Nothing about my background prepared me for the fact that children need to eat so much and that it can’t all be snack cakes. So, this is the aspect of parenthood I’ve found most bewildering.

My own childhood was a glorious smorgasbord of get-what-you-want-from-the-fridge. My sister and I drank Coke with every meal. My dad gave us Twinkies for breakfast on the days when we were out of donuts. My mom attempted to foist upon us the comfort food of her youth — creamed tuna on toast, blech — but eventually she gave up and resorted simply to pointing at the kitchen.

You know where the food is, she was saying. Have at it.

Those were heady times. Hot dogs. Baloney and cheese. Lunch money spent on chocolate bars and Funyuns. My parents seemed to think that if we were eating something — anything! — then we were doing just fine. So I ate lots of delicious junk, and in college, I threaded most of my work-study paycheck through the English department’s vending machine.

When I met my husband, I knew it was true love, because I didn’t gross him out. In those days of budding affection, he thought it was delightful that my fingers were coated with non-nutritive cheez dust, and adorable that I dipped my Oreos in peanut butter. And then, the longer I knew him, the closer we both came to a middle ground. He would occasionally eat a Ho-Ho. I would occasionally eat a salad.

When our daughter was born, I was in charge of feeding someone else for the first time ever. It was clear immediately that this would be a big job. For one thing, hunger made the baby cry, and that sometimes made me cry. For another thing, everyone was always asking about the Feeding. How was the Feeding going? When would the next Feeding be?

Before that point, I hadn’t understood the importance or complexities of the Feeding. In fact, I’d figured my biggest job as a parent would be the reading. I thought — foolishly! I realize it now! — that if I just read to my kids a lot, they’d grow strong, like oaks. But, it turned out that I had to feed them, too. A lot. And it couldn’t all be snack cakes.

Other mothers seemed to understand this instinctually. They just knew, somehow, that food service was a parent’s third most important job (behind getting the kids to sleep and finding the right stroller). So, they were at the ready to provide piles and piles of nutritious food, all day every day. Those were the moms who brought bowls of brown rice to playgroup. And, those were the moms whose kids would actually eat brown rice at playgroup.

It took me a little longer to get up to speed. Before I had my daughter, I hadn’t realized that rice came in brown. Also, her first solid food was a cookie. But, after a few years of watching other moms — the way their diaper bags contained fruit instead of Snickers, the way their eyebrows shot up when I gave my daughter a Snickers — I started to figure it all out. I bulked up our arsenal of nutritious food and felt like I’d really accomplished something.

As it is with many parenting accomplishments, victory did not mean the end of the race. Even after I got good at feeding the children, that didn’t mean I could stop. Now, 12 years in to this parenting gig, I’m still surprised at how much kids eat, and how often.

They wake up, and they’re supposed to have a healthy breakfast. They don’t want one. They want sticky buns or marshmallows or they’re just-not-hungry. Still, you’ve got to feed them something, and it’s got to have whole grains. Maybe they eat it, maybe they don’t — you’ve given it your best shot. Then — whew! — that’s over, and you can relax.

Except that moments later, they need a snack. And then lunch. And then another snack. And then dinner. And then dessert, if they’ll just eat two more bites of dinner. And then it’s 9:30, and the Feeding is over for the day, but you hear the stairs creak, and someone in polar bear pajamas says his tummy is rumbling.

Like laundry and dishes and buying shoes, the Feeding is a marathon with no finish. Of course, the thing about a marathon is, you run a lot faster when you eat the right things. But sometimes we still have Twinkies for breakfast.

Heather Heath Chapman lives in Ann Arbor with her husband and children. You may reach her at heatherchapman1@me.com.