Are your kids always fishing for food?

There’s nothing like being validated, is there? Especially, I have to say, by the New York Times.

Just yesterday, a friend of mine sent me a link to a story in the Times about — wait for it — how kids today snack too much.

Yeah, been there, said that.

The writer, Jennifer Steinhauer, herself a parent, laments how kids can never go anywhere or do anything without snacks being involved. And it’s not just the pretzels, Goldfish and juice boxes moms stash in our bags (just in case of low blood sugar and/or a meltdown) while we’re out and about with kids. It’s also the amount of times we’re asked, as moms, to provide snack for this or that activity or event or meeting.

I fully understand the point of some snacks, as I wrote months ago, when this blog was still new. I get that toddler tummies are tiny, and it’s hard for little ones to manage the long stretch between breakfast and lunch, or lunch and dinner, without a tiding-over. I get that snacks can strategically fill in nutritional gaps (didn’t finish his breakfast milk? A 10 a.m. cheese stick or yogurt is a good calcium-and-vitamin-D boost).

What I don’t get, and never will, is the idea that kids of all ages need food to accompany just about anything they do. Let’s stop calling snacks anything virtuous (the tummy-tider-over; the nutritional gap-filler), and be honest: we use snacks as an event in themselves; a boredom-buster; a tantrum-avoider (hence, as my friend Gretchen told me, the growing number of parents who bring snacks church–as though you can’t ask a 5-year-old to go foodless for an hour. In church).

Snacks are a crutch.

You can’t go a soccer game without a snack. Sure, they play hard, so the orange slices and water bottles at half-time are good. But the Munchkins after? Apparently, my friend Susan told me, you can’t go to a Brownie or Girl Scout meeting without a little somethin’-somethin’ either (I have boys; hence, no Brownies, and I haven’t broached the world of Cub scouting yet). Says Susan, a 7:30 pm Brownie meeting for a bunch of first-graders must be aided and abetted by donuts and cookies. Really? Didn’t they just have dinner? Don’t they have to go to bed, like, soon? You can’t go to a Mommy & Me class without food. My younger son James was in a gymnastics class a couple of years ago, and he was the only one who left after the hour of tumbling and balancing; everyone else had signed up for a second hour of crafts. And … a snack.

I am quick to add here, my kids do get snacks. Of course they get them at school because frankly I think I’d be hauled up in front of a very disapproving PTA if I didn’t send in my second-grader and kindergartner with their daily snacks (along with lunch). I agree with that, and I’m a big fan of our principal, who frowns on junky snacks, and both my sons’ teachers this year, who have stressed that the kids should bring in water, not juice, for snack (probably more to avoid sticky spills on desks than for health, but I’ll take it!).  I have bought vending-machine fare for the boys as a treat (though I steer them to pretzels and popcorn, and away from candy bars and Pop-Tarts, and I often require them to hang on to the goodies until after dinner. They comply).

How do you feel about the ubiquitous culture of snacks? Not about the necessary, between-meals, nutritious snacks, but the “here, kid, have a dollar for the vending machine because I can’t bear to hear you whining any more” snacks? Can your kids get together with an organized group without sniffing around for juice and cookies?

Let me say this right upfront: I love snacks. I love chips, both potato and chocolate. I love little, picky things, finger food, cheese and crackers, nuts, trail mix… I love the good kind of snacks (baked pita chips dipped in hummus) and the bad kind (day-glo cheez doodles that turn your fingers orange).

But. I have come to believe that, for this generation of kids, snacking has become a sort of religion. There’s a belief in snacks, a cult of snacks and snacking. Many parents simply do not leave the house without arming themselves with snacks. You’d think when we venture out of our front doors, none of us has a clear idea of when we might return for a nourishing meal, or whether we might, in our travels, pass a place where foodstuffs might be readily available. (It’s not 40 years wandering in the desert, folks, it’s a playdate and a couple of errands in town!).

When I first became a parent, I didn’t pack snacks. First, of course, because I was breastfeeding my son; lucky me, I didn’t even have to bother packing bottles. But when he started eating food, and I was going to be out of the house for a while, I packed what might be necessary for his meals. And yes, I did include A Snack in his daily mealtime schedule, but A Snack is different from snacks. A Snack is a scheduled pause for a bit of food to tide tiny tummies over in the long stretch between, say, lunch and dinner. Thinking it’s snack time? Ask yourself these questions:

• Is the snack filling a gap? If Junior didn’t have the strawberries you gave him with his breakfast waffle, then fruit or 100% fruit juice is an ideal snack an hour or two later–sneaks in the nutrition he missed earlier.
• Is the snack timed well? Ideally, space snacks 2 or so hours before the next meal. A 10 am nosh? Great. A hearty snack 15 minutes before lunch? Not so much.
• Is the snack to satisfy hunger? See above. Kids do need snacks to keep energy up and spread nutrition throughout the day. They don’t need them to stave off boredom or round out a playdate or as rewards, except in moderation (think: a lollipop after that shot at the doctor’s office!).

So that’s A Snack. But generic, unspecific snacks are non-scheduled, often bribe-related, habits. In the car? Have a snack! At the library? Snack time! Need to spin through Target or the mall for a birthday gift? Better bring a snack because he might get hungry.

Really?

My first encounter with the Cult of Snacking came shortly after my second son was born. At home with a three-week-old and a 2-year-old was grating on me, so I took both boys  to the local Barnes and Noble. I figured I’d let Daniel tool around in the kids’ section (they have a great Thomas the Tank Engine table there), and then I’d buy a magazine and head home before the baby needed nursing again. When we arrived, an employee informed me that story time was about to begin. Story time! Sure, we’ll go.

I steered the stroller over, and sat Daniel down to listen. And just as the reader opened her first book, half the kids in the audience cracked open lunch boxes and snack containers and juice boxes. That was the end of that — my boy became far more mesmerized by his neighbor’s goldfish and fruit snacks than he was by the story. Then the baby woke up, pooped, and cried, so that was the end of story time for us.

Since then I’ve fought the battle of the snacks. I pack three snacks a day, along with lunch (one for Daniel in first grade, and TWO for James in pre-K). Why two? He has a morning snack, then lunch, and he’s home by 3:30. Can’t he wait? The answer is that yes, of course he can, but it’s part of the ritual.

Perhaps I’m spoiled by having boys who, for the most part and within certain picky parameters, eat their meals (and so probably have less need, as they grow, for quite so many snacks to “fill in” their diet). I do know that plenty of moms complain that their kids don’t eat their dinner. Um, could it be because they had a juice box and a bowl of pretzels and goldfish at 4pm? Just a thought!

What’s your snack stance?