Parenting a Child with a Food Allergy

« Easter eggs and tradition | Main | Some good food allergy advice »

March 11, 2008

Braces and food allergies

Who knew that being the parent of a child with braces and being the parent of a child with food allergies would arouse the same feelings? I was doing some shopping for Easter candy the other day, and as always, I was diligently reading the ingredient lists. Then I picked up some jelly beans. Being familiar with so many different jelly bean brands comes with years of experience! So I knew right away many bags would carry the label "may contain traces of nuts, eggs, etc."

Then an odd train of thoughts popped into my head: hey, if I buy jelly beans than my daughter with braces won't be able to eat them, and she'll feel bad because she usually likes them, and this will cause negative feelings not only on Easter morning, but every time thereafter that my other kids want to eat something from their Easter baskets.

Hmmm, there was something strangely familiar with this thought process. Except this was the first time it didn't fall under the big umbrella of food allergies, even though this particular daughter has food allergies. I guess it must pull at the parenting strings of "try to make every child feel as though they are the most important." I weighed it out in my mind: how bad the child with braces will feel if the others get jelly beans vs. how bad the others will feel if they don't get any jellybeans. I decided everybody would be just as happy with nut free chocolate.

So this Easter, we asked the Easter Bunny to skip the jelly beans. I'm hoping my other kids won't miss them too much. And I know that my dentist would be giving me the big thumbs up if he heard of my decision.

Posted by Ann Marie at March 11, 2008 8:15 AM

Comments

Post a comment