Starbucks Will Save Our Kids!
Posted on 01 14, 2008 under Libations, The Manual by reviewdad |
I was behind a mom and two pre-teens (that makes ‘em “Tweens” I believe) at Starbucks last weekend listening to back-and-forth about which beverages the two twin girls should be allowed to order and why.
Mom: “You can have decaf or hot chocolate.”
Daughter 1: “Why can’t I have a latte - it’s mostly milk anyway and what’s the big deal anyhow.”
Daughter 2: “Yeah, there’s more caffeine in a Coke than a shot of espresso…”
Mom: “Neither of you even like coffee.”
Daughter 1: “Yeah but a latte doesn’t taste like coffee and besides, I’m tired. I NEED some caffeine.”
Daughter 2: “Yeah mom, hot cocoa just has sugar and it’s too early for a Red Bull.”
Mom: “Fine, you can have half-cafe lattes.”
For my sake and theirs, I just hope that I wasn’t standing there, mouth agape looking like a total friggin’ idiot.
There were, to me at the time, so many things wrong with the nature and tone of that conversation that in the process of observing and contemplating, I lost all track of time and what was a 10 minute wait to get a brewed coffee went by in a flash. The girl at the counter had to ask me twice what I wanted to order.
First off, since when did middle-schoolers drink coffee? When I was that age, I was begging the folks for soda (not all that much better I realize but representationally different - soda is an adolescent craving, coffee is for cramming college kids and dependent adults!) and sneaking away from school to hit the 7 Eleven for a Slurpee between classes. These tweens needed a caffeine hit at 11am on a Saturday morning for what exactly?!
Second, mom seems to have already conceded quite a bit in this battle of appropriateness by offering up decaf as a consolation prize. Hot cocoa, in this context, seems kinda like a pathetic and blatantly desperate attempt on her part to lure her babies back into childhood.
Has the “adultification” (this phenomenon goes by many terms, but I believe I made this one up) that includes things like label-consciousness when it comes to clothing superseded taste as the primary consumption motivator for our kids…influencing not what they want to eat but what they think they need to eat? [I’m not naive, I think I already know the answer to that question but posing it seems like an important part of this theoretical exploration!]
Lastly, RED BULL. Is that shit still legal? Follow-up thought: MOM - Your kids are 12 or 13…can’t you do a better job keeping them away from that mass-marketed crap-in-a-can?
Nothing makes you feel older than when you catch yourself having “reactionary parent” or “grumpy old man” thoughts. You know them - they’re the ones you picture your dad or grandfather saying as they shouted at you from the bottom of the stairs or the their front porch swing respectively. They make you feel kinda dirty and shameful…before logic snaps you back into reality.
So I started to think about how this mom may have gotten to this point - between a modern day beverage rock and a hard place consisting of a $5 drink with SOME caffeine and a $5 drink with FULL caffeine (not to mention about 500 calories of dairy product).
No doubt it’s tougher to be a parent these days in many regards than it was back in the 60s and 70s - at least from a nutrition-perspective. I have no stats what-so-ever to back up this assertion but I’m pretty confident that the number of packaged and fast food service food items is at least 10x what it was back then. Then add in multipliers for a) marketing, b) media and c) social pressure and we’ll all be lucky if our kids don’t end up subsisting on a diet of coffee and cigarettes! Great movie but a lousy prescription for healthful living.
That math means that it’s roughly 5000 times more difficult to get your kids to eat healthy in 2008 as it was in 1978. The food issue is too big to tackle…it makes my head hurt…but beverages is a bit more digestible (pun intended). Let’s take stock of where we’re at:
Fruit Juice - vilified (thanks American Academy of Pediatrics)
Water - bastardized (courtesy of Glaceau, SoBe, Dannon, Gatorade, etc.)
Soda - tweaked and spiked (you’ve heard of Pepsi MAX, right?!)
Energy Drinks - spawned from the devil (need proof? “RED Bull.” “MONSTER.” “COCAINE*” for god sake!)
The more I thought about it, the more I came to sympathize with that mom…and I began to wonder if taking her daughters to Starbucks might have been the best possible thing she could have done for them. She might have been PROTECTING them. From a choice perspective, being in the house that Howard built seems exponentially safer than allowing them to browse at 7 Eleven!
Coffee (even with the syrups and toppings Starbucks offers) and cocoa seem downright wholesome compared to what’s broadcast into kids brains these days. And caffeine has got to be safer that bi-sodiumglutamate. At least it’s naturally occurring! So upon reflection, not only do I sympathize with that mom but I kinda respect her tactics. That mom - she’s quite a woman!
Postscript: Swiss Miss now offers a caffeine-laden version of it’s hot cocoa called Swiss Miss “Pick Me Up.” It’s advertised as having as much caffeine as a cup of coffee and is surely a sign of the apocalypse!
January 15th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I did a little research, and saw that the average daily caffeine intake for kids is around 38mg (adults take in about 200mg per day, although mine is much higher than that!). So, the consolation prize for the tweens was double the daily average. A Red Bull would have done the same thing at 80mg per can. Provided the tweens didn’t add any sugar to their lattes, this might have been the best choice. I think the sugar content in those drinks is the bigger issue.
Funny Red Bull story. I have a friend who doesn’t drink and he was at a bar in Vegas with a bunch of guys who were getting plowed. The bartender fed them beers and shots to their hearts’ content. When my friend asked for a second Red Bull, though, she gave him a funny look and asked him if he was sure because he’d already had one. “Do you know what that stuff does to your kidneys?” she asked. He just pointed to his group of friends and said, “You don’t seem to be too concerned about their livers. Get me the Red Bull.”
February 12th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Actually Red Bull and Monster at $2/ can is a deal compared to Starbux
PS: Cocaine energy drink is back on the market again, now they even have 2 new versions “Cut” (no burn flavor) and “Free” (Zero calorie). I think Cocaine is one of the worst tasting energy drinks out there and can’t see who likes this stuff. I have sampled over 160 other energy drinks and this one ranks in the bottom 5. PURE RUBBISH
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:38 am
Great read. I worry about our son and what he’ll face in the 10 + years when he becomes a tween. I hope I have the knowledge, wit, and energy to stave off the junk!