The Cereal Box Rule, and How I Decide What’s Best For My Kid
I’m standing in the cereal aisle at Kroger right now, actually. My 7-year-old is hiding in the snack display shoving mini granola bars into his jacket pockets, I pretend I don’t see, because I know he’ll beg for one the second we pull out of the parking lot, and I’ll probably say yes anyway. I’ve been staring at Dino Sugar Crunch for 10 minutes. It’s got a glow-in-the-dark T-Rex sticker on the front, and he’s been begging for it for three weeks. Ten years ago, if you’d asked me what kind of mom I’d be, I would’ve said I’d never let my kid eat something with 12 grams of sugar per serving. I’d have grabbed the plain oat bran stuff with flax seeds that tastes like wet cardboard, patted myself on the back for doing right by him. Today? My feet hurt, the self-checkout line is piling up behind me, and I can’t remember how every little decision turned into a test you didn’t study for.
Last fall, I signed him up for rec soccer. All the kids in his first grade class were playing. My Instagram feed was full of little kids in neon jerseys kicking (well, mostly staring at dandelions) and I thought, okay, this is what you do. This is what’s best. Teamwork, exercise, fresh air. He didn’t ask for it. I asked him if he wanted to go and he just shrugged, said okay, because that’s what seven year olds do when their mom is already holding the cleats she bought off Amazon. First practice, he sat on the sidelines the entire time picking dandelion heads off and tucking them into my water bottle. Cried in the car on the way home said his feet hurt and the other kids ran too fast. I told him quitting isn’t an option. That we paid the registration fee, that you have to stick things out. That was for me, right? I didn’t want to be the mom who lets her kid quit everything. I didn’t want to admit I’d picked the wrong thing. We went two more times. The cleats still have the original price tag on the box, sitting in the back of my hall closet. I can’t bring myself to donate them yet. It still feels like admitting I messed up.
After that, he kept bringing home the flyer for the clay club at the rec center. It’s $12 a week, and all they do is make lumpy clay things that you take home and that’s it. I thought, that’s a waste of money. What’s he gonna learn from that that he doesn’t already get from squishing playdough at the kitchen table? But he colored the clay wheel on the flyer blue and left it on my pillow, so I signed him up. First week he came home with a lopsided bowl that leaks if you put anything liquid in it, and it sits on his nightstand holding all his loose Lego heads. Mother’s Day he made me a mug, the handle is lopsided and digs into my palm when I hold it, but I drink my coffee out of it every morning. I wouldn’t trade it for the perfectly shaped store-bought mug I got for Christmas. That’s when I started making up my dumb little cereal box rule.
When I’m stuck trying to decide what’s best, I ask myself one question: who is this decision for? Am I saying no to the sugary cereal because I actually think it’s going to rot his teeth and ruin his health, or am I saying no because I don’t want some other mom to see it in his lunch box and judge me? Am I forcing him to play soccer because it’s good for him, or because I want to post the photo of him in the jersey and look like a put-together mom? It sounds simple, but it’s not. Last month, another mom from his class had a playdate, and she saw he had a pack of fruit snacks in his backpack, and she went, “Oh, we don’t do processed sugar in our house,” right in front of me. I got all flustered, and I said “Oh, it’s just a special treat today,” even though we have fruit snacks once a week after homework. I lied because I wanted her to think I was doing a good job. Half the decisions we make aren’t for our kids, they’re for everyone else’s opinion.
My mom called me last week, heard I let him get sugary cereal sometimes, and she said I’m letting him have too much of his way. That when I was a kid I never got that stuff, that’s how you raise healthy kids. I got defensive, hung up on her a little earlier than I needed to, and then I sat on the couch and thought, she was just doing the same thing I am. She was making decisions based on what she thought was best at the time, based on what everyone told her was right. She thought no sugar was best. I think letting him have the sticker sometimes is best. Neither of us are entirely right, neither of us are entirely wrong.
I did let him get Dino Sugar Crunch last week, actually. He ate two bowls before school, and by 9 o’clock I got a call from the nurse that he’d thrown up in the hallway. I went to pick him up, he was sitting on the nurse’s cot holding his glow-in-the-dark T-Rex sticker, grinning, and said it was still worth it. So that was my bad. I messed up. I let him have two bowls, I didn’t stop him. But he was happy, for a little while, before he got sick. Who’s to say what’s best in that scenario?
This weekend he’s got his first sleepover, at that kid from his class who has the trampoline in the backyard. I’m dying inside. I’ve already overthought it a hundred times. Part of me wants to say no, keep him home where I know he’s safe, where I can check if he’s covered with a blanket in the middle of the night. What if he gets scared? What if he cries and no one calls me? What if he falls off the trampoline and breaks his arm? But he packed his backpack three days ago, he put his favorite stuffed rabbit in there, he’s been talking about eating popcorn and watching a movie nonstop. So I think I’m gonna let him go.
I still don’t know if it’s the right call. I don’t have any big neat answer for how to decide what’s best. Some days I get it right, some days I end up picking up a throw-up-covered kid from school and throwing away a half-eaten box of sugar cereal. That’s just how it goes, I guess. The cereal box rule doesn’t work every time. I’m just here, trying to decide for him, not for me, most of the time. That’s the best I can do right now. (Word count: ~1120)
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