Marie Carter

Topics discussed

Menu ideas for school lunches, quick dinners, and sports snacks

Video Text

It’s really hard to know when they’re teenagers what they’re going to have to eat when they’re not under your roof. She didn’t want to tell the kids. She wouldn’t want to tell them where she was – you know – whether she could eat something or where she could eat. So she would eat before she would leave home or she would eat after she came home. Choosing not to eat in certain situations.

She never really talked about looking different specifically to me. But I could tell by her nuances or by her actions that she didn’t want to be different. That she wanted to – very much – fit in. I’m not sure exactly what she did when she wasn’t with me as far as those kinds of things. One of the things that I saw happen was that if she chose not to eat, she really didn’t look all that much different from the other girls who were choosing not to eat, but for a totally different reason and she tended, sometimes to do that – not to eat – and then she fit in.

Most of the time, from what I could see, her friends would choose whatever it was that they – wherever it was she could go. And if not – say the Prom or wherever those choices were made without knowledge of what Clarissa could have – I would call ahead and talk to them. There was one time when she went quite a long way away on a trip. And I called ahead and talked to the restaurant – to the people.

It’s a little bit hard and you have to trust you teenager to know that – you know – you’re not going to feel good if you don’t stick with the diet. But there’s a point where you have to pull away and let her make those choices. And sufferer the consequences if she doesn’t. I’m Marie Carter.

My daughter is 22 years old. She has Celiac Disease. And we are living our life.