catbird's world » mommyhood

A letter to Target

catbird — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:02:26 +0000

Re: Red Card

Dear Target,

If you really want to help schools, just do it. Don’t make it conditional on whether I sign up for your marketing program (so you can track my purchases). Don’t make it conditional on how much I spend in your store. In fact, don’t make it conditional on me shopping at your store at all.

Just help the schools.

Then have your PR team promote the heck out of your good deeds. Good PR can go a long way, much farther than bribery or blackmail.

Sincerely,
catbird*

*Yes, I really sent this letter to Target, but signed with my name.

A NOTE: Target does other things to help schools that aren’t conditional on people buying stuff.

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Box Tops for Education is ridiculous

catbird — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:52:12 +0000

At least once a week, my son comes home from school asking me to collect Box Tops for Education. At his school, the class that collects the most gets an ice cream party. Are schools that desperate for additional funds?

Seriously, if companies want to give money to schools, they should just do it. Not blackmail us into buying their heavily processed food products first before they will donate $.10 per box top to a school.

What’s the point of trying to get healthier foods and more fruits/veggies in schools if at home were encouraged (or bribed with ice cream parties) to feed kids processed food to get these box top things.

I repeat: if companies want to give money to schools, they should just do it.

As long as we have public schools, they should properly funded so that we don’t have to supplement with ridiculous programs like this one.

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Hey Dora, leave my kids alone… part 2

catbird — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:47:58 +0000

In some cosmic coincidence, on the same day I found out about Disney eggs, I also had to go to the grocery store to get a snack to take to Nate’s school tomorrow. Maybe it was because I had just read about Disney’s new venture into farming, but it suddenly seemed licensed cartoon characters were everywhere.

So there we are, in the dairy aisle of Shop-Rite, looking for some sort of yogurt to feed 11 five-year-olds. No Stonyfield Farms Squeezers. All the other tube yogurts had high fructose corn syrup and corn starch, which, I patiently explained to Nate, is icky and doesn’t belong in yogurt (and yes, I am certain the other shoppers were rolling their eyes). But Nate wasn’t listening….

He picked up Dora smoothies. Then Danimals smoothies. Then Trix yogurt. Then Scooby-Doo yogurt. Our usual Stonyfield yogurt in containers was right there, but Nate was blinded by cartoon marketing. When I nixed all his choices, he moved on to the Scooby-Doo cheddar cheese snacks, which, I’ll admit, we purchased.

Blurring the line between entertainment and food has several implications:

Children get the idea that they need to have their own special food

Media conglomerates have infiltrated virtually every aisle of the supermarket with the intent of marketing products directly to children and to parents who start to believe that they need special “kids food” for their children.

Do we? Not really.

Virtually any product you would buy with a character on it can be purchased in a regular version. Do cartoon characters entice children to eat certain foods? I don’t know. But I do know that kids don’t need to be enticed into eating yogurt, mac and cheese, crackers, cookies, juice, etc.

The imagination monopoly these characters have on our children is perpetuated

Cartoon characters such as Dora, Diego, or any Disney princess appear on any product you could want to purchase: clothes, bedding, toys, video games, books, toothbrushes, furniture, shampoo…. Maybe mealtime is a good place to give kids a break from the media marketing storm.

Our children’s health is impacted through over-processed and additive-filled foods

Take a look at what the “kid’s food” usually is: snacks, treats, yogurt-like products, highly-processed heat-and-eat food.

Of course, now Disney is taking it one step further with their Disney Eggs. I can’t imagine what a Disney Farm is like, but free-range, grass-fed, and organic are not ideals that come to mind. One more giant factory farm feeding chickens corn grown with petroleum-based pesticides. Just what we need. However, I digress. The point is that children don’t need eggs wrapped in Disney packaging and stamped with Disney characters, and cooked in the shape of Mickey Mouse. And as parents, we don’t need to spend the extra money to purchase these eggs. If you have extra money in your budget for eggs, make it free-range, organically fed eggs from a local farm. Please.

Our wallets are hit: branded products and “kid’s” products cost more

Compare the cost of kids yogurt to buying a big tub of yogurt and dishing it out into a bowl (or reusable container for school lunches). (Plus there is the added benefit of less waste.)

Many kids products come in a smaller size but cost the same or more as the regular version. Check out kids yogurt or smoothies or boxes of crackers or cookies for example.

Buying a “kids” version and an “adult” version of the same food just adds additional cost to your food bill.

While it would make life easier if licensed characters didn’t show up on food marketed to kids, I don’t see it happening. And, quite frankly, there are bigger issues with the food system that should be resolved first. But I do agree with Marion Nestle: “If food is nourishing and well prepared, it is entertainment enough and doesn’t need cartoons to entice kids to eat.” She calls for a boycott of food with cartoon characters which, today’s Scooby-Doo cheese purchase aside, I plan to wholeheartedly support.

As parents, we should all strive to feed our children and ourselves the most nutritious food we can. That means food, not “food.” If we take the time to read the ingredients of the food we buy, and, in fact, buy more ingredients to make our own food, we can make the best choices possible.

And even though it can be incredibly difficult to say no to a child clamoring for SpongeBob mac and cheese, Dora smoothies, or, yes, Scooby-Doo cheese snacks, we should fight the battle. While I fully believe it’s okay to say yes to a treat now and then, in daily life we would all be better off taking back control over our food.

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Hey Dora, leave my kids alone.

catbird — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:52:19 +0000

Where the Wild Things Are… the movie

catbird — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:27:11 +0000

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is a sweet and wonderful story — one of my favorites — but does it really need to be made into a movie?

In the book, a boy gets in trouble and thinks his parents don’t love him anymore. After an imaginary trip to live with the other wild things, he gets lonely, and returns home to find his warm supper waiting in his room. His parents do still love him after all.

With Sendak’s charming illustrations, this story is truly a childhood classic. The message resonates with every child: even if you get in trouble, your parents still love you.

Why turn it into a feature-length movie about a boy dealing with “absent father issues“?

Hollywood, are you that hard up for new ideas?

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The Mind of a Preschooler

catbird — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:27:49 +0000

Some common developmental milestones of preschool-aged children.

Fine Motor Skills
1. Learn how to open cookie tin.
2. Sneak cookie tin behind sofa and eat all the cookies.
3. Use “time out” to plot next move.
4. Teach younger sibling how to open cookie tin.

Gross Motor Skills
1. Learn to climb.
2. Use climbing skills to climb onto counter to get cookie tin
3. See “Fine Motor Skills” above.

1. Learn to hit plastic baseball off a tee.
2. Use plastic bat to hit sibling.

Personal Grooming
1. Learn to dress self.
2. Obsess over one particular shirt or pair of socks and wear it every day.
3. Take two more years to learn how to match.

1. Learn to use potty.
2. Decide you don’t feel like using potty.

1. Learn to spit out “big kid” toothpaste.
2. Practice your spitting all around the house.

Outside Play
1. Learn how to twist outside faucet on.
2. Spray hose into all open windows.
3. Give sibling a turn just before parent appears.

1. Learn to jump.
2. Find giant mud puddle.
3. Jump repeatedly into mud puddle until you are covered with mud. Make sure you are wearing white.

Writing
1. Learn to write name.
2. Write name on every available surface including tables and walls.

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Five shallow holes

catbird — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:27:43 +0000

Yesterday I sat on the grassy hump in front of my mother’s gravestone and dug out five shallow holes in the fertile earth in which to set five small flower pots. Nestling the pots in protects them from the wind and gives the roots access to moist dirt when I can’t get back to water them.

While I scraped out holes with a wire hanger from the back of the car, little ants and beetles kept crawling up and down my legs. I was very gentle in removing them from me, for, after all, aren’t they my brothers and sisters, nourished on my mother’s flesh and bones?

Later, driving home, one little ant came crawling up my arm. Reacting without thinking, I brushed her off roughly. I’m sorry, my little sister! I hope you found a stray pretzel or goldfish on the floor to make up for it.

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Games kids play

catbird — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:47:16 +0000

All kids make up their own fun games to play. I know my kids have invented some really fabulous ones. Maybe your kids have played them, too.

Lock the Door
Use the key to lock and unlock the door repetitively. Stand on a chair if you can’t reach. Advanced version: wait until Mommy goes outside to lock the door.

Goldfish Crush
Smash goldfish into tiny crumbs then swipe them onto the floor. See how long it takes for Mommy to notice. Also works with pretzels, graham crackers, saltines, or even Playdough.

Phone Tag
As soon as you hear Mommy on the phone, run around like a maniac yelling at the top of your voice.

Water Splash
This is a competitive game. See who can splash the most water out of the bath tub. Game ends when water drips into kitchen. Bonus points for soaking Mommy.

Water Splatter
Pour water (or any other handy liquid — milk, juice, paint) onto the table and pat enthusiastically with your hands until you and the walls are well splattered. Bonus points for using a smelly, sticky, or permanent liquid. Fun to play with Goldfish Crush.

Collapse
Lure a sibling into the pillow fort while you are outside then collapse it. Advanced level: lay on top of pillows covering sibling until crying starts. Bonus points for making Mommy come running.

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The top 10 craziest things I’ve said as a parent, so far…

catbird — Sun, 25 May 2008 02:18:42 +0000

1. “Nate, stop licking your brother.”
2. “Only one serving of chocolate chips at breakfast.”
3. “Stop blowing bubbles with your mucus.”
4. “Nate, stop licking the train seat.”
5. “Take the magic marker out of your ear.”
6. “Van, get your mouth off the guinea pig cage.”
7. “No spitting on the furniture.”
8. “Nate, stop licking the dog.”
9. “Please don’t drink the water from the mud puddle.”
and
10. “Really Van, you want the kale, potato, and chorizo soup?”

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Leftover mac and cheese

catbird — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:15:29 +0000

When Nate gets to pick dinner, he almost always picks mac and cheese. But ,since the kids rarely eat a whole box and they won’t eat it reheated (Why? Who knows. It’s just one of those parenting mysteries.), I’m stuck with leftovers.

I don’t love mac and cheese, but I dislike wasting food even more so I concocted this meal out of the leftovers. I cook spinach, broccoli, or peas in a pan with a little olive oil and garlic. Then toss in the leftover mac and cheese. Today I had some turkey to toss in, too. Except for the fact that the mac and cheese is in the shape of little bunnies, it’s just like a grown up meal. If you don’t feel like going to all that trouble, just throw the leftover pasta in with regular pasta and red sauce. The cheese adds some nice flavor to a basic tomato sauce.

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