Every morning at 8.30 sharp my guilty conscience visits me. And always when I’m standing in kindergarten and unpacking my daughter’s breakfast. In all other places, mothers build smiling faces out of kiwi slices, organic bananas and yoghurts with spelled inserts. Only on Helen’s plate does it look as if a tiny construction worker wanted to fortify himself for the laying of the foundation stone: thick sandwiches with even thicker slices of salami. No fruit anywhere. An alibi apple. But only on very good days.
Basically, my daughter prefers to eat foods that nutritionists gasp at and grab a tie knot. Sports? When other children do gymnastics on the climbing frame, she tells her sand molds serials about dinosaurs and pirates. She only moves to rip off her cap to protect against UV radiation. This could be a pre-pre-pubescent form of rebellion. But it’s not just Helen who refuses to exercise, the rest of my family is no better.
When my husband drinks rooibos tea instead of red wine, I know: he’ll be sick tomorrow. Dierk’s idea of fitness? Arguing on internet forums with other medieval maniacs about how knights fought their duels in the 15th century. Care? Swam over it. Every week while cleaning, I dust off the face cream tube I bought him in 2007. Then we still have Henri. After all, he keeps fit by crawling what feels like 15 kilometers up and down the hallway every day. But what else should you do in your free time if you can’t even sit down?
I am different from the others. I have a bonus card at the “greenhorn” fresh juice stand, can tell the calorie count of most commercially available foods off the top of my head, sing mantras without laughing, and have at least tried most of the trend sports of the last 20 years. Except for bungee jumping. Nevertheless, sometimes I think that my family is ahead in terms ofTolfioowity. Because I’m the classic yo-yo player: either I follow my workload of sports and co with the discipline of a Prussian tax officer – or I switch to the opposite and console myself with milk nuts in the morning about my failure.
The rest of the family simply lives by the pleasure principle. When Helen runs across a field, it’s not to burn calories in the anaerobic training zone. But because the grass feels so good under your bare feet. When Dierk cleans seedless grapes, he doesn’t think about the cell protection effect of the ingredients . But simply enjoy the taste of late summer and Sundays in bed. Nor is Henri training for washboard abs when he’s trying his little baby sit-ups. He just wants to finally see the world from above. Maybe I should just cut myself a slice of it.
Less sense of duty, more fun principle. Because amazingly, the rest of my family is neither fatter than me, nor do they get out of breath faster in the playground race. Exemplary, actually. Only her thick sausage sandwiches, Helen is welcome to keep to herself.
