Have you ever dealt with limits? If you are dealing with allergies, you certainly have. Well, this month the writing project from Middle Zone Musings is on the learning in limitations.
Personally, I’m not a fan of limits. I’ve always thought of them as “bad”.
Then, in my 20’s, I developed allergies. They weren’t life-threatening, so sometimes I ignored them. It might have caused me some problems, but it didn’t seem like a big deal.
Many years after my first encounter with food allergies, my son came along. Sure enough, he got hives the first time he had something with gluten in it: gluten was also one of my problem foods. Suddenly, I was confronted with a “real” allergy with much more significant symptoms than I had. This time the one with the allergy was also my baby - and he had to stay away from it.
I was confronted with a real limit imposed by allergies. I couldn’t have my son breaking out in hives all the time. I certainly didn’t want his allergy to worsen, and with some kids repeated exposure will do just that.
Perhaps it’s part of being a parent, but I started to embrace those limits. In fact, I was pretty adamant about them - telling family members what they could and couldn’t purchase for my son to eat, and asking about the ingredients of things before Michael ate anything. And Michael’s allergies were a challenge: he went from gluten, to dairy, to soy and our diet had to be managed pretty carefully.
I also started to live within my own limits. After all, if I was going to teach my child to live happily within his limits, the best way to do that was to do it myself. In fact, I took on his limits with a gusto, eschewing gluten, dairy and soy too.
The really interesting thing about all of this is that I found those dietary restrictions brought us closer together. We ate the same - so he knew I’d understand how he felt when food circulated that he couldn’t have. I also decided that I’d find reasonable substitutions for he and I: gluten free treats and homemade snacks made lovingly, in nice little portable containers. My idea was that he would not feel deprived.
As far as I can tell, he didn’t.
Eventually, we went through NAET treatments and Michael’s food allergy symptoms disappeared. Suddenly, we could eat anywhere we wanted! I could stop at a drive-thru to pick something up; a convenience store was not a mine field.
After a very short period of this, I realized that our limits had meant we actually ate a more healthy diet. Junk was very limited if it had to be gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free food. When I didn’t have to worry about these restrictions anymore, suddenly my son started to put on a bit of weight - as did I.
There were other things, less concrete. I found that my son didn’t turn to me the same way. I ceased to be his compass, now that he wasn’t checking in with me about food on a daily basis.
Of course, he was growing up at the same time: an older boy now, and a more confident one. But I missed the sense of being his special someone.
Which brings me to limits: they are not all bad. I learned many things from living within those food limitations, from a new-found appreciation for wholesome, unprocessed food to improved skills in making and balancing meals. I realized that a certain detachment from the world of fast food is not a bad thing at all! I learned how important a parent’s actions are to a child. I also learned the value of at least one home-cooked meal a day, shared by all of us around the table.
We still don’t eat as much junk. We still eat together around the table every night. We may have learned this from limitation, but we’ve realized that it’s not really a limitation at all.
