A Plea To My Kids To Eat Just One F**king Vegetable

Dear Paige and Isaac,

I know it seems like a lot to ask. That’s why I’m posing it as a question, rather than as a command and/or a bribe and prerequisite for a frozen yogurt popsicle, which is in fact what it is.

So I’ll say it again, nicely but firmly: Please eat just one fucking vegetable?

I realize that everything in your DNA and human evolution goes against eating vegetables. And I certainly don’t want to traumatize and disorder you for life by starting a war over food, like our parents did to us, and their parents before them. But unfortunately, the insatiable craving you have for sugar and fat was developed during caveman times, well before Monsanto and the corporate agro-industrial complex turned America’s food system into a corrupt, poisonous cabal of carcinogenic Frankenfood manufacturing.

Which is why I need you to eat this organic baby carrot right now. Or maybe this leaf of spinach or piece of kale. We grew this kale. Remember?! And by “we,” I mean your dad. Let’s be honest, I had nothing to do with that shit.

And no, I’m not reading a book about this. Does it look like I have time to read another self-help parenting book on how to make you mofos do my bidding? I’m adult coloring here for fuck’s sake.

And while we’re on the subject, I am also not doing that thing Seinfeld’s wife recommends and hiding Swiss chard in a peanut butter smoothie prepared in a blender. I’m too lazy for that, and it’s far too pandering.

You just need to be grateful—once again—that you live in the First World and that your parents can afford fresh organic produce to cram down your gummy bear vitamin holes, and when that fails, to put down the garbage disposal or at best into a compost bucket. Because not all nutrients can come from a 16-ounce jar of Costco gummy bear vitamins.

Or at least I don’t think they can.

But nor can nutrients be absorbed simply by putting a carrot or green leafy vegetable on the very tippy-tip your tongue, wincing, and refusing to chew or swallow. I’m pretty sure of that, although God knows I don’t know anything about nutrition. After all, I consume 80% of my daily calories in the form of dark chocolate hazelnut fudge-flavored Coconut Bliss ice cream after you’re asleep every night. Speaking of which, Isaac, why the fuck did you come upstairs and pee all over the floor while you were half-asleep and I was eating my ice cream and watching Forensic Files last night? That was such a bummer, dude.

No matter. Back to the topic at hand: your fucking vegetables. Please just eat them. Let me rephrase: Not even them, plural. Just one. Just one fucking vegetable.

Please. I beg of you.

Love,

Your Mother