SC - So ya wanna Twinkie

[Bonne]

Berengaria wrote:

> Well, I think it depends on the child and parent in question...my
> mother was overly fretful about my being "underweight" as a child.
> ... She had a panic whenever I went more than one meal
> without finishing it.  She offered ice cream and sherbet as dessert
> rewards and while sometimes sufficient to get me to finishw aht
> were probably overlarge servings of food for a child, I wasn't
> that concerned about getting sweets every night, so about every
> other meal I didn't finish.  One time when I was quite small, I
> realy wanted the strawberries that were going on strawberry
> shortcake; Mom understandably said, "not until you finish your
> dinner". I didn't whine or scream, I just went on a two-day hunger
> strike and didn't eat a thing.

Your mom, like so many others, turned it into a "control" situation.  Little
kids don't have much power in their lives, and some learn pretty quickly that
food intake is one of the few things they can control.  

> 
> Now, while not 100% omnivorous, I'll try anything.  I honestly don't
> understand adults who continue to allow themselves to be "picky
> eaters" and won't at leat try new things.

There's more to the final results than simply fighting over food intake, and
whatever more it would have taken to make you a picky grown-up evidently
didn't happen.  But, not everyone is so lucky:

> Interestingly, I've noted parents who fret about their children's
> "pickiness"--and then at family dinners, watched those same
> adults refuse to eat something under done, overdone, too spicy,
> with crusts on it.  Mixed signals, anyone?

Again, these children are being taught pickiness, though sometimes there
parent's might insist they are teaching the children to be discerning. 
Saturday, I had the umpteen thousandth lecture from my dad on why I should
enjoy my steack much more rarely done than I do, followed by his ridiculous
refusal to cook it any longer than the others.  I had to go out and stand by
the fire another minute myself.  We've been doing this since I was 13 and
first insisted that I wanted a little less red--just pink would do. At that
time he got really angry at the suggestion that he just put mine on the grill
a minute sooner, or be certain mine stayed in the middle (hotter) part of the
grill, or they buy me a thinner steack.  I'm quite a bit older now.  Perhaps
it's just one of those lame dad-type jokes to make me do this every time.  

Bonne
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