It's tough to stick by your parenting philosophies while it seems like the rest of the world thinks you're nuts or at least a little batty.
While I know we're not the strictest parents or alone in our thinking, it seems like our efforts to keep Isabella away from TV and other "screens" (computers, phones and tablets, mainly) and to feed her healthy foods (and steer clear of fast food or quick-service food) are definitely the exception.
With the glut of pictures and videos we post of what probably seems like her every action, it feels like we're the only ones not broadcasting her first Happy Meal, her daily Starbucks drink, her chicken nugget addiction. I made almost all her baby food from scratch, and now that she's eating "table food," we try to eat healthy and make a portion of our own home made food for her. With the exception of the week she was in intense teething pain and had to revert to baby-food consistency food (we gave her Gerber toddler food), my biggest cheat is making a Lean Cuisine and using it for two meals or using frozen veggies instead of fresh. The first bite of cake or any dessert she had was her birthday cake (unless you count fruits as dessert). The treat that gets her the most excited is a bowl of strawberries.
We do this simply because we want to raise her with healthier eating habits than we ourselves developed as young adults in a world full of mystery food and shocking nutrition content. (Why would there be so much sugar in a hamburger?!) The studies that we've caught wind of report scary statistics - more than 1/3 of US children and adolescents are now obese, children in the US as young as three are showing early markers of heart disease, more and more kids are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a disease normally diagnosed in adults 40 and older. If we can make healthy eating and active living a habit and the "norm," Isabella won't ever have to make a lifestyle adjustment to save her health - the hope is that it will be built in.
It's not just the food. We started out with the ambitious intention to shield Isabella from all screens until age two, as is recommended by the experts. Well, when the village raises the child, everyone in the village gets a say in how that child is raised, so we had to make a few compromises. Still, she gets at most one episode of Sesame Street per day, and never during meals or snacks. This is a pretty huge adjustment in our pixelated world, but it was important to us.
Everyone around us, however, seems to talk about how their baby or toddler is so into Yo Gabba Gabba or Ni Hao Kai Lan or any number of kids' shows. Worse yet, we have people talking to us about their three-year-olds that read - apparently because they use Baby Einstein videos. And I have to admit that I get the draw - when we do let her watch Sesame Street she is so happy and so into it, and what parent doesn't want to see their kid light up like that? Who wouldn't want a reading three-year-old?
Even with all the studies and reports telling us that what we're trying to do is "best" for her (try googling "Does Baby Einstein really work?" and the academic reports on the first several pages of results will all say it does not and it could actually cause delays), it's really hard to stick by what we believe when it seems we're the only ones swimming upstream.
Isabella has still never had a french fry and drinks only milk or water - and I hope it stays like that as long as possible. I don't want her to be an outcast among her classmates in the future ("What?! You've never had a tall non-fat kid's temp zebra hot chocolate with whip and caramel drizzle?!") but more than that I want her to develop habits that shield her from obesity, diabetes and premature heart disease. She isn't an expert at navigating her way around a tablet or clicking a mouse and to be honest, even though those are skills she will need if she is to make it in this day and age, this is one area of "development" I wouldn't mind her being delayed on.
It's really hard to stand by what we believe when that parental competition niggles the back of your mind: so-and-so's kid can do that - if we let Isabella try, would she be able to also? What is she missing out on by us limiting her exposure to this stuff? And there's a difference and a balance between sticking by what you believe and being totally rigid and closed to additional information. So when I doubt myself I try to remember two things: one, we based these philosophies on research from credible sources (not Yahoo! discussion boards, but respected and proven academic institutions). Yes we may be eliminating some opportunities by doing what we're doing, but I think we're also opening windows into worlds that are quickly being forgotten by our society. Two: as a parent there's only so much you can do - after that, the rest of the world and your own kid's innate tendencies take control.
While I don't think this is the first "tough parenting lesson" we've had, it's the first one that seems like a big deal to me. And it's a lesson I'll probably be continuously re-learning.
