A few months ago, I started a new full-time job. This meant that at 18 months of age, my son Cooper would be going to daycare for the first time. This is not a decision I made lightly. I only started him out at three days a week, with my sister watching him the other two, so he would still be around family. I toured several facilities, rejecting one very expensive one purely based on the fact that the person who was giving me the tour coughed into her hands (everybody knows you go for the elbow, come on!). I finally found a school that put equal amounts of emphasis on cleanliness and education, and my search was over.
This is the type of place where you pack your kid’s lunch, that way you’re responsible for his or her nutrition and dietary restrictions. They provide snacks, but they keep them pretty healthy. The school manual even warns against packing foods with too many preservatives in your child’s lunch. I was really behind this whole ethos, because one of the big things we’re trying to do with Cooper is not have him make this same food mistakes his father and I have made.
Good habits start young, so while we’re struggling to undue years of questionable food choices, we figure that at least we can start our son off eating really well. We feed him organic food whenever possible, and try to stay away from too many heavily processed items. He goes through phases, as all toddlers do, but the other day he totally munched on some grilled asparagus, so I was thrilled.
I was less thrilled, however, when Luke went to pick Cooper up from daycare and the teacher chirped, “Cooper ate three cupcakes today!” Luke’s head nearly fell off his body, especially when she continued, “Most kids only eat the icing, but he ate the whole thing. He’s a really good eater!” Clearly this woman is insane.
Look, I have a sweet tooth, so I know how delicious cupcakes are. While we try to keep him away from sugar as much as possible, he’s had enough for us to know that that kid loves him some desserts — especially chocolate. So when his teacher said that he ate three cupcakes, that didn’t seem like some sort of amazing feat. It seemed like a thing a kid would do when confronted with three frickin’ cupcakes. Of course he’s going to eat them, they are delicious cupcakes! My kid isn’t an idiot, you guys; he knows the score.
What blew my mind about the whole thing is how anyone in their right mind would give an 18-month-old child three cupcakes in the first place. Granted, I found out later that they were mini-cupcakes, but still. That’s a lot of sugar for a kid who only weighs 25 pounds. That particular day was a potluck celebration, so one mini cupcake? Sure, I can see that. I’m not a monster, after all. But I couldn’t believe that the adults I put in charge of my son would think this was a good idea.
So what do you think? How many cupcakes is too many?
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Apr 22, 2010 @ 10:52 EST5EDT
This is an attitude I have to deal with frequently here, not from teachers but from friends and family members. Thankfully at school she gets a healthy, “home style” lunch that always includes real fruit and real vegetables and I pack any other snacks she eats during the day. But in general people seem to equate eating a lot with being a “good eater” which is ridiculous. My daughter IS a good eater. Not because she will hoarf down an adult size bowl of Cookie Crisp if you put it in front of her (which she will) but because she will also eat and thoroughly enjoy more varieties of fruits and vegetables, both raw and cooked, than quite a few adults I know. And I’m willing to bet the same is true for Cooper. It is unnerving to have someone else in the mix when it comes to feeding your kids, but what I think matters most in the long run is the example set at home. Just keep doing what your doing.