My 2-year-old walked up the stairs from the basement playroom and into the kitchen. “I have a brown sucker,” she said. It was a Tootsie Pop that her 6-year-old brother had given her from his gigantic bag of Valentine candy
My 2-year-old walked up the stairs from the basement playroom and into the kitchen.
“I have a brown sucker,” she said.
It was a Tootsie Pop that her 6-year-old brother had given her from his gigantic bag of Valentine candy sent home from school. He and his brother had snuck the bag downstairs – at 7 a.m. in the morning.
“Bring the candy upstairs,” I called down.
The 6-year-old saunters up the steps and produces the goods. Then he blames his older brother for sneaking it downstairs.
Aaaah, the power of candy. It will make small children whine, beg, steal, lie and sneak.
In our house, all the candy collected on Halloween, given in Easter baskets, Christmas stockings, Valentine’s Day bags at school and birthday parties, is brought in and dumped in a large, green plastic bowl.
The bowl is kept on the top shelf of the pantry and only brought out once in a while. Sometimes a candy bar is thrown into lunch bags from the bowl. And it came in really handy when I was potty training my daughter.
The bowl used to be unreachable to the small people in my house. But now that my sons are older, they only have to quietly drag a kitchen chair over to reach the candy. I’ll have to find a new spot for it.
Hiding candy and snacks is a family tradition.
When I was little, my mom used to hide treats. Snack cakes for lunch boxes were stuffed between pots and pans in the back of the bottom cupboard. Bags of chips could be found in a bag hanging between dress coats in the front closet. Chocolate bars were often hidden in the dining room hutch.
I always found them. I wondered why on Earth she bothered to hide them at all. Now I know.
My mom was a pretty traditional mother when it came to nutrition. Every night the whole family sat down to dinner at 5 p.m. You could be assured that each plate would be filled with a meat, potato, vegetable and bread. Anyone younger than 18 would also find a glass of milk in front of their setting.
As a kid, I thought it was normal. Until a friend of mine teased that dinner at my house was like “Leave it to Beaver.”
That’s when I began to resent milk and pot roast, green beans and the required “Please pass the buns.”
I wanted to eat snacks all day and have McDonald’s or pizza in front of the TV like some of my friends. And so do my kids.
But, they are stuck with a traditional mom who makes them drink milk each night with dinner. It might not always be meatloaf or homemade soup every night, but I try. And dinner always includes a vegetable.
I’ll continue to hide the candy and try to limit snacks.
And when they whine, just like I used to do, I’ll politely remind them that I made them a nice dinner and they should be grateful instead of complaining — just like my mom used to do.
All the while, I’m be smirking inside, knowing that someday, they’ll probably be doing the same thing with their own kids.
•Mommy Talk is an online parenting blog written by Journal Times reporters Janine Anderson and Marci Laehr Tenuta. Find it online at www.journaltimes.com/mom.
