All Things Bright and Beautiful

Every so often it will come up in current affairs or the news about the battle that mothers have with the confectionery aisle and their kids. From day one, kids are known to like bright and colourful things, from the mobile hanging from the ceiling, the clown rattle, the multi-coloured lego blocks, to wrapping paper on birthday gifts.

Have you noticed from as young as 3, children can 'smell' out chocolate and lollies from a mile away?! If it so happens that she has small change, our 18 year old daughter, more often that not, will sneak a bar of chocolate in with the grocery items I had listed for her to buy. She has 'secret' hiding places for her precious chocolate - a 'must-have' for any teenage girl so they say. Our 5 year old will hunt down the chocolate or lollies hidden in unthinkable and seemingly unreachable places, yet find them she will.

You go to great pains to avoid the confectionery aisle when doing your usual grocery shopping, only to turn the corner and find chocolate eggs 'blinking' out at you in front of the baked beans and canned veges; or you would be strolling down the aisle furthest from the chocolates and party goods, only to glance back and see the dreaded hypo-energetic, sugar-loaded culprit grasped firmly in your preschooler's hands, a big beam on her face forming into a wide 'pleeese' accompanied with a huge 'who can resist this smile' smile.

By this stage, you are tired from an hour or so of pushing a heavy shopping trolley up and down the aisles, sometimes back-tracking because you just can't seem to remember which aisle the garbage bags are in, or whether it is at this end of the aisle or the other end. (Supermarket signs on each end only read half of the aisle, if you haven't already noticed).

Your toddler is growing tired of sitting in a hard metal seat getting swamped under an overflow of grocery items that can't quite fit into the trolley basket and is attempting to climb out into your arms for a cuddle. Your preschooler has been standing on the wheel-brim at the front of the trolley, going from getting down then up again, then down again, meanwhile you are concentrating hard on not 'running her over'; or she is sprinting across the aisle grabbing things off the shelves and placing them in your trolley and within moments you are putting it back as you continue on - trying to get the shopping over and done with, a constant drone coming from your lips "Don't touch that, put it back, we don't need it, leave it alone - NO! "

Your focus tunes back onto your child's beaming, pleading, conniving face, you have a decision to make, if you cave in to the pleading, melt to that irresistable smile and say that she can have the chocolate eggs, ensuring you a fairly non-eventful exit through the checkout, while you have a vision of guilt before you at your child's next dentist visit "Don't give her chocolate and lollies" he says with a look that makes you feel as if you are the only mother in the whole world who would do such a thing!

- or say NO and have a whinge-ing, non-cooperative, sullen child (God forbid if she throws a tantrum!) whom you need to keep in check with one eye and hand, whilst unloading the groceries onto the conveyor belt with the other hand and with the other remaining eye on the checkout operator making sure he doesn't double-scan an item, furthermore you are most likely cradling a tired, cranky, lead-heavy toddler on your hip at the same time.

If you do so much as get to the checkout counter without the unleasing of little people's emotions, beware your preschooler is smart - there's the chocolate and lollies display at the checkout right within her reach beckoning her to just try her hand at sneaking it out without Mum noticing. (The times I have had to return the 'stolen goods' or worse still fork out the cost of a half-eaten chocolate with the remainder smeared over face, hands and clothing)....and all this with just the first trolley-load of groceries. I have to brave it out at least one more time round and through the checkout again before I'm finished with my usual grocery shop for the family.

Mind you, I can get more in one trolley with the older kids (making it only 2 trolleys at most) but if I do, all of them have to come along. I then have SEVEN voices vying for my attention all at the same time 'helping' me shop with 'we need this and that' and a certainty of a 'panic attack' when I see the price tally running considerably higher than I budgeted due to items added to the trolley I hadn't counted on.

If my eldest daughter goes solo with the grocery shopping - close encounters of the chocolate kind!

The battle of the 'Confectionery War' is lost for yet another time.

Confectionery marketers and supermarket managers - have a heart! Let chocolates be what they are meant to be - an 'occasion'al treat and give us Mums a break - make them less enticing - no more 'Bright and Beautiful'. PLEEEESE!!!! (accompanied by a 'who can resist this smile' smile).

Copyright 2005 Rebecca Laklem.