"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Is it me or are 21st century kids a little too privileged? Hear me out: Dave and I are at home and I'm on the interweb searching all things baby. I stumble across this mom blogger who's got a post about what she calls 'lovable lunches.' These things are amazing, she uses a lunch box called "Planet Box', which is essentially an overpriced bento box. Inside she'll have stuff like sandwiches, cheese, fruits and veggies, but what makes them awesome is that she uses cookie cutters to cut the different components into shapes based on a theme. The blog post that I came upon was about her daughter being a star, so her lovable lunch had a bunch of stuff cut up into little stars. It looks amazing and if you're smart about what you put into these lovable lunches they can be deceptively healthy!

As I'm looking at all these pictures of lovable lunches I start thinking to myself that I want one. Moreover, I want one 25 years ago when I was in primary school. How cool and awesome would that have been? The closest thing I ever got (and pretty much any other kid I went to school with got) was a Lunchables (sounds like a lovable but it's really not the same). Usually though, I had a deli meat sandwich, a Handi-snack, a piece of fruit and a juice box. If I was lucky it went into a tin lunch box, but most of the time I think my mom just threw my lunches into my knapsack.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about my mom and what she sent me to school with; this was what about 90% of kids I went to school with got. What I'm talking about is this: we live in an age with the greatest of expectations. Not only do we now have to send lunches that are pieces of art with our children to preschool but the lunches have to contain a modest amount of nitrate-free meat (if any at all), organic vegetables and fruits (or at least vegetables and fruits that aren't on the 'dirty dozen' list), high fibre, whole grains, alternative proteins and absolutely NOTHING that's been processed in any way, shape or form. Our kids need to be dressed in organic cotton or bamboo clothing and furthermore, said cotton or bamboo clothing should be made in a country with equitable working conditions. It's imperative that cloth diapers are used as soon as the baby's born, until he or she is potty trained and potty training must be completed by 6 months of age. The cleaning products we use have to be entirely plant-based and our toiletries should be paraben, sodium-laurel/laureth sulfate free and free of dyes and fragrances. When disciplining our children we have to be mindful about not being too easy or too hard and we should also teach them sign language, and at least 7 other languages on top of their native language by the time they're three. In order for them to be well rounded, they need to be enrolled in one team sport, one competitive solo sport, one arts discipline and they need to have 3.5 friends (one of whom needs to be of the opposite sex and one of whom needs to be of a different ethnic background).

Reading the paragraph above you may be thinking that I'm complaining about the expectations I've listed. Setting aside the obvious amount of hyperbole, I take these expectations very seriously. I would say I take them a little too seriously, and in part I think it's because I'm a first-time mom but mostly it's because I don't want Daphne to look at me in 25 years and say "Mom, how could you?". I don't want the guilt of knowing that there was better out there for Daphne and I just chose to ignore it. And when I say better, I'm not saying it from an economical standpoint, I'm saying it from the standpoint of someone who is informed vs. someone who could be informed but isn't.

My mom didn't know better and I'm not sure that she could have. She was a new immigrant to Canada. She had three kids in three years and she worked full time (as did my dad). My parents didn't have the money to send us to daycare or enroll us in fancy sports or activities. My mom didn't have the internet to look up the nutritional info on food (the Canadian government didn't even label food the way it does now until 2003). My mom was told to formula feed us by her doctors. When she was in labour with my oldest brother, she was given an epidural without her consent. When we were born we were rushed to a nursery instead of being given the valuable skin-to-skin time that's essential for the emotional and physical nourishment of a newborn child. I could go on and on about the way me and my brothers were raised (and probably many of you reading this post) versus the way our children are being raised today and really, honestly I don't think we have the right to look at our parents and ask "How could you?". Why? Because our parents did what at the time was the equivalent to what we're doing right now: providing the best for our children.

The problem is that 'the best' for our children is so much different now. We have to accept that we're in midst of an obesity epidemic, that our cancer and depression rates are on the rise and that more and more children are being diagnosed with ADHD and diabetes than ever before. What's even worse is that we have the ability to turn all of this around simply by educating ourselves yet so many people choose not to. We live in an age of information. We can get answers to almost anything in an instant. Twenty years ago, a trip to the library and hours of research wouldn't yield the same results that someone can find in ten minutes of Google searching. We can no longer use the excuse 'but I didn't know' because we COULD have known if we wanted to. From birth to retirement and beyond, we have the ability to research to our heart's content and find information on almost anything we can think of. Yeah, we have to be smart about it; we can't just type 'how to raise a baby' in the search bar, click on the first link and call it a day. We have to learn how to use the resources available to us and know their benefits and limitations. We also have to accept that if we don't take the initiative with our children today that things will only get worse. I'm not writing this to scare you, I'm writing this because I truly believe that we can all make a difference. From avoiding nitrates in deli meats to using baby products that are safer for our children, we can make small changes that have a huge impact. Yes, the expectations upon us are great, but the reward will be even greater: happier, healthier children.