Nature vs. Nurture

Both Mr. Urban and I grew up in a time and a place where access to treats like Napoleons, Ice Cream and Cream Puffs was a way of life. So we have always ~~blamed~~ credited that lifestyle for our sweet tooth and our propensity to gravitate towards unhealthy foods as adults.

But as parents we were determined to create an environment for our child to beat her genetic odds and become a disciplined creature of healthy eating and active lifestyle.

This scientific experiment consisted of feeding the UrbanToddler only the blandest of fruits and vegetables, low fat dairy and meats, and whole grains since she has been on a solid diet. No juices, no deserts, no salt or sugar. We didn't even offer her fruits as an early eater until we knew that she was hooked on the taste of green beans and peas, as to not tempt her palate with the knowledge that sweeter tasting foods do exist in nature.

But as balance is the inevitable way of life, like it or not somewhere along the road our girl found her way to tastings of ice cream, dark chocolate and strawberry smoothies. And no matter how brief these encounters may have been, a sweet tooth has been established none the less.

Case in point was this afternoon when we left the house to run errands. The UrbanToddler started asking for an ice cream at increasingly louder volumes the second we left the drive way, and she didn't stop until we came back home almost two hours later.... "Mommy, I Wanta Ice Cream!!"

I am at least happy that we were successful at teaching her to use her words....

Comments

FORTY THREE YEARS, SEVEN MONTHS AND FORTY DAYS

My life and the life of every Iranian I know, is bookended by the Iranian Revolution of 1979. It doesn't matter that I was barely old enough to remember this historic event or that I spent the decades that followed it, far far away from Iran, the Revolution of 1979 is a heavy, tacky, cruel bookend that defines who we used to be, who we are and the recurring nightmares and dreams we’ve had for 43 years. I can pinpoint with certainty the exact month after which a general feeling of displacement settled like sticky dust all over me, my family, my classroom, my teachers, our closest friends, our home, our city… In the years and decades that followed, I never experienced another event that brought such a magnitude of change to the nucleus of life. Not in Iran, and definitely not after a whole life lived outside of Iran. Perhaps only recently, the experience of the Trump years and the Covid-19 pandemic, the significant fear, change and frustration that both events brought to our col

On Donald Trump, Crunchy Bananas and our Children... A "How To" on keeping up Spirits and Sanity

The other morning at breakfast, my four year old looked, yet again somberly, at the breakfast before her. Despite having enthusiastically selected a hodgepodge of liberally salted hard boiled egg whites on the side of toasted hamburger buns, strawberries and vanilla yogurt and a cup of milk, she still could not bring herself to enjoy her breakfast. Her face was wrinkled, as was mine with exasperation from yet another failed attempt at assembling a palatable breakfast for my picky eater. This one, she is quite the philosopher. And before I could ask her why she wasn't eating, she said: "Two Things!" Holding up two tiny fingers. "The smells of these foods I picked, don't go with each other! And I wish Donald Trump would magically become Hillary Clinton, and the word (world) would be GREAT again". Despite our best efforts to protect our children from the anxiety of these times, they are alert and picking up on the mood (and the lingo) in the wor

Safa

I have always loved words. The way some people love shiny new objects. As soon as I heard a new word, a word that captured my imagination, my energy, my hundreds of unnamed inner thoughts and feelings, I would latch on to it with fearceness, joy and curiosity. I have also always been intrigued by how regular old words can be used in an unexpected context and evoke bursts of unexpected feelings in the listener, such as laughter, anticipation or tears. I would search for those words coming out of the mouths of everyone around me, and mentally catalog them like a dutiful librarian, and await the opportunity to say the words with my own mouth out loud to an audience, or better yet use it in an essay where the teacher could grade it, get a kick out of it, or read it to the whole class. As a child I always loved the Persian word Safa . For one thing the word sounds so simple, yet sophisticated and beautiful, and for another, each of my memories of hearing this word is stored in th

An Urban Girl

Search This Blog