GtkText: how to ensure it gets to be a child ?

[Paul Barton-Davis <pbd Op Net>]

If you insert text into a GtkText widget, it realizes itself. If you
do this before its parent window (c/o some packing operation), then it
ends up in its own separate window, rather than as a visible child of
the container. How can I avoid this without actually realizing the
text widget and its container in the right order, since I want to be
able to insert text into a text widget without the widget becoming
visible (if it currently is not) ?

I know about freeze and thaw, but they don't seem appropriate here,
since it means that the caller of the insert function needs to know if
it should thaw the text widget, and this seems unwise. 

--p