When I was a kid, coffee was something other people in other families drank. It was never talked about directly in my family, only I assumed that since we didn't drink it that coffee was something vaguely lower-class, something associated with cheap cafes sporting thick white crockery. I was surprised, then, when I was about 13 my parents bought a Mr. Coffee and installed it in the kitchen. Coffee brewed in the evenings sometimes, when the mysterious people arrived who frequented the MLM sales meetings now taking place in my livingroom.
"Try this," my dad suggested one night. "It's good." He held out something murky and brownish in a glass. I took a drink. It was cold, fairly sweet, and ... putrid. WTF?
"Iced coffee," he said with apparent satisfaction.
I hid the glass and vowed never to drink coffee again.
Ten years later, out of my depth in a chaotic corporate job, I was so keyed up I couldn't sleep at night. Which meant I was nearly dead during the day. I looked around the office for some tea.
No tea.
But plenty of coffee. Coffee is everywhere.
I learned to choke it down, hot and black. There was no sense adding sugar (after all, sugar = calories = evil, at least when you're anorexic) or anything else. Black coffee was a suitable punishment for someone working in a punishing business.
Fast forward.
Quitting coffee was hard, but I did it for the baby. And then there was another baby. And another. Coffee never returned.
Until I made a dash for freedom and coffee represented that. A slap in the face to a now-ex life. I found high-quality organic fair trade shade-grown (light roast) high-falutin' coffee and learned to operate a French press.
And I enjoyed every drop. No longer a punishment, coffee was now a confection. Sweetened with real maple syrup, lightened with cream. Heaven.
The kids noticed.
The King noticed first. Coffee smells good. How could he not notice? I made him a tiny cupful with mostly cream.
Within a year all three were drinking regularly. Destructo-Man never noticed that there was never more than a drop of actual coffee in his cup, because at 4 he was more interested in ensuring no one got anything he didn't. But The King and Ninja Girl ask for it often and drink theirs while still hot.
There's really no better way to start a morning.
And the caffeine buzz wears off while they're in school. Win-win.
Lisa, let me be more specific: 4-year old gets literally a drop or two, and often I only pretend to put actual coffee in his cup; 8-year old gets about 2 teaspoonfuls; 12-year old (who is taller than me and weighs about the same) gets about 1/4 cup. Hardly addicting in those amounts.
And while I appreciate your points, this was humor. With exaggeration. Funny!
They are drinking coffee. Until they go to a gas station and pour a mug out of the coffee pot that has coffee crust all around, they're just drinking flavored water.
On a more serious note, have you tried fooling them with decaf?
i love coffee!!!!!!!! my oldest daughter loves it too. although i only let her have drinks of mine. she has to wait a bit longet before she can have her own cup. ;)
i really dont see a huge issue with giving your kids coffee. there are waaaaaaaaaaay worse things in this world for them than that.
You are GIVING your children addictions. It can cause anxiety, insomnia and a handful of stomach and cardiovascular problems. Some studies have shown that excessive caffeine may cause people to lose calcium.
But the main downside to caffeine is its addictive properties and the effects on the body when one stops ingesting it -- effects that may be magnified in the smaller bodies of children.
"Caffeine is the most widely used mood-altering drug in the world," said Professor Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University, who has studied its effects. "We know that caffeine produces physical symptoms, that is, withdrawal symptoms, after abrupt cessation for people that chronically consume caffeine. ... Although extensive research hasn't been done in children and adolescents, there's no reason to suppose these effects aren't identical in adolescents."
Griffiths has found that as little as 100 milligrams of caffeine a day is enough to induce withdrawal symptoms, less than in a typical 12-ounce cup of Starbucks coffee, which has approximately 260 milligrams of caffeine.
The symptoms are familiar to anyone who's missed their daily dose of java: headache, lethargy, depression, irritability.
Oh yes, we call it Baby Coffee here on the island! Paige has been loving it in the mornings since she was about 2. As far as baaaad mommies go, I think I beat you...
Baby Coffee
1 Sippy cup
1 oz coffee
1 oz vanilla creamer
top with cold milk
Shake well
Serve and drop at daycare.. BUH BYE
My grandma used to give me coffee like that. Of course it crappy Denny's stuff, but I didn't know any better. I know better now!
Coffee is pretty much my last vice and I will relish its goodness until the end of days.
I am a Bad Parent.
I give my kids coffee.
When I was a kid, coffee was something other people in other families drank. It was never talked about directly in my family, only I assumed that since we didn't drink it that coffee was something vaguely lower-class, something associated with cheap cafes sporting thick white crockery. I was surprised, then, when I was about 13 my parents bought a Mr. Coffee and installed it in the kitchen. Coffee brewed in the evenings sometimes, when the mysterious people arrived who frequented the MLM sales meetings now taking place in my livingroom.
"Try this," my dad suggested one night. "It's good." He held out something murky and brownish in a glass. I took a drink. It was cold, fairly sweet, and ... putrid. WTF?
"Iced coffee," he said with apparent satisfaction.
I hid the glass and vowed never to drink coffee again.
Ten years later, out of my depth in a chaotic corporate job, I was so keyed up I couldn't sleep at night. Which meant I was nearly dead during the day. I looked around the office for some tea.
No tea.
But plenty of coffee. Coffee is everywhere.
I learned to choke it down, hot and black. There was no sense adding sugar (after all, sugar = calories = evil, at least when you're anorexic) or anything else. Black coffee was a suitable punishment for someone working in a punishing business.
Fast forward.
Quitting coffee was hard, but I did it for the baby. And then there was another baby. And another. Coffee never returned.
Until I made a dash for freedom and coffee represented that. A slap in the face to a now-ex life. I found high-quality organic fair trade shade-grown (light roast) high-falutin' coffee and learned to operate a French press.
And I enjoyed every drop. No longer a punishment, coffee was now a confection. Sweetened with real maple syrup, lightened with cream. Heaven.
The kids noticed.
The King noticed first. Coffee smells good. How could he not notice? I made him a tiny cupful with mostly cream.
Within a year all three were drinking regularly. Destructo-Man never noticed that there was never more than a drop of actual coffee in his cup, because at 4 he was more interested in ensuring no one got anything he didn't. But The King and Ninja Girl ask for it often and drink theirs while still hot.
There's really no better way to start a morning.
And the caffeine buzz wears off while they're in school. Win-win.