The past week, a neighbour’s kid has taken a fancy to hanging out at my house. It irritated me to no end. I like my peace and quiet during the day. I like my social-networks and walking around in my house in my underwear. This neighbour kid hanging around my house was highly imposing on me. I tried to be civil to this kid and tolerated her being in my house playing with my kid. The thing that annoy me the most was that this kid is whingey and hardheaded. Yes, all kids are that way. I know. I have two of them.

The difference is of course they are my kids and they know there are boundaries. They can ask once for a glass of soda for instance. I may say yes or no depending on time of day or sometimes my mood; much of the time though they are happy with milk or water. The neighbour kid does not drink white milk nor does she drink water. Yes, she is irritatingly hyperactive and did I mention she whinges?

Occasionally, we might have “fruit drinks” in the house but it is not part of a staple item in our shopping list. The kids are allowed to order any drink they desire if we go out to eat and much of the time, they opt for milk. I am not saying that my kids have perfect diets but they do understand they need water for proper digestion.

Yesterday, the neighbour kid whinged, “I am thirsty but I don’t want white milk or water.” My first thought was to smack her or throw her out of my house but I managed to collect myself. I told her it is too bad because water and white milk were all I had. She stared at me and whinged that I have Coca –Cola and that she could have that instead. I told her that the Coca Cola is not for her, it is for my husband. (Rum and Coke, anyone?) She kept whingeing that she wanted to drink Coca-Cola. I turned and left the room. Mind you, she lives not 20 metres from my house and her mother drinks Diet Coca-Cola all day long. (Aha! moment, eh?)

Apart from this whingeing of thirst, she also whinged that it is not fair (that we have Coca-Cola but not giving it to her) I told her that life is not fair and she just has to deal with it. She whinged, but life is fair! I promptly rolled my eyes and left her standing there staring at me because how do you reason with an overweight, spoilt 6 years old child?

My chief complaint is this – why in the world do people have kids if they are going to screw the kids over before they even attend 1^st Grade? This cycle of bad diets and getting your way by whingeing is the most devastating thing you can possibly impose upon a child. How will the growing obese and grossly obese population of America going to shrink? Granted, there are overweight people who do realise they drink too much soft drinks, eat little or no vegetables and are trying very hard to mend their ways. I am not saying no overweight people are doing anything to improve their diets. However, the number of people with poor diets working to improve their situation is far less compared to those who are perfectly happy stuffing their faces with junk. They pass it down to their children and not even think twice about it. I mean, hey, if you are perfectly happy killing your system drinking sodas all day long, pooh-pooh-ing water because it is tasteless, carry on. However, why must you ruin a child’s health and life in the process?

Of course, everyone is aware of the new law in New York City where restaurant chains have to post the nutritional values of each item on their menu. That is a great idea – it is rather like the nutritional value labels on every food item that you buy at the supermarket. There are items such as cakes and cookies that are missing those labels. I tend to leave them and not consider buying them. Often, I find the labels are very small and very hard to read. I imagine that would put people off and they just buy the items anyway because I hardly ever saw anyone scrutinising nutritional labels while grocery shopping. While this is a new thing, the ability to see how much calories you are putting in your mouth while eating at your favourite restaurant, everyone is very excited. Some welcome the change, others not so much. Still, there are others who lead active lifestyle who really do not care because they burn all of the extra calories doing whatever it is they do to maintain their active lifestyle. For us, going out to eat is a treat. We tend to eat at home mostly because we do not care for chain restaurants’ foods and rude and incompetent wait-peoples irritate me. When we do go out to eat, we tend to disregard the caloric content because we do not indulge in rich foods that often and each meal at a restaurant is a treat. Even so, we often times do not buy desserts because we are too full from the entree. When and if we do get desserts though, we share a plate of ice –cream or cake or whatever between two people. I often imagine people thinking we are too poor or cheap to buy each person his or her own dessert; but what can they do about it? I suppose people who do not instil in their children the importance of drinking water, learning to live with disappointments, can do what they choose because it is their life. I just wish they would stay the hell away from my life.