Loco Parentis: Living Large

My son, Jake, has finished supper. He carries his plate to the sink, gets a bowl from the cupboard, finds the ice-cream scoop in the silverware drawer, and takes a brand-new half-gallon of Rocky Road from the freezer. Humming to himself, he pries open the lid, applies the scoop, and drops a huge mound of ice cream in his bowl. He repeats the process once, then twice. Then he returns the ice cream to the freezer, opens the fridge, gets out a canister of whipped cream, and squirts hefty snowcaps onto his Rocky Road mountain range.

He sees me looking. “What?” he demands.

“Nothing,” I say, but he hears the disapproval.

“Is it too much?”

“A serving’s half a cup.”

“Do you want me to put some back?”

“You can’t put it back now. It’s covered in whipped cream.”

“Why don’t I just throw it out?” he says fiercely, moving toward the trash. But he stops before he dumps it in. He knows this dance.

“Never mind,” I say. “Go ahead and eat it. But next time, remember: half a cup.”

“Right,” he says, and heads out into the living room, to his computer desk. He’s humming again.

Food makes my son happy, on what seems to be a cellular level. Tacos, spaghetti and meatballs, stuffed peppers — these are his favorite things. Macaroni and cheese is his Xanax, General Tso’s chicken his ecstasy. On the downside …

“Is that eggplant?” he’ll demand, staring into the wok as I stir-fry veggies.

“A small eggplant. A tiny eggplant. And the pieces are big, so you can pick them out.”

“I hate eggplant.” He’s in a funk for the rest of the night. And I can’t say I blame him. When it comes to food, my son takes after me. Our tastes are simple. But our appetites are vast.


AN HORS D’OEUVRE: I had normal-size parents, and my three siblings are normal-size. Me, I’m plus. Except for a few brief stretches like the run-up to my wedding, I always have been. This was a source of great consternation to my mom and dad, who shamed, cajoled and bribed me well into adulthood to lose weight. I swore to myself that when I had kids, I’d never, ever say anything to them about their size. I didn’t want food to be a battleground. I wanted it to be sustenance.

And this was fairly easy, in the beginning. After all, with babies, you want them to eat. To a new parent, size equals strength. Infants need cushioning, in case your suburb’s struck by cholera or plague. But by the time Jake’s older sister Marcy got to middle school, I was starting to worry. She was big like me; there wasn’t any denying it. Fortunately — unfortunately — society was on her like a leech to get skinny, so I didn’t have to say a word. By 10th grade, she was Kate Moss-thin. I was impressed by her self-control — until her hair began to fall out in clumps. With the help of a therapist, she conquered her eating disorder. But now I was totally confused on what messages to send my kids about food. Of course I wanted Marcy healthy — but damn, she sure had looked good when she was thin. Except for the hair.

And then Jake got big.