Heart Patients in the Making

[velvetpage]

I saw a mother, her baby (about one year old, I think) and the baby's father, presumably, on the bus today. The mother weighed at least three hundred pounds. Now, I am no featherweight, but neither will I ever look like that! I wouldn't care what she had looked like, though, because that's between her and her doctor. The problem was the contents of the baby's bottle and food tray.

Pop and French Fries, respectively.

Now, my daughter has had the occasional sip of pop. Most of the time, it was her aunts giving it to her, and I protested loudly. She has never had pop (as far as I know) in a glass, and if I ever learned she had been given that by my sisters, they would be fired as babysitters, at least for a while. The occasional French fry has come her way, too.

The problem here was that the baby was given a whole fast-food carton of fries. Not the small carton, either. A super-size one. When the mom realized that the baby had apparently finished her fries, she took the bottle and filled it with coke from her own glass.

I have trouble believing that a) there was no reasonably baby-appropriate food in the child's diaper bag; b) the mother appeared to consider these offerings baby-appropriate; c) this didn't appear to be a first or an occasional thing; there was no sign of exploration, only the same nonchalance the baby would have expressed at finding milk in the bottle; and d) that the father was doing nothing about it, either.

Parenting should be a required course in high school.

Comments

[lousy-timing.livejournal.com]

GOOD heavens.

Parenting courses should be required, and they should include more than hauling around an egg or sack of flour.

[summerfields.livejournal.com]

Next week on Maury Povich....

Maury: Why does your 2 year old baby weigh 200 lbs?
Mom: 'cause I feed her fried waffles, hot dogs, and milkshakes for breakfast.
Maury: Why do you let her eat this:
Mom: 'Cause she cries if I don't let her eat what she wants.
Maury: Excellent, now let's have her prance around the stage in her diaper so everyone can see how she needs to stop and catch her breath after two steps.
Audience: Yayyyy!!

[anidada.livejournal.com]

Criminy. The bunny's had a few fries in her time (not amounting to an entire small packet, total, however) and no pop -- I would hope that this sort of thing would be understood, but obviously it's not. *sigh* Poor kid.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Parenting should require a LICENSE.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

*shudder*

[Bard slinks off to feed Rhys some of Rhys' favorite foods: red bell peppers, green peas, organic corn.]

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

*SHUDDER*
As much as I love cola (and you know how much that is) I am aware of what is in it and what it can to towards loosening rusty bolts. I'm also in charge of regulating how much I get, and when I should switch to a different drink. As a baby can do neither and is still growing and needing all the good nutrients he/she can get, it's negligent to make it a regular part of the diet. /rant
I had my first sip of pop at age 5, from a neighbour/friend of the family. The only fries I had ever had at that point were the baked in the oven, (with the exception of a rare dinner out). It's a horrible stereotype, but it's SO often that I see overweight kids eating candy, pastry, chips etc. If they're young enough to be with their parents, the parents are usually doing the same thing. There's the rolemodels right there.