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Sue in North Carolina speaks of the fast food industry's ability to "push
your buttons." Meanwhile, she's pushed one of mine. "Remember--nobody ate
fast foods 30-40 years ago.  Few people ate them even twenty years ago.
Single parents worked, sometimes at two jobs, and managed to feed their
kids without giving them fast foods." These lines, read in the midst of a
bout of midnight, stress-induced insomnia are enough to send a happily
married, two-kid, dual-jobbed, overworked mom postal.
 
Think about it, Sue. How =could= a single parent with two jobs manage to
even =care= for their own children while working, much less adequately feed
them? Like fast food, day care wasn't an established option 30-40 years ago
either. Have the answer? It was extended family and community. In those
days of "The Company Man" the world held still; you were able to stay in
the same town holding the same job all your life, and everyone from your
parents to your cousins were all there too. While you were away at work,
grandma took care of your babies; or maybe your sister (whose husband had a
=good= job that allowed her to stay home) took care of your kids. The world
of extended family is not the world I live in, and I don't see why you're
insisting I should live up to its standards.
 
It's a different world, Sue, and I don't appreciate being made to feel like
a negligent, lazy-bones mom. Not when I haven't had a moment to myself in
the last year to just relax.
 
"Many busy people today raise their children without ever feeding them fast
foods." Do those people have to cook their bread from scratch? Make their
own pasta? Drive to four different stores at opposites sides of town to
pick up all the uncontaminated ingredients so necessary to daily life?
Spend huge amounts of time studying and researching just to find out what's
safe and what's not and how to best cope with the consequences of the
diet? Do they also have to cope with hours (at the least) or days of
being debilitated for making a little mistake on their diets?
 
Give me a break, Sue. Like the person who asked Don if he was a celiac,
I'll ask you: are you a parent (and celiac) with two jobs, feeding your
kids only foods lovingly cooked by your own hands? I imagine you or not,
or you'd already know from personal experience that the imaginary world
you suggested in the first lines quoted above didn't exist then, and
does not exist now.
 
I certainly agree that change is necessary and a slower life style is the
ideal I'm aiming for. To that end we started our own business last year
and in a couple of years, when we've finished building it, we'll be able
to hire someone to work the store and not have to put in such long hours
ourselves. Maybe I'll even be able to quit my =other= job. In the mean
time, the work is rewarding but overwhelming, and I look to this list
for moral support along with good information and new ideas. I even
try to squeeze in a little time to give back some of what I get out of the
contributions of our many list members. Please keep this in mind when
moralizing about other people's lives: you can't really know what it's
like unless you've "walked in their shoes" a while.
 
I hope y'all will forgive me for being so grumpy but I am
 
Not June Cleaver (the 2nd)
Midland TX USA
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