(no subject)
May. 19th, 2021 10:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellway[cw: illness, food, not actually about disordered eating but people avoiding posts on that probably don't want to read this]
When I was a child, there was an underlying principle in the rules regarding my access to food. I don't think it was ever explicitly formalised in my presence, but it was something like:
"If you don't need assistance, you don't need permission."
I was generally permitted, at any time, to prepare any meal I was capable of preparing on my own (and to eat this in lieu of dinner, if I did not like the dinner on offer), and to eat any snacks I could reach. The cupboard was arranged in order of access restriction, with the foods my parents were most comfortable with me eating unsupervised on the bottom and the least comfortable on the top.
---
An interesting thing about arranging a cupboard by restriction level is that it provides a natural progression: as you grow up, you are both mature enough to be trusted to handle more kinds of food responsibly *and* tall enough to reach more shelves.
And *that* is why I am thinking about this after reading a post on immune-system naivete, because I feel like there is also a certain natural progression in the fact that I lacked both the causal reasoning and the impulse control to take any anti-infection measures whatsoever until I was about 10. During the life stage where it was most important for me to get exposed to as many kinds of disease as possible, I in fact did so. It all works out quite neatly that way.
---
I have a distinct memory, from when I was about nine, of sitting in the recliner in the basement and contemplating the effect anosmia was having on the taste of my cereal bar. In hindsight, I suspect this was a coronavirus infection. Thanks for taking the hit and possibly saving me from Long COVID, past self. Your suffering was not in vain.
(In general, I take great comfort when sick in the thought that my immune system will be better trained now, and I may well have saved my future self. (Though I would still very much prefer to be able to get more training done the *easy* way. I hope those rhinovirus-vaccine researchers figure something out: I will be first in line.))
When I was a child, there was an underlying principle in the rules regarding my access to food. I don't think it was ever explicitly formalised in my presence, but it was something like:
"If you don't need assistance, you don't need permission."
I was generally permitted, at any time, to prepare any meal I was capable of preparing on my own (and to eat this in lieu of dinner, if I did not like the dinner on offer), and to eat any snacks I could reach. The cupboard was arranged in order of access restriction, with the foods my parents were most comfortable with me eating unsupervised on the bottom and the least comfortable on the top.
---
An interesting thing about arranging a cupboard by restriction level is that it provides a natural progression: as you grow up, you are both mature enough to be trusted to handle more kinds of food responsibly *and* tall enough to reach more shelves.
And *that* is why I am thinking about this after reading a post on immune-system naivete, because I feel like there is also a certain natural progression in the fact that I lacked both the causal reasoning and the impulse control to take any anti-infection measures whatsoever until I was about 10. During the life stage where it was most important for me to get exposed to as many kinds of disease as possible, I in fact did so. It all works out quite neatly that way.
---
I have a distinct memory, from when I was about nine, of sitting in the recliner in the basement and contemplating the effect anosmia was having on the taste of my cereal bar. In hindsight, I suspect this was a coronavirus infection. Thanks for taking the hit and possibly saving me from Long COVID, past self. Your suffering was not in vain.
(In general, I take great comfort when sick in the thought that my immune system will be better trained now, and I may well have saved my future self. (Though I would still very much prefer to be able to get more training done the *easy* way. I hope those rhinovirus-vaccine researchers figure something out: I will be first in line.))
no subject
Date: 2021-05-19 02:20 pm (UTC)(Well, depending on what level of medical tech you have access to. The protagonist children are from a time period where this is straight-up true, and at least one plot twist involves an adult from the future with access to hazmat suits (but where only children can *stealth* time travel, so children still play an important role in their time).)