Marketing vs. Parenting

I posted this picture recently on Facebook along with my disgust that chocolate cookies for babies existed.  One of my friends made a good point in that she wasn't a saint when it came to what her kids ate, but the MARKETING of this product makes it appear we are being better parents than we really are.  I may have been a bit unclear about my opinions as well.  The MARKETING of this product is EXACTLY where my issues lie. 

How would you feel if you saw a mother handing her barely 12 month old an oreo cookie??  You'd probably think she was nuts.  Is this REALLY much better?  We are bombarded with images and messages telling us NOT ONLY what to feed our children, but how to parent them (along with all the labels of different parenting styles), what to dress them in, where to send them to school, what to read to them, and the list goes on and on.  And along with all these well intended messages are also the JUDGEMENTS.  Again, I have issue with the judgement of using such advice, not in the giving of it.

Kiefer's first food was either pizza crust or french fry.  I'm not exactly sure which one.  CLEARLY, I am no saint when it comes to the nutritional needs of my children either.  But when I handed over a pizza crust or hot yummy from McDonalds I was under NO pretense that it was somehow good for him.  I knew exactly what I was doing.  It was pizza.  It was a deep fried fat filled french fry.  It wasn't neatly packaged up with a guideline of age limitations and cartoon characters gracing it's cover to make me think that somehow I might be doing some good.

Give your kids chocolate.  Let them get it all over their face.  Let them love it!  Take pictures.  But be under NO false assumptions that what you are doing is nutrionally good for your children.  The 'good' is in the fun you are showing them.  And the LOVE you are giving them.  Not in the commercially packaged treat. 

END RANT. 

:P