Remember "don't let your kids eat any junk food, EVER" in the '90s?
My mother was one of the no-junk-food moms. But parenting has an expiry date, and do you know what I did as soon as I was no longer supervised?
I ate potato chips for lunch at work every day for all of my first job. And all of my first year of trade school. Not potato chips with lunch; potato chips and nothing else for lunch.
Banning kids from something that's not always good for them:
Has a time limit. Your kid will grow up. You won't be able to enforce the ban on an adult.
Gives them no practical experience on how to manage their relationship with that thing when they get unrestricted access to it.
Makes that thing incredibly attractive to them. Even if it kinda sucks.
Makes them sneaky about it, meaning they won't come to you for help if it becomes a problem for them.
My mother wanted healthy kids who didn't eat junk food. What she ended up with in the short term was little goblins who stole baking chocolate from the top cupboard and kept bags of chips they bought off friends hidden under their beds. What she got in the long term was adults with no idea how to regulate their own diets and a mountain of shame about eating anything that tastes good.
Is that the relationship you want your kids to have with the greatest source of information and connection our species has ever seen?
