Listen to this story: If you’re in the car, or cooking, or just lazy… you can listen to me read this story for you, in the audio file below.
Nothing exemplifies the change in children’s diets and culinary expectations better to me than the “babyccino”. The tiny cup of steamed milk, topped with a sprinkle of cocoa powder, sold to parents at urban cafes, almost solely so that they may take a photograph of their child with it.
I’ll confess, I was drinking cheap instant coffee by ten years old (milk and two sugars), without anyone batting an eyelid. That’s not something I’d repeat with my children, but it still feels less dangerous than getting them into cafe culture too young. I don’t believe in gateway drugs, necessarily, but gateway lifestyles can be catastrophic.
Once when my son was around four, I stopped by a coffee shop with him and he talked me into buying him a drink like mine. I ordered him a steamed milk (like a babyccino, but bigger), as the place wasn’t quite quaint enough to do the whole tiny cup and cocoa act. I’d done this before and have since for his sister. I regret it every time.
On this occasion, unbeknownst to me, he left half of the milk in the cup holder of his carseat. A few days later, after it had had time to curdle, he took a sip while I was driving. He spat into his lap, yelled and wiped down his tongue with his t-shirt.
Serves him right, I thought. Too soon.
When I was a kid, if you were lucky your local park had a “kiosk”. It was a small store - in my case just an opening in one wall of the public bathroom building - selling sodas, chips, ice creams and the like. On a visit home in the early 2000s, I noticed that the hole-in-the-wall at our old local park had been expanded, you could now see the employee’s whole body. Tables and chairs were set out, there was a menu offering, amongst many other things; espresso coffee. It was a proper cafe (“world class”, as they like to boast in Australia), where you could comfortably sip on a latte. Or its younger, more relaxed cousin, the flat white. And like most places where you can pick up an espresso these days, they’ll sell you a “babyccino” for the little one, too.
Go on, then. What’s the harm? Oh, I don’t know… a high schooler who can’t start classes without a double shot? (But first, coffee, I can hear them moan.)
On vacation recently we stayed in a hotel with a Starbucks in the lobby. Our six-year-old daughter insisted on going in, like it was Disneyland. Swirling in the scent of sweet mocha she felt so sophisticated. Meanwhile the staff couldn’t even agree on which drinks were caffeinated, and were blithely set to serve her some fruity tea, loaded enough to fly her back to Los Angeles. Not their problem, I suppose. Thank god my wife double-checked.
In the US this kind of youthful extravagance has found other outlets, too. Kids’ birthday parties can start to feel like one big babyccino to me.
The typical food and drink on offer present a fascinating contradiction. The health conscious (myself included) have come to regard sodas with a deep suspicion, which for many parents borders on a mortal fear. So much so that I see more kids drinking Gatorade than soda these days. Apart from the bubbles and marketing, I’m not sure they’re that different, really. One is not soda, that’s all that matters. But juice boxes tend to be the agreed upon party beverage and kids can drink enough of those to hit a soda-level sugar intake in minutes. They always run out first.
I don’t remember the last time I saw a homemade cake at a kids party in Los Angeles. I won’t even write how much we’ve spent on one or two from professional bakeries for our children, I’ll get light-headed. Needless to say, the secret ingredient for all those fancy cakes is probably more sugar. Being so close to Mexico, the piñata is an almost universal feature at parties for the under-10s, too. Packed to its papery ribs with whichever candy you like and culminating in a beautiful dash to collect the most pieces when it finally bursts.
Weeks before one of my children’s birthdays, my wife and I begin the uneasy stages of early negotiations. The venue and guest list tend to be the opening issues, as my wife shows an admirable level of concern for the kids’ entertainment and being inclusive of as many of them as possible. My mind wanders back to my parties as a kid, then stops suddenly, as I barely remember a thing. Just my siblings and some cousins' faces, happy to be in the presence of sweet food and fizzy drinks. “Entertain yourselves” is a phrase that lingers.
If I do manage to at least keep the venue of our child’s party simple - at our local park for instance, where we certainly don’t have kiosks, and you're lucky to find an operable vending machine - the excess finds a way in. Over the roar of a bouncy house generator, we try to separate gifts from piles of plastic, general refuse and leftover food. Some people will even bring a gift for the sibling of the birthday boy or girl, to keep it “fair”.
Maybe I am an old Scrooge, but the excess can feel distracting to me. Sipping faux espresso and endlessly entertaining, sugar-fuelled, gourmet fairness isn’t the idea of childhood I have at heart. I’m not sure my kids even know who was at the party, until we make them help with Thank You notes for the gifts.
Are we setting the bar too high? Will this generation’s adult life be one big, luxuriously caffeinated, bankrupting disappointment?
I fear one day overhearing my son or daughter, standing somehow-bored amongst the clamor of a crowded, perfect party venue, insulting a 300-dollar-an-hour magician, criticizing the stingy cheese board, or complaining about the poor quality espresso. Wondering when the rest of their class will bother to show up and what lame presents they’ll bring for their sibling.
I can find myself spiraling into a doom loop. Envisioning a life of ever-ratcheting, insatiable excess, where only unmet desire can follow. We all want things, sure. “I want milk!” I can handle… “Where’s my babyccino!?” is a whole other matter.