Buttered Broccoli

This is another re-run...but it's pretty old...and stuff like this still happens to me weekly...so it's still relevant. Anyway, read and be happy or move along and be quiet. ;)


Today Son had his one year appointment at the doctor. Never an exceptionally fun event, but we try nonetheless. I walked into the waiting room, er, more like stumbled into the waiting room with a whining one year old and a wailing two year old (she had skinned her knee on the way in). Whining, wailing, waiting...bad mix. I set the kids down so that they could go break, ahem, play with all the toys while I signed us in and payed the co-pay. I sat down and assumed my referee position, casually glancing and smiling at the very well put together young woman across from myself. She had a calm, beautiful, neatly dressed with a dynamic hair-do two year old (a few months younger than Daughter) sitting quietly with her hands folded in her lap. On the seat next to her there was a baby girl about two months old, wide awake just taking it all in while relaxing in her car seat, also sporting some very posh attire.

"How old are your kids?" she asked.

It had begun.

I told her and clarified that they were twenty-two months apart when she asked.

"Much too close" she alerted me.

Hmm...okay.

I asked her how old hers were and congratulated her on her baby. I said hi to the little girl who shot icicles from her little pale blue eyes. She said nothing.

"My kids don't talk to strangers." M.M. (model mother) told me.

"That's so great." I responded politely and thought aggressively:  well one doesn't even speak yet!!

A bit more chit chat and then she commented on Son walking and said that her daughter didn't walk until she was 13 months old and her mother had made her feel badly for that, saying they should walk by 12 months.

I told her Daughter walked at 13 months also and that I just think that every child is different. We started talking about other milestones and I told her how one of our family friends swears her kids were potty trained before they were one. I expressed how I couldn't imagine my kids being able to do so.

"Well Molly was potty trained by 22 months and everyone thought that was so impressive. What do you think they do in third world countries after all?"

I retreated with a little polite chuckle and said she was right.

Then she brought up eating. She talked about what great eaters her children were and how her daughter's favorite foods were vegetables.

I said how impressed I was and said that my kids both love broccoli. I told her, "My kids will eat broccoli with some melted butter on it any time, any place! But that's the only veggie for them!"

She looked at with a horrified expression on her face.

"I would NEVER give my children buttered broccoli. Completely defeats the purpose! I am trying to raise my children to make nutritionally sound decisions and not join the statistics of obese Americans."

Thank heavens her daughter was called by the nurse right at that moment.

I sat there quite surprised by my encounter, my jaw dropped just a bit lower than usual.

Is it so terribly wrong to give my kids buttered broccoli? Am I a pitiful mother for doing so? Model Mother thinks so.

I must be a pretty bad mother if buttered broccoli gets that reaction.

Maybe I should get a time out? ;o)