Homefeeding Children: Threat or Menace?

By Lydia McGrew

CNSNews.com Satire

June 12, 2008

(For those withOUT a funny bone, this is called SATIRE... meaning it didn't REALLY happen.....)

The recent tragic death from malnutrition of seven-year-old Johnny Marfan of Bensonville draws our attention to the growing trend toward so-called "homefeeding."

While the majority of the local children still receive their nutrition from state cafeterias or approved, registered private cafeterias, a growing minority of parents - hundreds by some estimates - are engaged in homefeeding, a practice in which children receive at least breakfast and dinner in their own homes as provided by their parents.

In accordance with law, the Marfans informed the state health department that they were homefeeding Johnny. But in this state, homefeeding is relatively unregulated, giving carte blanch to parents to feed their children virtually any food under the sun; meat, milk, cookies, butter, pie - anything goes.

Some states require parents to have a certified degree in nutrition or at least be monitored by an accredited nutritionist. But here, parents do not even have to fill out periodic reports detailing what they are feeding their children.

Opponents of homefeeding argue that parents like the Marfans used homefeeding as a cover for abuse and neglect, with terrible results.  While this remains in question, we've seen nothing to disprove this.

Calista Nicole-Carson of the state Department of Cafeterias and Caloric Monitoring says, "I realize that there are conscientious parents who genuinely try to feed their children what they need. But they should have no objection to filling out the forms we are introducing, describing each of the meals they give."

That seems a reasonable step in safeguarding our most precious resource - our children. "Pro-active steps are necessary to insure we are protecting all children," says Nicole-Carson. "It is ridiculous not to monitor what all children are fed because of a misguided

concern for 'privacy' or 'freedom,' and such lack of regulation allows children to slip fatally through the cracks."

Other critics are concerned about parents' lack of necessary qualifications. "Every year we make new nutritional discoveries," says Dr. Sue d'Panzoff of the University of Omasota. "Parents cannot possibly keep up with each breakthrough in nutritional science and give their children these benefits."

It's preposterous for us to leave such vital functions to amateurs who claim authority based on something as flimsy as parenthood, particularly in the realm of keeping pace with nutritional advances.

"Who knows what changes we may need to make next year to improve children's nutrition," asks d'Panzoff. "At a minimum, homefeeding programs must be carefully monitored in the domicile to make sure all the latest advances are represented."

Still others point out the social skills homefed children are missing. Ms. Nicole-Carson tells us, "During meals at the public cafeterias, these children watch educational videos about crucial subjects like the environment, sex, and the evils of capitalism. The food itself is culturally diversified, and each day the children are taught a different set of table manners from another culture around the world."

Homefeeders rely in large part on outmoded history in defending their decision to place their own children out of the mainstream.  

"As recently as 1992, the majority of children in the United States were homefed," says Philip Flicka, of the right-wing Home Food Legal Defense Association. "Even when kids went to school, they were allowed to bring lunches packed by their moms."

Whether Mr. Flicka is right or not, it seems that homefeeding is here to stay, consequences be ****ed. But we cannot be too vigilant. Homefeeders of good will should, as Ms. Nicole-Carson says, be entirely open to having their homes and programs monitored by qualified nutritionists for the good of our children.

Any small amount of time and privacy this costs parents will be more than repaid in lives saved. If the Marfans had been properly monitored, Johnny would still be alive.

There is nothing more valuable than the life and safety of a child, and for that reason, strictures on homefeeding must be tightened in this state.

I guess flexibility is key in life. It's either that or frustration, which I've experienced plenty of in my more inflexible moments. Especially this past year 'n a quarter or so. "Let go and let God" is taking on meaning for me, probably because I've had little to no control over the events of the past 15 months. For me, trying to make everything right has resulted in a lot of stress.

I used to be semi-immune to stress. It's not that hard to ignore stress - you just think about something else. Read a good book or go do something fun. In college there were times I failed or did very poorly on tests because I didn't want the stress of preparing for them or thinking about my grade. You could say I chose to disassociate from the consequences of things rather than face them. I preferred to live a carefree and free flowing existence, and most of the time that worked out for me. I'm a little amazed that I've lived for 41 years without learning some crucial life skills like self-discipline and time management.

About a year and two weeks ago, my husband, Dave, was in an accident that has had far-reaching results. He was driving our mini-van on the freeway at about 55 mph when a guy in large pickup hit him from behind going at least 90 mph. How the guy didn't see Dave in front of him, I'll never know. The van was totaled and Dave had the kinds of back and neck injuries you'd expect from that type of collision. Nothing broken, but lots of chiropractic care needed. We figured it would take time, but that he would recover and be able to get back to work soon. His employer was very understanding, and he was allowed to do his work as a software developer from home.

However, about 6 weeks after the accident, he became very sick. He began throwing up violently every time he tried to eat. His esophagus swelled up, he got sores in his mouth, his stomach was like a ball of fire, his colon was in agony. For a month he ate nothing but watermelon, because that was the one thing that he could get past his throat and keep down. He lost around 60 pounds. The chiropractor assured us that this can be a normal result of an accident due to stress, pain and nerves being pinched and pulled due to spinal misalignment.  Dave began to see a gastroenterologist, who performed a number of invasive tests on him and diagnosed him with esophagitus, gastritis, hiatal hernia, reflux and colitis. He gave Dave some pills that, when we looked them up, predicted potential Cancer and other risks much greater than what Dave was already going through. So he declined, and we went on a search for natural remedies - diet, supplements, natural therapies, etc.

All this while Dave was trying to work from home, and even tried to go back in to work. He no longer had the physical strength to do so, and would become even more stressed and ill and broken while trying to force himself. His physical pain was too great and he had lost the ability to concentrate and keep focus on anything. After nearly a year of patiently working around Dave's issues, his company finally let him go. I think they deserve to be sainted for their kindness in giving him so much time and flexibility.  Thank you, K - Hov!

Meanwhile I was researching all kinds of potential therapies and diets and such, many of which we have worked with this past year. Also, God sent us a perfect angel to help us - a lovely woman in another state who went through something very similar - a bad accident followed by complete bodily malfunction - and had spent years learning to overcome her accident injuries and the resulting illnesses. She has not only given us very wise and practical advice to follow for healing, but has even sent us some of the essentials that we couldn't afford to buy on Dave's disability pay.

End of part one. Stay tuned - part two should be coming soon.

Jesus - He's the one our lives revolve around, either because we're loving him like we want to, or we're super aware that we need to get back to loving him like we want to.  It's impossible to imagine what our thoughts, actions, political inclinations, hopes and desires, home and day to day family life would be like without our foundation on Him.

Me - Yours truly - Debbie Merriman.  I'm 41, married, female.  Easy going for the most part, but honest and pretty blunt. I love God but am kind of irreligious.  I like to shock people at church by saying stuff like, "Who's bringing beer to the potluck?"   I'm kinda quirky, am lazy and undisciplined in many ways, but love to do certain things enough to overcome the sloth in me.  My house is messy, but I make really cool jewelry and I homeschool my girls and love to read and to write and to socialize and teach my Community Bible Study class, and I'm studying to learn how to turn our front and back yards into a vegetable garden.  I feel like I'm at a new stage in life right now - seeking deeper knowledge, opening up to new experiences.  Kind of exciting!  My home business has pushed me into learning new skills I didn't realize I'd enjoy developing. 

Dave - my hubby of 10 years.  No one paragraph could do him justice, but I can say a couple of things about him concisely: he's a determined man who loves and seeks God with all his heart.  He's intelligent, musically gifted, analytical.  He's an overcomer - I have seen him power through seemingly insurmountable problems.  He was a software developer until a little over a year ago when a bad freeway accident affected all of his body systems, including his memory and ability to focus.  He's on disability right now, and just working on getting healthy.  I believe he has greatness in him, and that God has big plans for him and for our family.  He's an amazing man, but what I like best about him is that he loves me.

Shalom - my firsborn, age 8.  Shalom is a sweet, gentle, creative, sensitive, intelligent, shy, occasionally fiery girl who imagines that she's also a superhero (and she is in my book).  She's been engaged to her friend Jared since she was three and he was four.  She's a crazy, freak of a dancer, loves to  push herself to excel, imagines herself to be a super fast runner - like faster than Dash of The Incredibles.  She taught herself to read because I took too long to get the reading program out and put together for her.  Now she's teaching herself to multiply because I wasn't ready to teach multiplication yet.  She sometimes takes things too seriously. We actually had to explicitly teach her how to tell if something is serious or a joke.  She loves God, thinks about the Bible stuff she learns all the time, works to apply it.  She has a tendency to be a little religious, which I'm trying to teach her to be careful of.  She wants to be a  marine biologist.  Or a missionary.  Or a photographer.  And she's a slob - wherever it falls, there it stays is her motto.

Sojie - age 4. She's extremely attached to me, and always has been.  In fact, after 42 weeks in the womb, she still refused to shake loose, and they had to cut me open and haul her out of me.  The c-section led to blood inhalation and infection, and ICU drama for 10 days, so she had a rough start, which I think combined with her naturally strong personality to lead her to determine that her destiny is Total World Domination.  She's very reactionary -  lives life from the gut, usually at one of two extremes - reckless joy or absolute rage.  (We're working with her on establishing healthy expression and a middle range for her emotions to dwell in.)  She gives some of the sweetest and fiercest hugs and kisses imaginable.  She's a tiny thing that can fill a whole room with her personality.   People outside of the family have no idea what she is capable of in terms of emotional and psychological devastation. 

Maggie - AKA the Hairy Lunatic.  She makes the rest of us look normal.  You can read more about her here: http://debbieoutloud.blogspot.com/2008/05/hairy-lunatic.html  although that blog is from a couple of weeks ago and doesn't include yesterday's exploit , which was grabbing a mockingbird out of the sky and playing it to death while simultaneously getting dive bombed by the bird's friends, and as my girls looked on screaming and crying.  I don't think she's ever had so much fun in her life.

Estrella the goldfish.  He/she/it lives upside down at the bottom of the bowl, and comes up at night to get his/her/its two food pellets.  I never liked fish, and I like them less now than ever before.  Over the years we have had a suicidal Beta fish and a series of sickly goldfish, one of those algae eater fish, and now just this one hard-core hanger-on goldfish left.  For two years now I have believed that this fish... this Estrella.... was in his/her/its death throes.  No such luck.  He/she/it lives on, and on, and on, and will probably have the last laugh at my funeral.  The girls have a vague fondness for Estrella the fish, but never seem upset when I say Estrella doesn't look like he/she/it will hang on much longer.  Who knows how many times I've said that over the past two years, and that fish makes me a liar every time.