Comment: The Things We Do for Love (Of Ourselves)

So I realized today that I put vegetables in my son’s lunch pack, not, as you would expect, for him, but for myself. He never eats them, and yet every day, without fail, there is a fruit or vegetable in his lunch pack that he returns home to me in his lunch pack, slightly the worse for wear and smelling like a school cafeteria even though he ate it outside because this is California.

So I end up either eating it or throwing it out.

He doesn’t eat it. He never eats it. At school anyway.

Why do I persist? Sure, the childcare books all told me that I should offer a food to a child at least fourteen times before you know if they’re really never going to try it, because you never know, on the thirteenth attempt at spinach, they just might eat it, by golly! But it’s been more than fourteen times. And still I persist in offering.

Oy.

So I present food to my son in the faint hopes that he’ll eat it because it makes me feel like a better mother.

Veggies for Mommy? Apparently so.

Maybe I’ve got it all wrong. I mean, he eats veggies and fruits at other times at home, but never at school. Do you think there’s some sort of Kindergarten taboo on eating things that grow? Am I lowering my son’s K-cred by sending him to school with geeky healthy foods? Probably. But I’d also like him not to develop rickets by first grade, thank you very much.

And yet, as I said, he never consumes them at school. Ever. So why I am wasting the food? To assuage my tender parenting ego, which feels that good mothers pack veggies and fruits for their kids, not Fruit by the freaking Foot which is VILE. (I bought some once. I admit it, I erred. Needless to say, I'm now out of contention for Mother of the Year. Honestly? I don’t want to talk about it.) Those green peppers are for ME.

Which I guess I never saw coming, to be honest.

Anyway, I’m realizing that a lot of times when we do things for someone else, we are really doing them for ourselves. Tricky that. I know I tell my daughter to put on a sweater when I’m cold. And those school pictures? Those aren’t for the kids. They’re for Mom, Dad, Grandpa and Grandpa. And those school ART projects? Those are totally for the parents. In early childhood education, a lot of times the kid doesn’t even DO the art. It’s 98% done by the teacher and the kid touches it and then it’s their masterpiece! This is not done for the kids. It’s for us addled grown-ups who need validation that we are doing right by our children.

I’m sure there’s more. I’ll let you know when I come up with more things-we-do-in-the-name-of-our-kids-but-are-really-for-our-fragile-egos. Right now I have some green pepper to eat.