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Parenting & Nutrition: It’s Not Just on Parents — What Family Support and Early Childhood Centers Can Do
We often talk about children’s nutrition as if it lives entirely inside the home — a matter of parental knowledge, discipline, or willpower. But families are navigating a food landscape shaped by cost, time scarcity, marketing, transportation barriers, and unequal access to fresh food.
When healthy food costs more, takes longer to prepare, and is harder to find, the burden cannot rest on parents alone.
Family support organizations and early childhood centers are stepping up — not as substitutes for parents, but as partners in nutritional equity.
Across communities, promising practices are emerging.
Real Food Isn’t Elitist — It’s About Equity, Agency, and What We Believe Families Deserve
Whenever someone advocates for feeding children real, whole food, a familiar objection appears:
“That’s elitist. Poor families can’t afford that.”
It sounds compassionate. But look closer, and it reveals something uncomfortable: the assumption that low-income families — often disproportionately families of color — cannot prioritize health.
That assumption lowers expectations. It removes agency. And unintentionally, it reinforces inequity.
To the Social Workers Who Quietly Changed the Course of My Life
This is for the social workers who probably never knew how much their small decisions shaped a life.
March is Social Work Month, and every year I see posts recognizing the dedication, compassion, and resilience of social workers.
This year, I wanted to say thank you a little differently.
The Lost Art of Cooking — and Why It Matters More Than Ever
Not very long ago, cooking was not a hobby.
It was a basic human skill.
Every household knew how to take raw ingredients—grains, vegetables, beans, meat, herbs—and transform them into food that could sustain life. Cooking was daily maintenance for the body, much like tending a fire or mending clothing.
Somewhere along the way, we lost that art.
What Parenting Children with Disabilities Taught Me About Strength, Advocacy, and Community
Parenting a child with disabilities means stepping into a world most people don't fully understand — one filled with medical appointments, unanswered questions, and moments of profound isolation. But it also means discovering a strength you never knew you had. This is my story of navigating two children's complex diagnoses, receiving my own, and finding the community that changed everything.
When Did Vegetables Become So Threatening?
At some point, vegetables became controversial. Not medically controversial or scientifically controversial — culturally controversial. For millions of children, vegetables are now treated like something to negotiate, resist, or endure.
I saw it in miniature the other day.
It wasn’t even a bowl of greens. It was a few microgreens on a white bread sandwich. I was going slow.
He looked at it like I had betrayed him.
This was not a toddler.
This was a ten-year-old.
“I’m going to have to eat vegetables for the rest of my life?!”
Horrified. Dramatic. Entirely typical.
And revealing.
Because this wasn’t really about a child. It was about cultural training.
Tending the House: Connecting Snacks to Our Children’s Future
My aunt recently gave me a small, worn book printed in 1915. It is called The Runner’s Bible — a pocket collection of scripture “for people on the go.” She received it from her mother. Now it sits in my hands.
In this season of navigating cancer, I have started a quiet ritual. Each morning, I flip through and let a verse find me. It steadies my mind before the day accelerates. It connects me to her — and to the women before her — who endured what they were handed and tended what was theirs to tend.
Why Parents Lead: Voices from the Field
Ask most parent leaders how they got started, and you’ll hear a familiar theme: someone saw something in them that they hadn’t yet seen in themselves.
A colleague. A program coordinator. Someone who said, simply — you should be here.
When Illness Touches the Family: A Gentle Wake-Up Call About Food
I had found a lump.
That discovery led to the mammogram and ultrasound where I asked the technician a question that most people are afraid to ask.
“Can you tell whether it’s cancer?”
She paused before answering. “Usually, yes.”
I asked how she could tell. She explained that certain features—spiculated (spiky) margins—often signal malignancy. Then she said something I will never forget: “I’d say this is a five.”
A Letter to Our Partners: Why This Work Matters — And Why I Need It Too
To everyone out there doing this work — the real, messy, beautiful, heavy work — this is for you.
Let me start with something simple:
I see you. And I get it.
For more than a decade at Be Strong Families, I’ve walked beside parents, caregivers, youth workers, social workers, and community leaders who carry so much and keep showing up anyway. I don’t just do this work because it matters. I do it because I need it, too.
And right now — as BSF steps more boldly into who we are becoming — I want to say this clearly:
We are building a movement.
A movement grounded in truth-telling, connection, and dignity — built one conversation at a time.
Cafés are conversations.
Our trainings are conversations.
And conversation is how relationships grow strong enough to carry real change.