On Special Diets, Food Backlash and Parent Criticism

This week on Yahoo! Parenting, Eden Strong wrote, “Defending My Daughter’s Special Diet,” about getting criticized for raising a child gluten-free. Raising kids who are gluten, dairy, soy, corn, and artificial preservative and dye with as little sugar and GMOs as possible AIN’T a walk in the park, so this article really spoke to me. Why DO we get stink eye, criticism and judgment for feeding our kids very strict diets that HELP them, while it’s important we not judge the McDonalds, the corn dogs, the greasy pizzas?

And I DON’T want to judge those moms! No, that food is not healthy but moderate indulgence is fine for many people, but it’s NOT fine for my kid. If I feed my girls this way, they can interact better in public…so how dare you say to keep them home rather than feed them in a way that they can be a PART of the world.

But maybe I’m a little sensitive…

Especially this week.

We love our girls’ charter school, but I have a complaint: everything is food based. And while I get that food is a great tool to mark a lesson in a child’s brain (i.e., creating edible watersheds), the fact is that all this food sharing is a huge burden on an already overburdened mom (that’d be me).

Can I get an amen from the special diets crowd?

This week there was another girl with a birthday on Thursday and the BEST I could do Wednesday night – when they have swimming, which is new and we are still getting the hang of it – was late night not-GAPS-but-close muffin baking. And I wouldn’t have even cared, but the girl whose birthday it was found out about that Zoe is on the stricter GAPS diet and was upset that maybe she couldn’t participate in pizza and cupcakes. (Well, she couldn’t.)

So now I’m disappointing kids that are NOT my own.

Needless to say, I got to bed late Wednesday, fell behind in work, and tried to get to sleep at a reasonable hour last night. I woke up 15 minutes before alarm to pee, and was granted an extra 15 minutes after my unset alarm was to go off to sleep. (Thanks God, for waking me up!)

Then I got up this morning to discover that not only did I NOT have any food for a GAPS safe breakfast for Zoe, I didn’t even have HER FORMER favorite breakfast on hand. And zero eggs. So I had to give her another not-GAPS-but-close muffin and some healthy bacon that-holy-crap-had-sugar-in-it-why???? And yet another apple because she could live on those (thank God, I think?) I *thought* I lost her GAPS safe burger for lunch but found it at the last minute. Whew!

So it’s  9:30AM and already a stressful day. I’m realizing that the only way to master GAPS is to carve out some time in the kitchen and get busy with nut milks and ghee and stock up on tons of pastured eggs. We went back to ordering from the butcher (which went up in price a LOT) JUST to accomplish bone broth next week, although it’s nice not to have to buy red meat for the next 2-3 months!

I know this will be worth it, just like all the other “crazy” interventions have been worth it. I was looking at a photo of Zoe that she took at the start of the first grade – it’s a photo off a paper so crummy resolution:

And here she is now,  2.5 years later wearing a shirt AND gloves INDOORS. Putting up with her sister’s overbearing roughhousing and enjoying it. You can’t see it, but she’s holding her toothbrush, a task she can now do on her own with a simple command and even WANTS TO sometimes. (Crap, I *STILL* don’t want to brush my teeth unless there’s sugar or food stuck. It’s just an unpleasant twice daily chore to me!)

I was thrilled this week to see her asking for things with 3-4 word sentences AND the word “please.” You have NO idea what a big step that is for a girl that was nearly nonverbal a few years ago. (And, yes, I’m patting myself on the back for somehow teaching her manners!)

I was also thrilled to run into former classmates at Kohls a few weeks back, who said, “What a difference from a year ago! Whatever you’re doing, keep doing.” THAT was the high point of my fall.

I had the realization yesterday that hand dryers in public bathrooms DON’T bother her anymore. In fact, she is now amused by them. (I recall her SCREAMING her head off in Zoo America when there no other hand drying options. What a day!)

So call me crazy. Call my uptight. Call me an inconvenient pain in the ass. Rat me out for not being able to “lighten up” during multiple “treat” seasons and reasons. Food is social, true, but know what else is social? Games. Play. Work, Laughter. Music. Dancing. Sports. Hikes. Events. Field trips. You don’t need to be eating other people’s food to be social.

What you DO need in order to be social is the ability to:

• acknowledge other people (for Zoe, since food interventions, CHECK!)
• interact with them (CHECK!)
• care about them (CHECK!)
• see what they are doing without demanding they stop or give it to you (CHECK!)
• engage without too much tension (WORKING ON IT BUT SOMETIMES CHECK!)
• communicate, preferably with words (WORKING ON IT AND SOMETIMES CHECK!)

I’m sticking to my guns. Food intervention and homeopathy and God’s support has gotten us here. I won’t say I COULDN’T use 8 more hours in a day. On Thursday, I toyed with the idea of not sleeping one night just to catch up. But I know that:

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. -Phil 4:13

I also know that this path is not for everyone. I know parents who simply can’t afford it in any way, but I keep seeking God’s will and He keeps providing for us on this route. Maybe He won’t always. Today we are here, and God has made me brave, strong and energized enough to go even deeper.

And, as they say, if I can do it…anyone can. What’s holding you back from trying a new diet to help your children bloom?