The Candy Talk!

 

Last night, while putting Rael to bed, we were having our usual random conversations.

She asked all of a sudden,

"Amma, why are some kids eating candies?"

I told her, "Sometimes children cry or throw tantrums for them. Sometimes adults give in. And sometimes people don't really know how unhealthy they can be."

She looked at me and asked,

"Why don't I have candies?"

Instead of answering, I asked her,

"Do you think candies are good for you?"

She immediately said,

"No, they're not."

I asked, "Why?"

"They cause stomach pain."

I smiled and told her, "Yes. They're full of sugar and colours. They don't do our bodies any good."

Then she asked something I wasn't expecting.

"Amma, if candies are not good for kids, then why do shops keep them? If they don't keep them there, no kids will ask for them, right?"

I paused.

Honestly, it made sense.

I told her, "You're right."

"But why, Amma?"

I said, "Because people buy them, and shops make money by selling them."

She looked at me and asked one last time,

"But it's not good, right Amma?"

"No, Rayekunje," I said. "It's not."

The conversation ended there, but it stayed with me.

As adults, we've accepted so many things that we rarely stop to question them. A three year old hasn't. She sees the world in simple terms.

If something isn't good for children, why is it kept right at a child's eye level at almost every checkout counter?

Why are cartoon characters and bright colours used to sell foods that even adults admit aren't healthy?

Why do we expect children to have self-control when entire industries are designed to catch their attention?

Why is the responsibility placed almost entirely on parents to say "no," while everything around them is engineered to make children ask for "yes"?

I'm not saying candies should disappear from the world. Childhood isn't about never having treats. But I found myself wondering why we, as a society, have normalised surrounding children with products we know they don't need and then treating it as a parenting problem.

Rael was just trying to understand the logic. "If it's not good for kids, why is it there?"

I gave her the simplest answer I could.

But I think her question deserves a much bigger conversation than my bedtime answer.