Gentle Parenting and Rogue Hippos: The Battles We Don't Choose

I bought Twinkies. The horror. 

It's a first in my home. One of my children has never had a Twinkie and is perpetually frustrated about his friends' fun-filled cold lunches vs. his healthy box of misery.

You know how hippos can't swim but can tear through a lake at top speed in pursuit of a tour boat? Most of the time, the hippo, although relentless by nature, decides that a fiberglass box full of dumb Americans isn’t worth its energy. 

I'm becoming that hippo. A little. 

So I assessed the value of my energy and bought the Terrible Twinks. To assuage my gag reflex, I made a rule. No Twunk-a-dunk shall be consumed in the house. They're for cold-lunch peer-pressure purposes only. 

Of all the creamy, dreamy desserts in the world, kids pick the ones that don't look good (what happened to eating with our eyes?), much less entertain the taste buds. I don’t get it. 

I'm too good for a packaged chemical cake injected with whipped oil. Not sorry. 

My diet is 90% longevity, 10% let the good times roll. I want the the real deal when I'm eating "sometimes foods." I learned this term from a TikTok gentle parent who says we should not label foods as "healthy" or "unhealthy" because that creates bad associations in our children's minds, to which I retort, Isn't that the point? 

Example

Snorting cocaine: unhealthy.  

Drinking water: healthy. 

No? No?

From my own archive of parenting experience, I suggest that it’s not certain words but certain personalities that determine our children's reactions. If a child is inherently oppositional, they'll build a dam. If a child is inherently laid back, they’ll hitch a ride with the next raft and go with the flow. 

There is such a thing as too much focus on healthy food. It's called orthorexia. I'm pretty sure I had it when I was a young, free, and unwrinkled 20-something. Then I realized it was holding me back from one of the simplest yet most fulfilling pastimes in my life: going out to eat with friends. So that was that, and 20-some years later, I became a mother who unapologetically talks about health with her children but does not begrudge them, or herself, of the occasional culinary indulgence. I recognize the value of discretion, but being expected to tiptoe around simple words like "healthy" and "unhealthy" is a bridge too far. 

It’s not that I’m against gentle parenting entirely. Do it when it makes sense. It doesn’t always.

The rules are conflicting. 

Like so: Teach your children that bodily autonomy means they don’t have to hug anyone they don’t want to, not even Uncle Billy who’s super sweet even though he smells like ham and bean soup, but don’t dare tell them Twinkies are unhealthy, because nutritional terminology is too much for their developing prefrontal cortex. 

Don’t I love it when a cultural trend makes a complicated woman like me look easy like Sunday morning. 

I’m not suggesting we go back to the days when children were seen and not heard, when a child expressing an emotion was deemed “disrespectful,” when children were expected to fall in line or else. What I like about gentle parenting is that it’s a reality check. It reminds us that it is our reactions, not our children’s obedience, that determines the health of the household. 

The problem with gentle parenting is the problem with just about everything in this particular cultural moment in time: It goes too far. I see underpinnings of fear. It’s the MAGA maniac of parenting: “Do it this way or we’re all doomed!”

I’m in the Feel It Out crowd. That means if my kid kicks me, I’m more likely to give a consequence than a hug. It means that in one case, I might explain a decision to my child, but in another, my answer might be When you pay the bills, you can make your own rules. 

There are myriad ways to raise children with love. 

Do your thing, gentle parents. I’ll be over here passing out Twinkies in exchange for hugs. 

Just kidding. Don’t come for me. I might go rogue and eat your boat.