LITTLE ROCK — Trying to explain to her son why he couldn’t have the candy bar he’d just grabbed off the shelf, the pregnant woman in the checkout line in front of me said, “Because it’s not good for you.”
I cringed. Sure enough, her approximately 3-year old son pulled away from her and plopped down in the shopping cart where he’d been standing. Hugging thecandy bar close to his chest, he earnestly nodded his head.
“It is good for me,” he said. “I like it a lot.”
And there you have it. Out of the mouths of babes comes the truth according to the human brain: If I like it, it must like me.
Every parent has been there. No matter how well-behaved our little ones are, no matter how well we schedule their lives, the day comes when we find ourselves in the grocery store at nap time with a tired, hungry child. The result is humbling.
Before you have kids, it’s easy to be an expert. How many times did I tell myself, “I’ll never let my child act like that”? Then I had children. And guess what? Schedules unexpectedly change. Your child falls asleep in the car then won’t take a nap. Teething kids get cranky. Tired, hungry kids get grumpy, and so do tired, hungry mothers.
As her son gazed up at her beseechingly, the beleaguered mother looked at me. Rolling her eyes, she inclined her head toward the tempting display of candy bars as if to say, “Who can blame him?”
Not me. I’ve operated under the, “If I like it, it must like me” logic much of my life, especially when it comes to food. For the most part, I like what’s good for me. Problem is, I also like sweets, baked goods and second helpings. All these years later, I’m still reconciling myself to the concept that sometimes, what we like doesn’t like us.
If adults struggle with this, imagine how it feels to a 3-year old. After all, this is our nature. From the innocent logic of “If I like it, it must like me,” flows much of human history - achievements and failings great and small. But on this day, at this grocery store counter, what was at stake was whether this tired mom could find a way to stand firm without triggering a 3-year old’s meltdown.
Would she give in, weary as she was, to avoid a scene? Or could she hold her ground, find a clever distracting response, and impart a character lesson at age 3?
She did the latter, and did it admirably. Whisking the candy bar out of her son’s grasp with one hand, she tickled his tummy with the other as she said, “If it liked you, it would have jumped into your hand, like this!” And she jumped her hand over to his palm and tickled him there, too, just for good measure. Back and forth she went, keeping him giggling just long enough for the checker to finish so she could pay.
Nicely done, I thought. And how true. It isn’t the chocolate chip cookie that jumps into my hand, it’s my hand that grabs the cookie. It’s not the dessert that needs me, it’s my brain that desires dessert. It has taken most of my adult life for me to accept that chocolate chip cookies might not be good for me, (ditto pecan pie, mint chocolate chip ice cream and carrot cake), because my heart believes these confections are a gift to humankind. My hips, however, know better.
When I’m well-rested, confident and strategic, overriding my instincts isn’t so hard. But my brain isn’t always well-rested and life isn’t always uncomplicated. Sometimes, like a 3-year old who has missed a nap, I’ll reach for what’s easy, yummy and sweet because, in my heart, I know that cookie likes me.
Write to Jennifer Hansen at Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, P.O. Box 7, Springdale, Ark. 72765. Email her at
Family, Pages 29 on 06/23/2010