Oh the Irony

Whew- this has been a long break from writing.  I had the time in the fall to add some new posts, but didn't really have a topic in mind- although I easily could have come up with something!  I was contacted by a recruiter in December about a short term contract and long story short- I was working very full time for several months this spring.  Ideas were flowing, but finding the time to write was near impossible!  The contract went very well and has ended for the most part.  I'm spending large amounts of time searching for a new contract or FT position.  I'm also hoping to pen a few posts before I dig into my next gig!

I find that I have interesting parenting encounters nearly every day.  Most aren't given a second thought (who really has time to think twice, really!), but occasionally one strikes me as curious and I find myself reflecting on the topic.  I happened to have one of those encounters today.  A college friend of mine posted on facebook that her 8 month old had a stomach bug and then said that her child doesn't like pedialite and asked for suggestions.  I immediately suggested breastmilk because it quite honestly is going to be the most natural option to help a little one stay hydrated and fight off the bug.  I was surprised (probably shouldn't have been) that I was the only person out of 10 or so different posters who suggested it.  All of the others suggested beverages that were man made (with the exception of water- which ironically was only mentioned once).  I was a breastfed child and had zero intention of doing anything but breastfeed our son.  I try to remember that not everyone chooses to breastfeed or breastfeed for an extended period of time and really try to be respectful of that choice.

Here is where the rub came in for me.  This person regularly posts and very openly discusses how she eats clean and chooses to avoid many chemicals, etc that unfortunately are in processed foods.  Wonderful- we do some of the same- although not nearly as strictly as she does.  The irony to me was the conversation that ensued- she even said that she tried one of the flavored versions of pedialite even though she doesn't like things with artificial flavoring and dyes.  I'm thinking- put the boob in her mouth!  You can't get more natural than that!  My hunch is that she either didn't breastfeed or gave it up long ago and I knew it wasn't the time or place to think about bringing up this fact, but it still struck me as terribly ironic.  For the record- we use pedialite, too.  We also aren't very strict about many things related to our diet or our son's diet. I try really hard to keep our diet cleaner, but we have not completely removed anything in particular from our diet.

This is one of the many instances of the irony of parenting that I seem to encounter.  I get it- there are parenting choices that we all make for different reasons that probably will only make sense to us, but I often find food choices very interesting and in my experience, the irony always comes from the financially privileged white folks who "eat clean" and are very public about their "clean eating".  Instances like this one remind me that sometimes it is easiest to maintain and everything in moderation philosophy survivalist because it diminishes the possibility that our choices could be called ironic.