Here’s what I feel like a lot of the time:

I was going to add some words to those arrows until I realized that it applied to so many areas of my life.

The first, of course, as I have discussed before, is parenting. So much advice being thrown our way on the right way and the wrong way to bring up the kids. It’s noisy. It’s cacophonous. I’ve had to turn a lot of the noise off.  It doesn’t mean I’m doing the right thing by my kids. In fact, I’m probably doing the wrong thing quite a lot. But we muddle through, trying to keep everyone sane and alive, and right now, that’s the best we can do.

Lately, the other noise, rising up to almost the same volume level? Is food.

I already have a complicated enough relationship with food.  I wish food was just fuel to me. But food is love, food is reward, food is guilt, food is comfort, food is what I’m thinking about a lot of the day (what to make for dinner, what to pack for lunches, to make sure the kids’ are eating balanced diets, to take time for cooking, etc.). That’s quite noisy already. That’s also my own battle. I’m not really ready to talk about it.

Let’s add a few more messages into the mix:

Raw. Macro-biotic. Vegan. Vegetarian. Organic. Local. 100 Mile. Seasonal. Paleo. Low carb. Carb free. Food revolution. Grass fed. Free range. Fair trade. Grapefruit Diet. Weight Watchers. Liquid diet. And on and on and on and on.

Or even the messages that seem to change weekly: red wine is good/red wine is bad. Coffee is okay/coffee is not okay. Dark chocolate is wonderful/what the hell are you thinking eating chocolate.

The DIN! The racket! It’s over-WHELMING. For me. For me, this is an awful lot of noise, and an awful lot of anxiety.

I have so many messages here to sort through, to process, to understand the implications of.  This work takes up an awful lot of brain space, when it was already busy enough in there already.  And it heavily cross-references the parental messages: what are you feeding your kids? Are you killing them, you terrible mother? Are you giving them the best possible food?

Here’s the best I can do right now:

• I make home-cooked dinners for my kids as often as possible, without going insane. When I say home-cooked, it usually means from scratch. Sometimes, there’s a sauce thrown in that I didn’t make  – but not normally. I like to cook. I like that I can combine ingredients to make them taste good, to make sure our meal is relatively balanced.

• But (and this is a big BUT) I work full time outside the home and sometimes we’re busy in the evenings, so sometimes we do rely on processed food (like a frozen pizza) or take out. Sometimes does not mean every week.

• Sometimes a hamburger is just a hamburger. It’s not going to kill them.

• Sometimes, I buy things that are organic. Most of the time I don’t. I have a food budget and I try to stick to it and that precludes a lot of organic food. I look forward to prices coming down. Hopefully?

• A lot of the time, I buy food that is out of season, because fruit and vegetables are good for us. I KNOW that strawberries from Florida has covered too many food miles and I should wait for summer Ontario ones. But I see the giant $3 box of strawberries and I think about how much everyone is going to enjoy it.

• They adore fruit. This is great. They love broccoli. This is also great. A lot of veggies aren’t appealing to them, though. I know this will change as they get older.  They could be an awful lot pickier than they are now.

• Usually, I buy meat when it is on special and stock up the freezer. We mostly eat chicken and fish, with a bit of pork thrown in for good measure. Sometimes, we might actually have red meat.

• Usually, my kids drink milk or water. Sometimes, I actually let them drink juice. It’s viewed as a treat.

• I usually pack processed snack food in my kids’ lunch for his JK recess treat twice or three times a week. They are pretty much the only cookies that he gets. This is an area that I will aim to improve upon as he will be going full time next year.  I will have to balance health with the fact that I totally resented my own pretty healthy and un-exciting packed lunches.  Making things myself might be the way to resolve that. I also like to let him have a say in what goes in.

• My kids almost never get dessert. You know what? They probably should get it more often. I should be making it. Maybe one day when things are less chaotic.

• Weekends often involve some sort of ice cream – perhaps a frozen yogurt from Ikea or a popsicle from the freezer. It’s called childhood. That’s part of the enjoyment of it.

• If there’s chocolate in the house (like eggs from Easter), I put it away and bring it out at strategic times like first thing in the morning. So they’ll have the day to work out the energy. (I personally can not have chocolate late in the day or it keeps my head spinning awake at night – so I don’t want to deal with those consequences with them)

This is our reality. We will work to do better, because as the kids get older it’s a bit easier to cook more (the less direct supervision they need).  Because, thankfully, salaries go up a bit, leaving a bit more room in the food budget.

But I can’t engage with many current discussions about the food industry (whether that’s meat, or US school meals, or whatever). I just can’t. I’m sure I’ve read somewhere about a theory that mothers make the best advocates. Not me.

You know what? I’m too tired, too anxious, too busy. I really am. I will cheer you on from the sidelines, as you advocate for change. Believe me, I’d be an awful lot happier if there was no sodium in packaged food (I try to read labels and make the best of a bad choice).  But I’ve got a half hour to shop (or I’ll feel guilty for cutting into the little time I have with them each day), I’ve got dinner to put on the table for my family, and I’ve got a life that I’m not balancing or managing that well.  So today they might have something that isn’t the healthiest choice. Tomorrow they will have steamed veggies. Balance.

Sanity and balance. It’s what I’m seeking. It feels like it’s becoming even more elusive.

Can you turn these messages off? Or are you enjoying the discussion/do you like hearing them? Can you turn the volume down? Or is it just me?

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