Support Forced Vegetables

All of us have our thing.

A sports thing. A movies thing. A music thing.

Some don’t have a thing, which is their thing. And if you’re a hipster, you had a thing before anyone even thought it was cool to have a thing.

Right now, my thing is something I think we can all rally behind: broccoli.

Most people (especially kids) have an opinion about broccoli. If you ask my three kids, they hate it. I make it for dinner and get to endure all the questions.

“Why does it smell as bad as it tastes?”

“Are you really going to make me eat this?”

My personal favorite is when our boys (so much drama!) fall on the floor and lament about eating vegetables. I usually respond with some form of, “I really do hope this was the worst thing to happen to you today.”

Because there’s a lot of rough stuff that actually happens in this world. It’s scary to think about it for too long.

You may have heard the often used story of Fred Rodgers as a child. When he saw terrible things on the news as a kid, his mother did something that gave him hope. He recalled, “…There was something else my mother said that I’ve always remembered: ‘Always look for the helpers,’ she’d tell me. ‘There’s always someone who is trying to help.’”

There are a lot of hard things that go on in the world that I don’t understand – New York’s newest abortion ruling is a prime example. Everyone has an opinion on it, and though its implications are hard to stomach, I have hope.

I have hope, because in the middle of it all there are helpers like Debbie and Natalie.

They are some of the ladies in my town that run the local pregnancy center. Together with a great crew, they open their doors to anyone and everyone. They offer free pregnancy tests, counseling, support groups and sonograms, and give away lots of diapers.

These helpers have given a lot babies a first birthday.

So when things seem to be getting really dark and everyone is shooting opinions blindly into the social media abyss, remember there are more people than you and I have been led to believe that have a good thing going. It should give us hope.

Because I believe every kid should have the chance to hate broccoli.

 

If you are interested in helping the helpers, start here.