So, M&S in St John is the pizza shop, the Co-op at Sion is the chocolate shop and Boots is the dummy shop.
Sounds cute, right? Well, it is until we arrive at one of the said shops and he shouts, non-stop, for pizza, or chocolate or dummies, while judgmental (in my paranoid mind at least) shoppers smile and then hurry away as fast as they can.
Why can’t he scream for hummus, or quinoa, or three-bean salad or something as equally middle class – we’ve bought them before too, I promise.
Even the odd ‘Carrots, please’ would do.
But, in the head of the everyday mum obsessed with what her child eats, or even more with what people think he eats (that’s most mums, if we are really honest with ourselves) he may as well be demanding a McDonald’s Happy Meal or a pasty from Greggs.
New research out this week from organic baby food brand Piccolo says that more than half of British parents confess to caving in and offering unhealthy food in order to make their children eat. And 30 per cent of parents leave vegetables out of their children’s diets for fear they won’t like them.
I’m guilty of both of these things. A few weeks ago Archie ate only Mini Cheddars and chocolate buttons for a whole day when he went off his food and I gave up offering him broccoli months ago.
The company says that the survey comes at a time when the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have publicised that 22 per cent of reception-age children are now overweight or obese, and 40 per cent of children in England’s most deprived areas were overweight or obese in the last year.
In a press release accompanying its research the company says: ‘Clearly the question needs to be asked – are we bringing up a nation of children who are destined to have negative relationships with food?’
Dr Rana Conway, an independent nutritionist and author of Weaning Made Easy, then says: ‘It’s never too late to get little ones hooked on healthy colourful fruit and veg. It can be tempting to offer fussy eaters less healthy foods or extra milk but these just make them too full for the good stuff. There are so many wonderful veggies and other healthy foods available – I’d encourage parents to try lots of different ones and to keep on trying!’
Yes Rana and co, just what every parent already stressed out about bringing up a perfect little human (whether they show the stress outwardly or not) needs is another patronising ‘authority’ telling them what to do.
Feelings of guilt come with the parenthood territory, whether it is about how much time you are spending with them or whether you are playing with them enough, reading to them enough, buying them enough or too little – and so the list goes on.
Waking up in the middle of the night with that guilty sick feeling in your stomach because of something you did or didn’t do that day, last week or because you once didn’t take antenatal vitamins when you didn’t even know you were pregnant is par for the course for many parents, mums and dads.
What we do not need is more pressure from the likes of Dr Conway and her crew.
Yes, parents have a duty to bring children up with a healthy diet, and kids should be taught about sensible food choices. Local charity Caring Cooks is a good example of an organisation working towards such an aim.
But as Hollywood legend Joan Collins (83) said recently while blasting the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and co for their weird fad diets that so often make the headlines, true health starts with balance.
And children brought up to think otherwise, including those banned from eating ‘unhealthy’ foods or with parents obsessed about what they are or are not eating, are more likely to have an unhealthy relationship with food when they grow up.
So here I am, just a normal mum bringing up an extraordinary little boy (because all our kids are) putting it out there that actually I won’t be bullied into overthinking what my child does and does not eat.
Some days I’ll serve him a homemade dinner lovingly prepared from scratch – it may even be organic.
Some days he will eat a readymade pizza from The Pizza Shop.
But some days only crisps and chocolate, from The Chocolate Shop of course, will do.
And yes, I will beat myself up about it from time to time, but that’s my prerogative, no one else’s.
