In the past couple of weeks I’ve seen no fewer than three blog posts about the horrible state of “Kid’s Menus” at restaurants. One was actually published on a news site. All of the articles are from and about a parent who has taken their child to an interesting restaurant and is dismayed, horribly dismayed, that their child is asked to choose between chicken fingers, pizza, and grilled cheese. In one case, the mother was very upset that her sons were not offered lobster. All of the posts attempt to connect this horrible food injustice to the juvenile obesity epidemic.

I hate the phrase “first world problem” since it’s almost always used by someone in the first world and therefore means “a problem you have that I don’t care about and therefore is unworthy of the time I’m spending reading your FB post.” BUT, let’s just say, if you have the money to be taking your child to a restaurant that serves lobster, and then you have the time to get on your little blog and complain about the lobster, you might want to keep those problems to yourself.

Also, if you are regularly taking your child to a restaurant that serves lobster, you are not part of the childhood obesity epidemic. I’m not saying that your little Madison or Jefferson couldn’t stand to lose a few, I don’t know, maybe he/she is a little pudgy, but that isn’t the childhood obesity epidemic. People trying to equate their own weight issues with a disease that’s truly harming under privileged communities with poor access to healthful foods is turning in to a pet peeve of mine. I’m pretty sure that even if all the restaurants in the country started serving pint sized portions of lobster it wouldn’t make a dent in the number of children now suffering from Type 2 diabetes.

My main issue with this complaint though, is that it’s so easily solved. I feel like lately every single problem a parent has, especially regarding food and feeding, has become blog fodder. I’m starting to wonder if people actually want to do good things for their kids and other kids or if they just want to sit around complaining about it (actually, I’m not wondering, I’m pretty sure I know the answer).

It is stunning to me that someone can be entitled enough to wonder why her precious snowflake isn’t being offered lobster, but not entitled enough to ask a waiter at a restaurant for what she wants. Try this, “Everything looks so good. I would love for Wilson to try the smoked duck paté encrusted wild salmon. Could we possibly have a smaller portion of that?” Then, you tip well.

I’ll be in the corner silently applauding you, while I eat my grilled cheese.