Footsie Pajamas

Throughout evolutionary history, to a first approximation, everybody was seriously starving. Potiphar may have had access to seven silos of grain, but your average John Q. Egyptian didn’t feel completely comfortable about where his next meal was coming from–what with Ray Kroc some five thousand years off.

In the generations before the cultivation of what would lead to Tony the Tiger’s euphoria, nobody knew what was for dinner of more to the point IF there was going to be any dinner. “Catch as catch can” was the order of the day with the emphasis on catch. Think foraging. Think finding. Tubars? Yum! Roots? Goodie! Wild grains? Yippie! Surf and turf in your grocer’s freezer? Sorry, Lucy. Not happening

Australopithecus afarensis, “Lucy,” 3 million + years ago

So here’s what happened in the last 70 million years of mammalian evolution. There was an adaptive advantage for critters whose cells could store fat. The longer your mimaw could survive without dining, the more likely she was to survive long enough to pass along her genes to the generations that led to you, dear reader. Simply stated, cells that stored fat were good.

That’s why it’s so darn hard to lose weight. Your cells know what they’re doing even if you don’t want them to.

Which leads us to our current problem. The issues isn’t that we can’t fit into our designer jeans. The problem is that diabetes and heart attacks are not fashion statements. Nobody in your neighborhood is starving to death on the savannah, their bodies turning to carrion meriting a stern letter from the condominium board. Too many calories cause problems. We haven’t adapted to the new rules. I would write more about this but I desperately need to get another dish of ice cream.

Until recent generations, excess of STUFF was as unlikely as a surfeit of comestibles. My understanding is that in generations past, kids got presents on their birthdays and religious holidays. Nobody except the absurdly wealthy had extra somoleans for excessive extras. Sure there was the spoiled kid whose father owned the general store, but even her gifts were useful–calico dresses, hairbrushes, maybe a book now and again. Candy was once in awhile at most. Fried chicken wrapped in pepperoni with mayonnaise wasn’t on the menu any more than daily trips to Dandy Bear.

Or as Hal says in King Henry IV, “If all the year were playing holidays; To play would be as tedious as to work.”

So when my daughter asks me if she can accept her friend’s offer of a ride in a limousine, do I tell her that she will enjoy the accouterments of elaborate conveyance more if she waits until she gets out of the SECOND GRADE? Seriously, the conversation went like this:

Second Grade Daughter: Can I go to Susie’s birthday party today after school?

Me: Sure, I don’t see why not.

Second Grade Daughter: The limo will be here at 3:00.

Me: Incoherent sputtering followed by resolve to be especially sensitive to clients whose children are also under attack from an absurd culture whose motto seems to be “Foreplay later.”

Having survived the childhoods of four kiddos down the hall here, I’m still not exactly sure what seven-year-olds need, but I will make some guesses. Children don’t need limo rides before they are old enough to get married any more than they need chocolate bars six times a day to the exclusion of all semblance of nutrition. Children don’t need video games, drugs, lottery tickets, junkets to Las Vegas, or bourgeois decadent excesses that would shame Imelda Marcos. I might even go so far as to suggest that your children desperately do not need a television in their room, but I don’t want any of my gentle readers to unsubscribe from these weekly musings having decided that the author is a Luddite.

What kids do need is in short supply. Kids through adolescence and beyond need no agenda time with parents, sitting on opposite ends of the couch, feet touching, reading books. It will be easier to effect said sublime situation if indeed there are no video games, televisions, drugs, or limousines in other rooms of the house. Footsie pajamas are optional but encouraged. I also recommend walking the family dog with your kid, but that’s enough advice for one newsletter. To summarize: no limos in the bedrooms.

Your kids are no longer starving for calories. Why would loving parents insist of giving them too much of what they don’t need at all?