10 Comments
May 28, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

Thank you so much for addressing the ableism that often exists in discussions of health and motherhood! I’m a mom with two chronic illnesses. I continue to work through my ideas of being a “good” mom or “bad” mom in the context of being chronically ill. This has all become so much more complex in the time of Covid. I had to choose between being high risk or having more symptoms (so lucky that I can make that choice!). I do make these types of choices with my three-year-old at the front of my mind. I think, though, that there is a (nuanced and difficult) difference between considering the pragmatic reality of the impact of our health choices on our children to the extent that we can, and believing that we are bad mothers for having bodies that are, ultimately, beyond our control. Thanks so much for this discussion! Your work is a delight!

Expand full comment
founding
May 27, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

The discussion of clean/unclean, pure/impure, reminds me of a lecture I heard years ago by David Domke, who's a communications professor. He'd researched and written a book about the 2nd Bush White House and how they used a fundamentalist Christian dichotomy of good/bad to frame issues after 9/11 and how the press followed along and adopted this very simplistic framing on editorial pages across the country. "You are with us or you are with the terrorists", not "You are with us, or you possibly have an informed and nuanced understanding of American foreign policy and how we've affected people in many nations and that might come back to bite us". You can see how the first one is easy and appealing! And also how it shuts off exploration of a full range of responses, including the ability to change and grow.

I find myself thinking about how often we fall into this all or nothing way of thinking about ourselves, our habits, and some sort of morality judgement. Whether it's healthy/unhealthy, or eating processed oils/oil-free, or anything else, the level of judgment is so high and so unforgiving. Maybe what we need is more like an improv approach of "yes and" to unstick our thinking and open ourselves to more possibilities. (Not in the sense of saying yes to judgey and simplistic things, just to get past the either/or.)

Expand full comment
May 27, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

I am genuinely commenting because I want to better understand, so if any of this comes off as defensive or combative, I just want to apologize in advance.

I am a mom of medically-complex twins. They were born 17 weeks prematurely. They had multiple surgeries to address life-threatening gut issues and they had very long courses of antibiotics. One of my daughters had chronic diarrhea for the first year and a half of her life. I talked to three pediatric gastroenterologists as well as two pediatricians, and did a lot of research before choosing to feed my family a whole foods, plant-based diet because there is evidence to support this can rehab the gut microbiome. Our team of doctors were on board with this, and it has worked. It took a long time, but she has progressively gotten better and we have her symptoms managed entirely with diet.

We decided our entire family would eat this way because it seems totally inappropriate to be eating pizza or potato chips while my toddlers eat lettuce wraps.

We all genuine love enjoy eating the way we do. I love cooking, so I don't mind all the extra work it takes to make almost everything from scratch.

Your book intrigued me because, with as much as I want my kids to enjoy fruits and vegetables and chia pudding (ha! I know your sentiments on this), I also don't want them to judge others or be judged when it comes to food. I don't want them to be scared of food. To be general, I want them to have a safe relationship with food and their bodies.

I share all of this because, while I agree that good motherhood and health ought not be conflated, I have a really hard time believing that giving my kids the best quality of life is not a moral imperative.

I recognize my privilege plays a titanic role in my story. I would never blame or judge someone who could not do what I have done for my kids because they don't have the knowledge or they don't have the means, but how could I know what I know about how food has helped heal my kids' very sick little bodies and it not be a moral imperative to keep their guts healthy?

Expand full comment
founding
May 26, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

Virginia (and Amanda) - you keep pushing me in all the best ways. Jennifer

Expand full comment