Let the Competition Begin (Without Me)

by Sharon MacDonell

    I’m feeling a lot of pressure to perform, lately.
    It’s my daughter’s class. The other moms have been taking their snack days very seriously. No animal crackers or raisins for this crowd. The moms bring at least three food items—say fresh cut bananas, a full-sized granola bar, and a generous smattering of star and moon shaped cheese bites. And to wash it all down? An eight-ounce bottle of yogurt drink, with a carefully pre-cut bendy straw. The banquet is laid out artistically on matching paper plates and napkins.
    So, I know. It sounds like a healthy snack, good for the kids, loaded with vitamins and energy boosting calories. Only problem is, these kids are two years old.
    A snack like that fills my little girl up for the day, or it would, if snack time were longer than five minutes. Yes, the tots have about five minutes to jam this feast down their gullets before they have to line up and sing the Goodbye Song. Half the time my daughter can’t be yanked away from such luscious offerings in time to hit the goodbye line-up and misses it, much to the teacher’s prim-lipped dismay. When I do manage to drag her away from the table and break her into the fidgety chorus line, her fingers are so gooey from the delectables that no one really wants to hold her hand.
    After the Goodbye Song, the moms go into overdrive, chasing their kids around with coats and mittens. The sumptuous snacks are abandoned amid the chaos and thrown away.
    I am not a star in the Parent-Toddler class snack rivalry. My older daughter was in the same class two years ago, and everyone brought simple snacks—never more than two. So recently I decided to defy the mob mentality and brought just two items—yogurt and graham crackers. I turned away for a moment to talk to the teacher and when I looked back, I saw that another mother was supplementing my snack with Goldfish crackers she had pulled out of her purse. Oy.
    Another time I brought applesauce. Another mom complained that she had purchased applesauce for the snack two days from then, and now she would have to go back to the store again to get something else. How could we expect our toddlers to eat the same snack on Monday and Wednesday? She was serious!
    Last week, yet another depressing first. A birthday snack and the mom of the birthday girl brought FOUR items, plus party hats and noisemakers. The kids stared at all that treasure, mouths agape, and looked at the adults for some sign as to how to proceed. Eventually a couple of enterprising tots gummed the noisemakers and put food in the hats. I guess the two-year-olds are just as overwhelmed by it all as I am.
    So do these moms really think it’s necessary for our two-year-old darlings to eat a three-course snack 45 minutes before lunchtime? Or are they simply trying to impress the other moms? Is there a competition going on here that no one has told me about? (And why would anyone want to spend so much darn money on snacks the kids have no time to eat?)
    This must be the beginning of a long future of competitive parenting. I suppose I’d better prepare myself for the challenges to come. I’ll have to become the loudest parent at my kids’ soccer games, commandeer their school projects to make sure they’re the best in the class and buy my kids the most expensive clothes so they’ll look better than the other kids. Then I’ll finally be a contender!
    Nah.
    I won’t play those games, even if I am a parent. Besides, I’m an “older” mom of two. I’m too tired to compete any more. I got that out of my system in my thirties.
    Sometimes we parents have to remember to get out of the way and let our kids shine all on their own. It’s not about us. It’s about them.
    So, parents, if you see me coming, don’t even try to impress me with your fancy school project, Iron Chef-worthy snacks and soccer team pompoms, ‘cause I’m not playin’. I’d rather be the type of mom who cheers my kids on quietly and takes only two snacks to toddler class.

 
Sharon MacDonell tries to live uncompetitively with her husband and two children in Troy, Michigan.