I am not a parent. I’m not even close.
I have two nephews and a niece who act like they adore me, but I think all parties involved are grateful they go home with my sister at the end of the day.
My mom took on most of the responsibilities associated with caring for our dearly departed red tabby. I gave up on the poor cat after he refused my adolescent attempts to train him to sit on command (I’m telling you, it can be done).
Many a houseplant has met a dismal fate in my incapable hands.
So no, I have absolutely no right to comment on parenting or caretaking in any way, shape, or form.
But that’s exactly why I’m so uncomfortable by the somewhat recent trend of parents profiting off the details of their “unique” child-rearing techniques. I don’t feel that it’s any of my business how a person chooses to raise his or her kid, but I feel compelled to form an opinion when parenting styles are transcribed, published, packaged, and sold for my reading pleasure at the local Barnes and Noble (R.I.P. Borders, you’ll be missed).
Plenty of bloggers, including the wonderful writer (and actual parent), Mary Elizabeth Williams have already articulated this issue more eloquently than I ever could. But I still feel obligated to address the hoopla surrounding Vogue contributer-turned-author Dara-Lynn Weiss.
For those who haven’t heard, Ms. Weiss penned a polarizing article in April’s Vogue titled, “Weight Watchers,” in which she recapped an “exhausting” year trying desperately to slim down her seven-year-old daughter who had “grown fat.”
The faint grinding sound you heard while reading that sentence was merely the crunch of my teeth destroying one another while my jaw attempted to restrain an emotional outburst.
See how well I held back judgment?
I’m all for TMI-laden personal essays, and I applaud anyone with enough guts to unabashedly chronicle all aspects of life, regardless of how unflattering the result may be. But now Weiss is spinning her one-off article into a book tentatively titled, The Heavy (I will emerge toothless but impressively stoic by the time I’m done writing this).
While it’s likely to be more of a memoir and less of a parenting how-to guide (though anything is possible in this cash-motivated, Kardashian-level-crazy era of self-promotion and media insanity), it still doesn’t sit well with me. I just don’t think I, or anyone else for that matter, should have the ability to buy the hard-covered details of how and why this mother instituted diet rules for her seven-year-old. The availability of the information for purchase makes me think I’m free to judge it (and I so badly want to), but I don’t believe I have the right, nor should I. I don’t know what’s best for Weiss’s daughter, and I don’t have a daughter of my own, so who am I to criticize?
I know what I think about encouraging and enforcing diet behaviors in children, and I know what I think about shaming kids because of their size. And I’m well aware of my opinions about the potential impact of parental influence in the development of eating disorders and distorted body image. But I don’t think it’s right to direct those thoughts at Weiss because I don’t know her, and I don’t know what it’s like to be a parent.
But whether it’s Weiss discussing diets, or Amy Chua praising the power of Tiger Moms, or Karen Le Billon telling us French Kids Eat Everything and so do hers, and so should yours, I can’t help but cringe thinking about the intended targets of these very profitable parenting styles. I don’t like the idea that these children are the subjects of such public scrutiny, and it irks me that they have no say in the matter.
So while I should really keep my already painfully clenched jaw shut on the matter of parenting, I can’t keep quiet about writers exploiting their kids’ struggles for cash. If that’s all I can look forward to on the non-fiction shelves, I’m heading back to the young adult section. Take me away, Katniss Everdeen!
My mother put me on the atkin’s diet when I was 10. She kept me on it until I was a junior in high school. Every problem I had was because of my weight. She legitimately acted like all I had to do to be popular or get boys to like me or be happy would be to just stop stuffing my face. And she used to (probably still does) brag about the great job she was doing with me, checking my weight every week, screaming at me if I wanted more than 2 tbsp of peanut butter on my celery, dragging me to the gym where she would watch me like a hawk while I exercised, even getting me a personal trainer at 12. She wouldn’t even let me have fruit because they have natural sugar, which still counts as carbs. It was years before I could eat around people again after quitting her diet and moving out. I’m a vegetarian now and I eat fruit every day. I still can’t exercise without crying, though. I’m still overweight, but I feel good and my doctor says I’m healthy. She and I don’t speak much anymore.
I’m a mom and to keep it short and simple, if her kid has “grown fat” its a direct result as her inability too parent. I was the fat kid growing up, people made fun of me or didnt like me because of it, because lets face it, kids are cruel. But I decided to change myself for the better and when my daughter was born, knowing how terrible it was for me, I never wanted her to go through what I had. So I made sure that everything I provided for her was nutritious and healthy and made it point to do activities like hiking and playing on a regular basis. I work full time and I am an artist and I still made time and my daughter is perfectly healthy. The parents that kids end up unhealthy and obese are the ones that parents are obese themselves and don’t want to change or they don’t make enough time for there children to teach them how to take care of themselves. Our kids are a direct reflection of our parenting.
It is a fine line but all the data suggests that not enough is being done on the parental level. Childhood obesity rates have been rising for many years and are now considered to be epidemic. I do understand the nature of anorexia and other non-eating disorders but all of that pales when compared with the national emergy are now facing with obesity. The system will simply buckle under the weight(pun intended) if people keep refusing to take their own health seriously. And, in my opinion, there are no healthy obese people regardless of what some would have you to think.
I think there is a big difference between “obese” and fat”. The first one may imply that there is a health problem, but the later is just aesthetics. While I agree that, if you have a son or daughter thats having a weight problem, and that it may lead to adult obesity, you should take some measures about it, I dont think you should put your kid in front of the media and embarass him/her with the name “The heavy”. That just seems wrong and traumatic, and no one should be judge because of his/her weight (and thats exactly what this woman is doing by making this public, exposing her kid to be judged, mocked or worst).
I agree with the fact that people should take care of their health, set a good example for their kids and teach them good eating habits. However, that should be a way of life, not a measure taken when you think a 7 year old kid is “fat”.
I can’t really judge the situation at hand but the overall profiting off kids makes me kind of ill. Teen Moms, Dance Moms, Toddlers in Tiaras… the list goes on and on. I wish the plug would be pulled on all of these shows and I wish people would stop watching these shows. But those wishes will never happen so I try to keep them out of my world.
On the matter of children and weight… I think (if I were to ever read it) I would have to question the motives. How much did the child weight? Was she a healthy or unhealthy weight? What do we consider “fat”? Some people consider people to be fat if they’re anywhere near a size 12 (which means I’ve been fat since I stopped getting taller and I’m a pretty healthy weight for my height of 5’10″). How was the situation approached? I was a fat kid growing up.
I was miserable. I made very poor eating decisions until I was educated enough to make better ones. (Not saying I’m perfect now… I went through a bought of having to lose 60 lbs in my 20s for going back to bad decisions.) I don’t want my girls going through that feeling. But I make sure to try and encourage good eating decisions and educate them on why we need to make good decisions. I try not to say “because you’ll get fat”. I tell them “because we want healthy bodies, to have more energy, to think sharper” and stress the benefits of taking care of ourselves. I thought I was fat all through high school because I had curves and looking back at pictures, I was skinny as all get out.
It’s a fine line of teaching girls to love themselves as they are but encourage them to make healthy decisions as well. And kudos to the moms and dads who care enough to help educate their children on good choices and encourage them to stay active. (You know, in a responsible and non-crazy manner)
I do think one has to make a difference between “trying to educate your kids in a good way” and ” trying diets for a kid who was said to have “grown fat”". In the first case, i can genuinely understand the sharing of maybe better techniques or learning from a different point of view, it is , at the end about being open minded and choosing what works for you and your kids. The second case, well , call me judgmental but REALLY .. REALLY? a kid can be overweight without being unhealthy ( and for a lot of kids the baby fat does disappear during their teen period) but just imagine the trauma to have a mom checking your food, being on your back, and simply think you’re fat. I just can imagine all the psycho and sociological consequences on the kids. Shameful.
Plus, really, it’s hard to say HOW she did it. And given the fact that I haven’t read the book. Or the blog. But if she was just following the plan for her daughter without her daughter actively knowing that it was happening, I don’t see a problem with that. If the child needed to lose weight (for health reasons, not superficial ones) WW promotes a healthy way to do so. I think if the mom was just doing it on behalf of her daughter with her daughter’s best interest in mind and her daughter didn’t even know it was happening? Then kudos to her for making healthy choices for her child.
That being said, if the daughter WAS aware of it and was told that she had to lose weight or that she was overweight or was in any way exposed to the fact that her mom was trying to get her to lose weight, all bets are off and it’s horrible. That’s just my two cents.
It has become a fact that everything that is marketable will be marketed. That genie is out of the bottle and it isn’t going back in. In the case of the woman with a fat daughter. You may not agree with what she did but I do. Since I’m not completely familiar with this instance I may come to have reservations with that opinion with more knowledge but, generally, it’s my opinion that more bad comes out of children growing up fat and unhealthy than could come out of their parents guiding them through the rough territory of staying in shape. Kids like to eat crap and if they eat enough of it it will reduce their life quality. The parents will have to make a lot of effort if this is to be thwarted in the most problematic children. It isn’t easy but it’s worth the struggle. Childhood obesity , which eventually becomes adult obesity, is the number one greatest physical and mental challenge that our medical system faces. However, deriving profit from the noble goal of keeping ones’ children healthy does seem a little cheesy.
Even teen mom, these teens are getting bank to talk about their “struggles” as young parents. Its making having kids before even becoming a legal adult look super trendy. Its sad.
On one hand I agree, on the other, I found books like Dr. Sear’s “the baby book” and the “sleep book” SUPER helpful to address concerns I had with my children. I had already decided who I wanted to be as a parent, these just helped out with questions/concerns all parents have. Especially since no one I knew parented even close to me, and their advice was always contradicting what I felt was right..
but there’s a fine balance, I think.
Shanna, I don’t think the books that you used could really be in the same caliber, though. Informative books on childcare (like you seem to have used) can be very helpful, but literally writing a book about your child’s struggle with weight and how you handled it… Well, that’s just messed up.
If a child is overweight, it can be (but of course isn’t always) damaging to their health, and sometimes a diet adjustment is beneficial. So that’s fine as long as it’s done in a physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy way… But it seems that the woman Michelle is talking about actually wrote a book about her daughter’s -personal- struggle, and the title alone is awful! ‘The Heavy’… This poor little girl is going to grow up as the child who is the subject of ‘The Heavy’. That’s disgusting =(
Also, Octomom, the Duggars, Jon & Kate Plus 8, and Sister Wives, or any other show on TV in which people profit or gain celebrity from their parenting styles. It really upsets me even though I am not a mom, or even close to being one. But, raising a family should not be a spectacle. It’s completely bizarre.
I am a Mother, baby number five will be born in the next five weeks. Its a shame that these women exploit their children to profit. I admit to jokingly commenting that I should get paid to do my job as a stay at home Mom. But, how would they measure my worth? The truth is, no one but your own children can assign a value to your specific parenting skills. We all have to wait and see how our children describe us to our grandchildren to value our own successes. Until then these “profiting parents” are blowing smoke out of their own tushies!