I’m an anti-soda mom with about a 12% failure rate, more or less. I also subject my kids to all manner of food indignities like cardboard pop tarts, cereal not endorsed by colorful characters, and organic juice boxes. My daughter asked to change schools last year, so severe was the shame she experienced from not carrying full-throttle Capri Sun in her lunchbox.
I feed my kids very healthy food most days, but I am not above bribing them with sugar if necessary. Sugar is delicious. Sugar motivates. Today I needed to bribe. We went to the playground with some friends and their kids and, despite having one tired little guy on my hands who hadn’t slept well for the last couple of nights, planned to go to lunch afterward. My son wanted to go home, but dammit, I wanted to go to lunch. Clearly, concessions had to be made.
The kids know they can’t order soda at restaurants, unless it is a special occasion. I am fairly hardcore about this since they like restaurants and will readily accept, If you want to go out to eat, no soda. With zero leverage today I agreed that Yes, you can have Sprite. What’s a little sugar and abandoned family values when mama gets to talk to adults about bloggy things?
The restaurant we chose has the most dreaded of all kid drinks, duhn, duhn, duhnnnn – red fountain Hi-C fruit punch. I learned the hard way what stuff with red dye can do to my kids, and they know they aren’t allowed to have it, special occasion or not, no matter what, and they accept it. They respect me, you know.
It enrages me that, like high fructose corn syrup, red dye is in everything, even in foods that aren’t red. Foods that don’t need to be red, like yogurt. Adorably packaged, heavily marketed during SpongeBob stuff, that promises utter delight. I am ever vigilant. My son is particularly sensitive to red foods and he knows the deal. No red dye, ever! He will tell strangers he’s not allowed to have red dye. He reminds his father.
The soda fountain punch is the worst of the worst. It is humiliation hooch which causes otherwise moderately well-mannered children to flip out to the point of flinging food and chasing their tails until you double the tip and slink out dragging your jittering kids. I’ve heard.
So that is why, when I sent my son to the counter today to get his Sprite refilled so I could chat some more and he came back with a full cup of the shiny red liquid and a cheesy grin, I never saw it coming.
Humiliation hooch?? Hilarious! Great post!
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Ew… red. I will never forget seeing a selection of candy at a local convenience store as a child and reading the labeled flavours: “Grape,” “Lime,” and “Red.” What the hell is “red” flavour? We can’t name it exactly but we can all taste it in the back of our throats…
I’m with you on keeping soda and other sugars as ‘sometimes-foods.’ Outright bans seem to elicit a knee-jerk reaction of disobedience but teaching kids which foods are really good for them and which are not so good but can be enjoyed on occasion is such an important lesson. An exception: babies and toddlers… watching a little one drink soda from a bottle is a nauseating sight. What is that doing to their little 25-pound insides?
Red dye is the work of the devil. Get thee out of our food!!
Seriously, you have to check labels. It’s in stuff you would never expect and it makes my son whackadoo.
Kids are too damn smart. Can’t they just dumb it down a bit when we need them to?
laurinevans Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 10:33 am
Not my kids, apparently. I really got schooled on that one. I try to stay no more than one step behind, so I can still tackle them if need be.
Humiliation hooch is my new favorite phrase.
I’m so glad S is still too little to understand the appeal of sugary drinks.
laurinevans Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 10:36 am
Maria, never leave an open Red Bull lying around. I’m just sayin.
My kids are still too little to get the jitters and I’m dreading the day when one of the asks me what flavour red is! Great post!
laurinevans Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 10:38 am
Thanks, IrreverentMommy. Yes, resist the red!
Another culprit just as guilty as red dye is caffine. I use to be one of those childless people who were like why are you not allowing your kids to drink soda?! I didn’t understand what the big deal was. Then along came Vera my bouncing Two year old. With her first happy meal came choices; juice box, milk, or soda. Standing by what I always said chose the caffine loaded soda. My poor child was so tired, but she couldn’t close her eyes. She literally could not stop moving. I felt so bad for her. It made me feel like a horrible parent because of what it was doing to her, and I had allowed it. It actually even made me think what it is doing to my body too. Since then we’ve cut soda out almost completely, but since she asks for it sometimes we let her. We don’t let her have any after lunch though because then it’s impossible to put her down for bed.
I love how you put that….it is “humiliation” hooch haha. That is certainly what it is.
laurinevans Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Yeah, we had to stop drinking Coke. They love it. They became sneaky little people trying to get sips when we weren’t looking and I found a couple of empty coke cans under a bed or something once. Not good.
You and I are birds of a feather, my friend. I eschew the juice boxes and other nasty junk my kids always want and instead give them organic foods and drinks in reusable containers etc etc etc. But this provides me with a huge opportunity for bribery via crap food whenever I need it. There’s a method to our particular kind of madness and I’m not afraid to use it.
laurinevans Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 6:12 pm
And I save the big gun – the Happy Meal – for particularly dire circumstances!
Oh those Devil Drinks…
My kid is only 3 so I can still get away with a blatant lie. He hasn’t had soda yet and I refer to my occasional Dr. Pepper as “Hot-and-Spicy-Grown-Up-Tea-That-You-Wouldn’t-Like-and-Will-Give-You-a-Tummy-Ache drink.”
When he finally finds out I’ve been holding out on him, I will be screwed.
laurinevans Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 6:13 pm
That’s funny! I use the “It’s spicy!” routine all the time. They totally buy it.
We call it “bunnies in the brain”, but it’s the same thing. My favorite is the red dye in the white cake mix. Think on that one and get back to me…
laurinevans Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 6:14 pm
What white cake mix has red dye in it?? Because I probably wouldn’t even think to read that label.
Oh that red dye! My kids are also sensitive and it enrages me that it is in EVERYTHING!!! Even medications–Benadryl, for example! Worse are the antibiotics, which are made pink for no reason at all.
laurinevans Reply:
July 29th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Yeah, Big Pharm must think red dye danger is propaganda.
Great post, Laurin! I know absolutely nothing about red dye and have been allowing my kids to ingest massive quantities of it. Maybe I should do a little research. It could change my life.
Laurin (@LaurinEvans) Reply:
July 29th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
You should also submit a guest post. You are the funny!
Red dye and HFCS–right up there with BLUE Gatorade, yogurt, popscicles, m & ms, etc. in my book! An actual study was done on “naturally” blue foods like blueberries, plums, blue potatos–and discovered that they are not even truly blue. It’s not a naturally occuring color in the plant and animal world…hhhmmmmm.
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