Shit on my hands

When the time comes to raise that first spoonful of solids to your baby’s milk-moustached mouth, you’ll probably have some idea of the sorts of things you would and would not like them to eat. Lollies and meat pies = bad. Wholemeal pasta and broccoli = good. Your kid will probably comply for a while and devour plates brimming with whole grains and greens: ‘Aren’t you a good baby’, you’ll coo proudly, ‘you’ll never be a sugar-crazed ratbag. I, your parent, will always prepare you nutritious wholefoods that you will continue to happily ingest for the rest of your days. You’ll probably initiate World Peace, too.’

Frustratingly, this dreamy set-up will probably go to hell after his first year. A percentage of kids will continue to eat everything on the bottom two rungs of the food pyramid (and, hey, they might be the ones the mat nurse says need to lose a kilo or two in years to come), but a greater proportion will be steadfast in their refusal to eat anything but rice bubbles, cheese, white bread, crackers, white chocolate frogs, white bread, cheese, crackers, rice bubbles, cheese, crackers, cookies, cheese, crackers and white bread. Once children realise that crap food is fun, trying to lead them back down the leafy-greens path is a fearsome undertaking. Dinnertime can rapidly become the most hateful part of your day. Holes kicked in the pantry door and silent directives to ‘eat a bowl of FUCK, kiddo!’ are an entirely rational response when you’ve wasted half your weekly earnings on new and exciting foodstuffs to tempt your child’s whiter-than-white taste buds.

When you’ve lived through thirty-odd years of disappointment and heartbreak it’s difficult to understand how the sight of a broccoli stem could reduce anyone to tears, but toddlers are yet to learn that life contains far more vexing problems than unwanted vegetables. He will learn, eventually, that there are foods worth eating beyond butter pats and toothpaste. Getting children to subscribe to the old ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ mantra is the hardest part – once they’ve actually tasted what you’re offering, they’re often less likely to reject it.

So, pretend he’s a rat and scatter bits of healthy grub about the lounge room; eventually he’ll start to nibble. Trying to force your kid to eat well 24/7 is not worth the headaches, the frown lines and mutual tantrums. Avoid food battles because he actually can survive and even thrive for a time on crackers, and banish any bad feelings about her diet by digging up the yard and using all the money you’ve saved on fresh produce to install a guitar-shaped swimming pool.