What more can I ask for?
I still go to the drive-thru every now and then, but now I ask for a "Senior Meal" for mom.
Wouldn't it be nice to say that I always fed my family fruits, vegetables and protein and watched their sweets intake? Yeah, sure. But if they gag and leave it on their plates, what good does it do?
So I think that checking children's lunchboxes at school is a horrible invasion. You stay out of my freakin' lunch box and I'll stay out of yours. Deal?

3 comments:

  1. HA...good one Mar, that brought back memories!

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  2. Ah, yes. Catherine still subscribes to the Big Mac diet. She actually claims she's lost weight with it. me, I think it's all the walking she's doing at UT and her "diet" is incidental.

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  3. Yes, I remember coming to visit and you would go to one drive-thru for each child, one for you and one for me. It was exhausting. Ha!

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