The View From Here: Guest Posting at I'm Dancing in the Rain Finding Joy on an Unpaved Road

Today, I'm guest blogging at I'm Dancing in the Rain (formerly Just Jennifer). Jennifer has a moving new series called The View From Here, which hosts a new blogger each Thursday. Bloggers share their perspective in their own voice from where they are in their journey.

Finding Joy on an Unpaved Road

(click the title to access my guest post)

Today, I open up about my experience as a mother of a child with Lyme Disease, while I myself am struggling with Lyme Disease and several other autoimmune disorders. I hope you will visit Jennifer's blog and share your thoughts with me. I know that I am not alone in this struggle, that many other moms have children with chronic illness and other special needs while struggling in their own ways to survive. I am sharing this piece of myself in the hopes that you will know that you are not alone, that you can share your story too, and that there is healing and hope and even happiness even in the midst of the struggle.

Click here to access my post.

Happy Hallowe'en: Don't be mad. It's just cute fruit!

I read a blog post this morning that inspired me to write this one. The author, a guest poster on Scary Mommy's blog named Marnie, claims to be "Taking Back Halloween" from "curmudgeons" who, according to her, want to ruin her holidays.  Do you know how these "hate mongers" do it? By providing Hallowe'en themed fruit and TREAT-sized treats. GASP!!! The horror of it!

I mean, just look at these clementine pumpkins and banana ghosts! What sick twisted child-hating parent would force these on your child?

I am so totally making these! 

Find lots of other fun & healthy 

Hallowe'en treat ideas at 

Spaceships and Laserbeams.

Good Lord, what's next? Diet candy??? Actually, these lollipops made with Xylitol are really good, and suitable for diabetics. 

The author is fed up, it seems, by articles that suggest healthier or diet-based holidays. She's so fed up that she and her kids are not only going to eat processed candy at Hallowe'en, they're going to gorge themselves on it. And she's taking her kids to "where the rich people live", because this apparently means they will get "the whole effing candy bar". She's also going to egg the houses that give them "some sort of homemade shit or raisins". 

Alright, Marnie might be exaggerating for comedic effect - surely she's not really so ungrateful a person that she would vandalize the house of someone who spent time and money on a treat that they thought she and her kids would enjoy. Marnie just wants what she wants. Fair enough.

I want what I want to, and at the root of it all Marnie and I probably want the same basic thing. We want our kids to be happy. She believes that super sized candy bars will make her kids happy. Me? I want my kid to have fun on Hallowe'en too. I want him to have 'treats'. But I also want him to live a long, healthy, disease-free, pain-free life, and that means no super sized candy bars for him.

You know what's possibly worse than having to put up with people who make fancy Hallowe'en decorations out of fruit? It's having a child who can't eat anything else.

I hope that people don't assume that if I bring clementine pumpkins to my son's Hallowe'en celebration at school (which the kids would LOVE), it's because I want to dictate what other people should be eating or because I think anyone needs to go on a diet. I do these things so that my child can not only participate in the fun, but feel like he contributed - so that he can feel normal.

If you have any kind of allergy or diet restriction, you know what it's like to look down a buffet table and see that the only thing that is safe to eat is a vegetable or piece of fruit. I'm a grown up. I can deal with that sort of thing.

Now imagine you're a six-year-old boy and you have to watch every other kid eat whatever they want from that table. Sad, right? I think so too, so I make up for that any way I can, and that might just mean making ridiculously cute pumpkins and ghosts out of bananas and clementines.

What will I hand out at my house on Hallowe'en? Probably the same things I have handed out for years: bags of chips, lollipops and chocolate bars. Standard, treat-sized treats. We are not "rich people" and even if we were, I wouldn't feel the need to give out huge bars of candy just to win some other mom's approval. I have seen the articles suggesting handing out healthier Hallowe'en treats, and I've considered it, but for now I'm giving the people what they seem to want, in treat-sized portions.

And what about my son? Even if you don't have anyone in your family with diet restrictions of any kind, you can probably imagine what trick-or-treating can be like for a kid with multiple allergies. My son can not have gluten, dairy or sugar. Sugar! Can you imagine a Hallowe'en without it? Well, I can. I have to, because I want the same thing Jill wants. I want my child to be happy.

We could choose not to participate, of course, but, at least for now, he enjoys dressing up and going door to door. He collects candy, brings it home and I trade him for it (and donate the candy to someone who will love it). He can choose coins, safe treats (like those Xylitol pops I mentioned earlier), a mystery (dollar store) 'prize' from a Hallowe'en themed canvas bag, and so on. This way, the whole experience is fun for him.

All I ask is a little tolerance and understanding. Not everyone who offers a healthy Hallowe'en treat is out to ruin another kid's holiday. I think it's safe to say that almost no one is concerned with ruining anyone else's holiday. Most of us have the best of intentions and if I have a wish it is that people assume this to be true.

I hope you all have a safe and very happy Hallowe'en!

Sue

Response to "Is True Happiness Possible Without Gluten?" by Jeffrey Steingarten, Vogue Magazine, September 27, 2013

In the article, "Is True Happiness Possible Without Gluten?", the author outlines his views on gluten and those who avoid eating it. It's worth a read since it represents views I have heard expressed by others. A caution though: If you have any sort of food intolerance or dietary restrictions (particularly gluten or lactose), it may irritate you at least as much as the author is irritated by those who avoid gluten.

You can access the article here:
http://www.vogue.com/magazine/article/is-true-happiness-possible-without-gluten/#1

Here is my response to the author of this article:

That last phrase, "who am I to judge?", is interesting and exactly what I kept wondering the entire time I read your article, Jeffrey. Who are you to make such bold and ill-informed statements about both gluten intolerance (as well as lactose intolerance) and gluten-free food? I had to 'Google' you to learn that you are the Vogue food critic and have been for some time. I assume that is why you feel you are in a position to judge such things as the eating habits, preferences and dietary requirements of others. The last phrase is interesting because you do nothing BUT judge those who choose not to consume gluten for whatever reason. 

The article was well-written, yet, despite your attempts, not well enough researched. You have not sampled enough gluten-free food to state that, "If you can’t eat gluten, then you can’t eat" the excessively lengthy list of food items you provided. That's simply not true. I have eaten and prepared extremely tasty gluten-free versions of most if not all of the things you listed. While you did as good a job as most people - which does not say much - of describing celiac disease and it's relationship to gluten, you make it clear that you are not well-informed about the seriousness of either lactose intolerance or gluten intolerance. 

I'm not going to go into the data that supports the avoidance of gluten for a very large group of people with ailments outside of the two you acknowledge (celiac disease and IBS). These are things you should have investigated prior to writing this article, but it is clear why you did not. It is clear that you did not intend to present an informed investigative report. Your intention was to complain about a group of people that irritate you. 

You finally - after doing much damage by labelling anyone who avoids gluten (and does not meet your narrow criteria) "food phobics" - acknowledge that the science does not agree with your view. Yet, you go on to include yet another population of people who may fake being gluten intolerant and close your article on that note as if to lend support to your close-minded view that gluten is good, healthy and even holy (unbelievable), while gluten avoiders are nothing but a bunch of annoying posers (excepting, of course, the population to whom you so graciously offered your respect - those with celiac disease). 

This is a witty article, and if I too was easily annoyed by other people's dietary choices I might have found parts of it amusing. 

In answer to the question posed by your article's title, "Is True Happiness Possible Without Gluten?", I suggest that for you the answer is clearly a resounding, No. You are not, however, in a position to judge (as you yourself acknowledge in your last phrase) whether this is true for others. A better title for this article would have been, "Why I people who don't eat gluten annoy me."

What do you think?

Should the author have done a little more research?  

Do you agree with me that he ought to live and let live? 

Do you agree with the author? 

Is anyone else hungry after all of this food talk?