🍳 Soul Snacks

2 min read

Dear Snacker,

There is a song by The Fray called “All at Once”, and there is a line in the song that says, “sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.” Every time I hear those lyrics now as a parent I think to myself, holy shit, it’s so true. Doing the right thing seems to always require added effort – like turning off the screens to motivate everyone to go on a fucking nature walk, or back to the playground for the 1,897,995^th time, following through on a threat to remove someone from a situation if they continue to break a rule, setting firm boundaries with your master-negotiator child, requiring occasion appropriate clothing, and so on and so forth. Going the extra mile to do the right thing feels herculean at times, especially considering that most of us are sleep deprived and burned out to begin with….and while doing the right thing is exhausting, I truly believe it pays off.

Lately, I find myself thinking a LOT about the rules I will establish as my kids blossom into adolescence. I don’t want to be caught giving in to something I don’t agree with just because I haven’t thought it through yet – like the use of smart phones, for example, and particularly access to social media. Soon my kids’ friends will be getting phones, and that social pressure will be super hard to combat, but have you ever observed a young kid scrolling an iPhone before and thought to yourself, “that’s probably harmless”? It makes me feel all kinds of weird on the inside.

I know how much easier it would be to appease my kids, because kids can be fucking intimidating, but I promise myself to find the strength to make the hard decisions because, when it comes down to it, there is nothing more important to me than them, and I will always be willing to do the right thing for them. In closing, if you see me in three years arguing with my daughter about an iPhone, please run over to me, look me in the eyes and pound your fists on your chest so I remember to stay strong.

— Caitlin

P.S. Can we all please just get flip phones for our kids until they are 16?! Hands in!!

• THE PLAYLIST: We all need a good cry sometimes, so if you're due for a mini meltdown throw on this week's playlist composed of the most requested songs that make you ball your eyes out! Play on days 24-27 of your cycle for maximum results. 

• READ: I posted this article to my stories last week, but in case you missed it, a very important glimpse/reminder about the phone thing - particularly the effects of social media on kids...we wouldn't let them smoke if they begged us for cigarettes...