Bacon in a Glass

My youngest son, now 22, was not always skilled at regulating his big emotions. When he was in kindergarten, his two co-teachers—whom we adored and who had also taught our oldest son—encouraged us to enroll him in counseling. Specifically, for anger management.

We were fortunate to live near a well-respected, university-based center that offered evidence-based therapies and treatments. The support he received helped him—and our family—tremendously.

He learned tools to recognize his emotions, sit with them, breathe, and choose his response. To this day, we say, “Thanks for being a flexible frog,” when someone in our family doesn’t get their way and is chill about it.

Occasionally, at dinner, our son will bring up something he finds interesting about our parenting choices.

Recently, he was recalling what a picky eater he had been, including a period when—in his words—“You let me order ‘Bacon in a Glass’ for dinner!”

We all laughed, remembering the restaurant and our old neighborhood with fondness.

He got up to clear his plate, then turned back and declared, “I don’t know if I’d let my kid order just bacon. You could have said no.”

I closed my eyes. I could see my younger (but more sleep-deprived) self sitting across from my little boy in our favorite booth, looking at the menu.

“We could have said no,” I repeated back. “But what I remember about that time is that we were trying to meet you where you were—to understand your big emotions and how we might better support you in managing them. So much of your daily routine was dictated: when you woke up, the schedule at school, the routine at home. When we went out for a meal, it was meant to be special. And that meant you could choose what you wanted. Exercise your agency. Even if that meant having Benton’s bacon in a glass with house peanut butter.”

With time and support, people can learn to “catch and release” their emotions and change their behavior. But from what I’ve observed, change rarely happens because a teacher, parent, or manager says, “You need to change.”

The greatest shifts happen when the part of a person that is stuck in an unhelpful pattern is interrupted by new information or a different way of thinking and given a courageous space to experiment, while at the same time, the part of a person that wants to change is nourished. 

My son considers himself a foodie now. For his college graduation, his greatest heart’s desire was for the four of us to dine at a famous restaurant in London with three Michelin stars.

Sometimes helping someone grow means knowing when to set a boundary. And sometimes it means giving them a little room to choose what goes on their plate. Even if, for a while, it’s just bacon.