Gluten-Free Moms
When you introduce yourself to people, how do you identify yourself?
In trying to come up with the proper method of introducing ourselves in this blog we have gone through various alternatives. Julie is a writer, a teacher, a wife, and a mom. Jen is a lawyer, a cook, a wife, and a mom. But we are not just any moms. We are gluten-free moms. And to be brutally honest, over the past year that is how we have begun to identify ourselves.
Our days are enveloped in the lives of of our gluten-free children. We have grown intimately connected to words like villi, antigens, antigliadin, xantham gum, sourgum flour, and, of course the dreaded, “Yuck, Mom, this is gross!”. We spend a large percentage of our day reading long lists of ingredients, studying gluten-free cookbooks, and of course, attempting to make that one gluten-free dish that the whole family will eat. We’ve tried pasta dishes (“Mom, are you giving us gluten-free noodles again???”), quiches (“Why is this so sticky???”), cakes (“It tastes like sand!”), and, of course, cookies (“Hey, these are pretty good. Oops, sorry – no, we hate them.”). We have tossed desserts that we slaved over for hours into the garbage can. And then there are the successes (well…mostly Jen’s successes). So much of our lives involve the preparation of gluten-free food that it is no surprise that that is how we see ourselves.
The fact that our identities are so tied into our “gluten-free mom” personas bothers us slightly, but the fact that one day our daughters might begin to identify themselves with their autoimmune disease or food sensitivity scares the life out of us. Amy is Julie’s laughing, screeching, dancing princess who loves to color, paint, and play kitchen. She’s not the sum total of her autoimmune disease. And Emily is Jen’s bright, creative artist. She doesn’t want Emily to associate herself with her food limitations. But how can we make sure that when they grow up they don’t introduce themselves with “Hi, I’m a celiac.”?
It’s a question we have been battling with for months. We can try to make their gluten-free existence as positive as possible. We can bake all 125 recipes from the gluten-free cookbook we purchased (although Julie will probably mess up most of them)J. We can bring our daughters their cupcakes to birthday parties, and cookies to school. We could celebrate their differences instead of mourn them. But at the end of the day we will have to teach them the hardest lesson of all: how to accept their differences …and move on.
Jen & Julie
One Responseto “Gluten-Free Moms”
Hi Jen and Julie. Welcome to the GF Blogging Jungle! I think your site looks great. Really like the header…good choice!
What are your next steps? Pages? Tools? Where are you wanting the blog to go?
Man, I ask a lot of questions!
-Jay