<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
<<<<it is clear to see that many of you posters do not understand the peer
pressure of today's society.>>>>
Ah, the memories, the memories! I remember being a teenager in junior high
school, and trying to fit in. I remember trying to be so much like "everyone
else." Problem: _no one_ is like anyone else, and it's pointless to try to
be. What I didn't know as a junior high schooler, I now know as an adult.
That's because my parents made it clear to me during those troublesome years
that an important thing to learn is to strike a balance between self and
others, between group life and self life. If one tries to force one's round
self into a square group hole too often, that process will eventually
destroy.
I remember a television comedy about New York City police officers that came
on back in the 1970s, _Barney Miller_. One of the detectives on the show,
played by actor Ron Glass, was a sharp dresser, a very handsome yet conceited
wit, and a man who focused his spare attention on writing, the stock market,
gold, and other things. He made his colleagues jealous of him. One day he
told one of them, who had tried in some minor way to (unsuccessfully) imitate
him, "Don't try to be like me. It will make you crazy!" (that's
paraphrased--I don't have the script in front of me...)
It's not just teens and children who are under the burden of peer pressure.
Adults are even moreso under it, but the privileged forms our peer pressure
takes--fitting in with our corporations' cultures, beating our chests over
drug warfare, rah rahing the death penalty or the non-death penalty,
etc.--make that peer pressure invisible to us. We have the option of not
seeing it, or of pretending it is something it isn't. We have to work for a
living, we have to keep our jobs, we have to wear or eat "X" to keep those
jobs to pay the mortgage... Just because we can tell ourselves, "I have to
wear Armani suits to the bank--I'd lose my credibility and then my job if I
didn't!" or "I can't order a damn salad at a fine restaurant were everyone
else is ordering meats with fine sauces" doesn't mean that an element of peer
pressure isn't at work in deciding how to dress or eat at work.
Kids don't just dream up peer pressure on their own. They learn it from
adults, who are struggling to deal with work-related peer presssure while
raising their kids on limited time, limited help (due to the peer-pressure to
work long hours and outrageous schedules), then blend and mingle it with the
versions their companions bring for a generation-specific version of it.
If a friend gives up a friendship over a variation in the edibility of
grains, then what was that person? The earlier that one learns how to
distinguish among friends one doesn't need and real friends, the better. But
then, friendships don't always end over one thing. Being GF may be the one
thing in a string of things that put people over the top.
A suggestion: don't let your child wait for others to invite her over to
their homes. Have her invite them over to _her_ house... where they'll be
treated to a wonderful GF feast! Stir up a pot of Jollof Rice and see who
comes to joyous tears first over the wonderful hot peppers. Stir fry the
veggies and meat; let them pick and choose their own ingredients for the wok.
Get some GF taco shells and stir up tacos and refried beans and Mexican
rice... Go back to the lands of their fathers and mothers and bring back
those ethnic European, Asian, and African dishes--a good many (most?) of
which are naturally GF. Those who need it can bring their own wheat bread...
But they probably won't miss it.
Quit feeling as if your kids are "deficient" because they have CD. They're
trailblazers! Because of their human variation, they will be in a better
position to change the practices of the companies that don't label their
products appropriately, that fill the food chain with crap, that substitute
non-nutrients for nutrients, that don't know the differences between fresh
food and unfresh.
I suspect that unless we can teach our children--with and without CD--how to
stand up for themselves and how to deal with peer pressure without succumbing
to it, we will cease to be a free society. If they learn to cave in over a
variation in the grain-content of snacks, imagine what they might do when
presented with a variation in the content of public discourse.
BTW, Perrin's (?) post was right on. It's nice to have GF versions of
Western breads, cakes, cookies, etc. But I've found that one key to success
is transforming the diet so that it is made up of naturally-GF foods. By
increasing the wonderful dishes from around the world that are naturally GF
in the diet, feelings of deprivation decrease. If you're interested, e-mail
me and I'll send a list of cookbooks...
Sorry for the length. Apologies for frayed nerves of steel. No offense
intended. I acknowledge that parents of children with CD have their work cut
out for them in these times. Direct all flames to me, not the list. Not
medical advice. Etc....
Sue
(in Charlotte)
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