Armed with Knowledge

It’s hard not to happily lick dripping ice cream off a cone in the heat of summer, isn’t it? Or smack as you suck the barbeque sauce off your fingers after eating too many ribs. The perspiration on a cold glass of beer as you wash the car or build an extension onto your deck, the whipped cream that goes so well dolloped on juicy, local strawberries.

The women in my husband’s family are bakers. I’m not. Well, I make a mean birthday cake, a pretty solid apple pie and a quickly devoured pan of brownies, but I don’t spend one day a week baking. Especially in the summer (my general rule is: the oven only turns on when the temperature is below 22C). He grew up in a home where the after school snack was a handful (or three) of cookies, followed my milk, chugged straight from the bottle.

I made cupcakes with my girls this weekend. Steve works Saturdays and they were climbing the walls, so we mixed and poured and baked together. They love helping me, regardless of what I’m doing, so it was extra fun that the finished product was something delish instead of say, a folded basket of towels. They happily devoured the warm, unfrosted cupcakes after their lunch. We iced them after nap and hid them in the office for a grand presentation when Steve got home from work. They’re “I Love You, Daddy” cupcakes! My four year old gleefully exclaimed, extremely proud of her green sprinkles. Cake! Cake! Daddy! Cake! My two year old chimed in. We ate them all, too, over the next few days.

I worry about my kids, though, in this world where they will all too soon become aware of the unrealistic female ideal that is portrayed by our media outlets. As soon as they can read, they’ll start seeing that they could lose belly fat with this one easy trick! And they’ll see how celebrities are scorned for being so human as to have cellulite. And that’s just in the grocery store. Online, in school, in books and television shows, it goes on and on.

It’s frightening just how targeted children are. The most important task in my life is to protect those children, and I do, ferociously, against inappropriate cartoons and books, against the gag-inducing amount of princess marketing. My job is to keep them safe. And part of keeping them safe is keeping them healthy. So we eat no processed foods, mostly organic meats and vegetables. We talk about food, about the job it plays in your body. We talk about taking care of your body through exercise, be that running or yoga or walking or swimming or bike riding, or even just playing. I think it’s the most we can do.

The fact remains, however frightening and at times heartbreaking, that there will come a time when they grow away from me. It happens a little more each year, but eventually, I’ll have to let go. As young women, much too innocent to be out on their own (as we all were, once), they will be armed with what my husband and I have taught them. That it’s important to take care of your body, through exercise and food. That even after “Happily Ever After” there’s still a lot of work to be done. And maybe most importantly, that sometimes, cupcakes and dripping ice cream cones are ok. Even if they do spoil your lunch.