Just read this most ‘laugh out loud’ piece at the NYT - about the obsession with food; activities and overplanning, and losing sight of what is really important in the lives of these kids. Perhaps many will relate. Others may feel they too are guilty, but how does one extricate from this? And then they will be those who just shake their heads in vain. It is just another example of how much American parents 
are caught up in catering to their childen’s whims and what they think is the ‘done’ thing because everyone else is doing it.
Was chatting with some friends on this topic recently and we all reflected similarly…Has life become over complicated? In another life, another time (or not!), our behavior would have been mocked, and today people strive to emulate. Gone are the days when kids would just walk out the front door, play in the streets (heaven forbid they do that now in this ‘who knows who will come by in car and swipe your kid off the street, etc…) and eat from meal to meal, vs. needing a snack in between, or just even have a simple birthday party without it becoming a 3 ring circus event! But many of us are inextricably part of this rat race – and are guilty for fueling the fire so to speak. Many of our children’s lives are super structured with afterschool classes, weekend meets, activities, music lessons, enrichment programs…when we see our friends children involved this way, we too feel, “Hey, they’re like me, shouldn’t my child be participating?” And while the kids themselves may enjoy it, is it not up to the parents (at least during the younger years) to make some of those decisions? Going to school and perhaps doing one special activity or club involvment a week seemed to suffice when I was growing up in an uber competitive New England town north of NYC…And with all the work, I remember still being ’stressed’….can’t imagine what our kids will go through in the coming years if we continue at this pace. Simplicity and simple pleasures seem a distant memory…Incidently, am reading another same topic book, “Madness of Modern Families” by 2 UK authors….it is a more in depth humorous account of the crazed ‘parenting’ frenzy of the 21st century.
Anyway, thought this article was hilarious, all things aside. Best lines: “Cupcakes the size of softballs” and “use the small foods as calming pellets? .” Enjoy!
Op-Ed Contributor – New York Times
Will Play for Food
- By HARLAN COBEN
Ridgewood, N.J.
Cartoon above by:Chip Wass
ENOUGH with the organized snacks.
When did this start anyway? I’m at my 7-year-old’s soccer game. The game ends and this week’s designated “snack parent” produces a ginormous variety pack of over-processed chips and an equally gargantuan crate-cum-cooler. Our children swarm like something out of the climactic scene in “The Day of the Locust.”
Do our kids need yet another bag of Doritos and a juice box with enough sugar to coat a Honda Odyssey? Can’t they just finish playing and have some water?
