It saddens me to hear of the sorts of food, or lack thereof, that so many of you grew up with. We always had plenty of healthy food available as well as a small, reasonable amount of treats.
Dinners throughout the week were typically meat, starch, veggies. Friday evenings my parents often brought home pizza from a take-out place on their way home from work as a special, easy, end-of-the-week meal. Sundays were always a larger (took more time and effort to make) meal typically followed by some sort of dessert.
I can relate to shell and Britt.f7's experiences of having to help with dinner. I was the oldest of three girls. My father typically got home from work a couple of hours before my mother. Either he or I had to start dinner and then my mom would help finish it when she got home. As I got older I was expected to prepare the entire meal (at the same time as watching after my younger sisters, cleaning the house, etc). This whole scenario later played into my abuse by my father but it still wasn't really related to the food, per se, just the issue of me filling so many of what were thought to be my mother's household roles (cooking, childcare, etc) and my father eventually thinking I should fulfill some of her other wifely duties as well. Now, as an adult, I hate to cook and I'm a pretty lousy housekeeper as well. But never in any of my time growing up did I ever have to worry about whether I would have adequate and nutritious food available to me at all times.
All of this talk is giving me second thoughts as to how I handle food issues with my daughter. She is a very difficult, picky, rigid eater. For the most part, I accommodate her difficult food demands (they are healthy, just very picky and no variety). She has just turned 8-years-old and there have been a couple of times recently when I've put my foot down and insisted that she taste or eat at least a few bites of other foods that are being served. It turns into a huge conflict, but I've stood my ground. I've tried explaining to her how lucky she is to not only have an abundance of food but to have the ability to be so picky about what she will eat and it is always there. I've tried explaining to her that most kids have to eat the same thing as the adults in their house and they aren't able to dictate what they will and won't eat. I've told her that there are a lot of unfortunate kids who have little or nothing to eat and she needs to understand how fortunate she is.
But as I read through some of the above stories, it makes me go back to my previous thinking of the past eight years that it's just not worth battling over. Like I said, her food choices are healthy (well, she does like snacks and treats as much as any other kid her age but understands they are only allowed in moderation and that she definitely doesn't get snacks or treats if she hasn't eaten proper healthy meals). I don't want her to grow up and have even bigger food issues than she already does and just remember the times when I made her eat things she didn't want to eat. I'd rather she grows up remembering that she always had enough to eat, they were meals that she enjoyed and they were filled with an abundance of healthy foods.
