Okay, so I don't always talk about my wheatfree life as much as I should but today someone on my facebook posted about the frustrations on living dairy-free and feeling alone in the frustration especially when it comes to telling their child no when they want something. So here goes . . .
Dear Parents of a child with allergies:
I know you are wondering what you did wrong? Did you eat the wrong thing during pregnancy? Why would your child be punished like this? They can't eat X and everyone else around them can. It is so unfair.
You are right. It is totally unfair and in most cases there is nothing you could have done differently and outside of this one huge inconvenience (reading every damn label in the world before buying/eating/using) your child is great and really you won't trade them for anything.
So you have every parent (of a child with an allergy) in the world's permission to mourn your loss of normalcy. Cry it out. Scream it out. Do it now. Then understand you will want to do it again and again for the rest of your life. You might want to cry when you realize your child will never have the First Communion you had always envisioned, just the blood no host 'cause of the wheat. You will have to say no when every around is buying from the ice cream man since he doesn't have anything diary-free. You will feel low and judged when you say no to a cookie. People will look at you like you have killed Mickey Mouse but they don't know that that cookie will cause your child hours of agony later.
You may mourn. You may cry. You will survive and after all of your work and your careful choices you will have a teenage who eats everything they are allergic to because it won't kill them just make them hurt. Hey, they are they ones who have to make friends. You will feel like your efforts have been useless but YOU KEPT THEM ALIVE. You kept a simple rashy allergy from turning into a deadly one so you go with your bad self!
I cry. Sometimes I see my archnemisis give his child, Ravebaby's best friend, a cookie, right in front of Ravebaby and I want to cry and scream about how unfair it is. It is not anyone fault. It is not a bad thing. I live a wheatless life and I'm good with it most days. I hate telling Ravebaby no. I hate seeing that look of "I want that" and her feeling defeated. I want my child to be normal. I want to give her that damn cheap ass nasty cookie so that she won't feel different. I want to give it to her so I won't feel different. We're different. That is life. It is not fair. I allow myself a moment to cry and mourn and then I move on.
So please don't feel alone. Please know we all do it. No matter how cool we are with the X-free life we lead, we all have times we mourn the loss of that X. Go ahead cry. Go ahead morn. Believe it or not, you are just being normal :)
Signed,
Wheatless Mama, mom of one, wheatless for 3 years +
