Someecards is excited to announce our brand-new parenting column, "Parental Advisory," that recognizes every parenting challenge brings with it shades of conflict, contradiction, and crayon on your beige couch. If you have a tricky question, whether about a newborn or a teen, our columnist Janet Manley—mother of one, incubating #2 as we speak—wants to answer it! Share your questions in the own comments and watch this space for true tales of parenting under pressure.
First up, we have a question about being spoiled by grandparents, finicky eaters, and pint-sized liars:
My in-laws keep buying my kids stuff. They enjoy being grandparents and they're good about playing with the kids, but their gift-giving is unnecessary and in my opinion, wasteful. I know this sounds like a stupid problem to have, but my kids are getting an unrealistic idea of what normal birthday presents and Christmas presents are. We have more toys than my children know what to do with already and I'm worried they will "expect" this many presents from relatives or even friends. How shall I handle this?
This isn’t a stupid problem, this is a profound existential quandary. The second you have a baby, the gifts start rolling in. Inevitably, these gifts are ideological Trojan horses, packed with the secret parenting agendas of the gift-givers (“Enjoy this wooden bead puzzle! We believe electronic toys are a form of child abuse.”)
Faced with an avalanche of gift-wrapped goodwill, we are each tasked with KonMari-ing on behalf of our children to ascertain whether a gift a) brings us joy or b) sends us into a Tickle Me Elmo fury spiral.
In your case, it sounds like you have enthusiastically engaged grandparents whose burgeoning affection for your children occasionally morphs into Fisher Price playsets and backyard splash pads.The good news is that your children enjoy truckloads of love and support; the worry is they might become entitled little Dudley Dursleys.
Kids, though, are smart. They know how to game the system, and they know when they are being spoiled. If your children are old enough to have Christmas or birthday lists, that mechanism in itself is a great way to teach them a) how to play the odds (big and small-ticket items!), and b) the importance of a good narrative arc (wanting, losing, and triumphing, as seen in cinematic classic Picture Perfect).
Of course, you need to make sure Grammy and Gramps don’t buy up the entire list and that might require a conversation. Try, “We appreciate you helping out with Jasper, but want to manage his expectations. Perhaps we could see if there is something special on his list you could buy?”
Eventually, they will become aware of inequality, aware of their good fortune, and able to participate in gift-giving and donations themselves. And as your kids get older, you can begin to have them write thank-you cards: this ruins the thrill of the heist and ensures your tablet-savvy brood know the lost art of holding and wielding a pencil.
My son is 3.5 and lives on milk and peanut butter. How can I secretly hypnotize him into wanting to eat fruits and vegetables?
Is there a better metaphor for the progressive lack of control we wield as parents than the move from our children passively subsisting on the human "superfood" breastmilk, elixir of the biome, to insisting on a diet of string cheese and Goldfish? After all the prenatal vitamins, all the B12 syringes and home-made purees, one day your child simply wakes up and decides on their own dietary parameters. (My food pyramid, at age 3.5, was a single A-frame consisting of salami and cheese.)
Picky eating is quite normal among toddlers, according to the American Pediatric Association. It's partly just a punk phase they go through, and partly about their palates. Certainly, no authority on kids thinks that turning mealtime into a battle of the wills is a good idea, which your appeal for wizardry suggests you appreciate. Given your child's propensity for peanut butter, you can try to get some fiber and/or vitamins into their mouth via PB vehicles like celery, carrots, and apple slices, and you can continue to set good mealtime examples by eating as a family and offering whatever it is you are eating (the Ethiopian grain teff, I gather, is what we will all be trendily eating next) without pressure.
Provided your pediatrician isn't concerned, your child should develop less metal tastes before long.
My 5-year-old swiped gum from her nana and hid it under MY pillow. How do I get gum out of my sheets?
As regards your laundering issue, may I direct you to the leading global authority on these matters, Jolie Kerr (clue: ice and a knife). But to the crime itself, in the words of the bard, what a mingled yarn indeed—thievery, illicit substances, a hasty cover-up that almost seems a cry for help, compromised Egyptian cotton!
I was initially concerned about the choking hazard posed by gum, but the APA says gum after age four is fine. The stealing is a harder issue to pin down: did your daughter steal the gum because she knows it is off-limits? Because she was curious? Because she wanted the attention that came with getting caught?
The only way for you to know is to simply ask her why she took it and respond with empathy—thank goodness five-year-olds are terrible liars.
Do you have a nagging question about how to care for your own darling rugrats? Share it with us in the comments and you may see it answered in the next Parental Advisory column!