Mad and frustrated at a stupid ad on TV! (RANT!!!)

[gudrin]

Ugh. I hate those stupid commercials too. I grew up with the "If you don't like it, make something yourself" rule. My husband is not picky, but his brother is, and even to this day my MIL will make two different meals. One for most of the family and one for my BIL. It irks me to no end! We went to their house Christmas Day evening, and when we walked in, I smelled crab legs in the process of steaming. She was quick to inform me that we were having steak also, because she knows I don't like crab. I told her not to worry about me, because I know how to make something else if I really need it, but for the sake of the dinner I could choke down some crab if I had to. She was surprised. She's so used to catering to everyone's needs that it was different to hear someone would eat something he/she didn't like. The only reason they were having crab that night was because they were going to have it Christmas Eve as per their tradition (it's usually just the two of them on Christmas Eve) but they got invited out at the last minute instead.

Now that I'm a mother, my daughter has to at least try everything. She sits until she does. Some things we try more than once if we haven't had it in a while. If she doesn't eat, she doesn't get any treats or snacks. Plain and simple. She knows this, and is usually pretty good about eating. Sometimes when we have something like fajitas she'll eat all the meat, but not the veggies. That's fine, as long as she eats something from her plate. We take the "over time" approach to her food intake. Has she had some veggies and fruits other than at dinner? Yup? Okay, we won't push it. BUT! She has sat at the table with us since she was born, essentially. That is our family time and she doesn't just eat and get down. She sits until her dad and I are done as well. She's not too picky because of that. We have expectations and we follow through. Our friends who have a son about the same age as our daughter are amazed at her table manners. We were there for a meal once and it was brats on the grill. Okay, no problem. They had hot dogs for the kids. My daughter wouldn't eat the hot dog, but when we gave her some of our brats, she gobbled it down in two seconds! We just don't do hot dogs around here. Real sausages and brats are fine, but not that overly processed crud that passes for meat.

LOL this is funny because when my nieces/nephews come to visit when they were little they never failed to tell me how mean of a mom I was to my kids because I made them eat their "healthy" dinner at least SOME of it...they were never forced to eat everything on their plate but I always told them take what you WILL eat rather then wasting it.

When our daughter does get too whiny, I just tell her I went to mean mom school and she'll just have to deal with it. She's two, so sometimes she'll tell people, "My mom went to mean mom school, but I just have to live with it."​

 

[texasgal]

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I'm here also. I have one that doesn't like tomatos (including pizza and spaghetti sauce) .. and one that doesn't like seafood or chocolate.

We have a healthy balance of all these things (because mamma like them

) .. and if you don't like what is on the table, feel free to get up and make yourself a sandwich.

My oldest has always been a very picky eater .. frustrating, but workable. Recently we are learning that she is probably and Asperger's kid .. who are very sensitive to TEXTURE.. (which is the reason she rejects many foods) .. I'm certainly glad I didn't hold her down and force her to eat things .. I think she'll be just fine ..

 

[Feathered Wings]

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Exactly! I raised my kids to eat all things and let them choose from observation what they liked and didn't.
My sons first scramble eggs ended up back on the high chair and on me so i tried again just his gagging told me he was not going to eat those.
I tried to balance my meals so everyone was happy with something, But they were told to eat certain things too or theres peanut butter in the cabinet.

Today my son is soon to be 18 and eats a big variety of things and even grows things in the garden i won't eat (spinich

) he started eating those eggs again at about 14.

 

[ebwy]

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the ones that I actually did throw up from didn't get served to me so often, but the ones that only made me feel really ill they thought I was making excuses about which is why they kept giving me them.

 

[rancher hicks]

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Amen to that. My mother was not a nice person and didnt' like my sister, but when my sister got sick after eating a hotdog, my mother never made her eat another one.

 

[elijahboy]

i serve dinner about 2 hours before bedtime

if my kids say they dont want to eat what i cook i say ok well go to bed you dont have to eat and by the time your starving you will be sound asleep but dont wake up starving and think someone is going to jump out of bed to feed you i will take my time to make breakfast

 

[Prettiest Frog]

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There are also volume differences. My son eats 3 big meals a day and doesn't particularly like to 'snack'. My niece is happiest when she can have a small meal every hour. My niece once saw part of a horror movie where someone's head got crushed and the brain spurted, and now won't eat anything that 'spurts' or 'leaks' because they remind her of that scene and induce gagging. So things like the jelly filled pastries my son absolutely loves make her feel ill at the thought of eating.

I'm willing to let my son have some control over what he eats. He is allowed to leave food on his plate if he doesn't want to eat it, and he is often allowed to pick which vegetable we get as a side dish. He's happy, he's healthy, he gets enough to eat, and he doesn't have anywhere near the food issues my nephew is already developing.

I'm a believer in setting a good example for my kids. I also know there are foods I won't eat because I simply don't like them. They don't make me ill. I just don't like them. French cut green beans, creamed anything, anything with yellow mustard, overcooked meat, over-fatty meat, kiwi, lobster, and coconut all come to mind. I don't make myself eat them, so why would I make my son eat something he may dislike just as much? He hates mango with the same passion I hate coconut, so why would I force him to eat mango while I refuse to eat coconut?

As long as he eats a healthy meal, he can have his likes and dislikes all he wants. He's adventurous, he'll retry things now and then and try anything at least once. He's happiest at an quality buffet where there are a hundred different interesting things so he can have one bite of everything. I don't worry about it much and if one night he doesn't want to eat any of his dinner, well, that's fine too. There are days I don't really want anything to eat either. There are days when I'm in the mood to eat nothing but eggs and other days when I wouldn't eat an egg if it was all there was in the kitchen. How can I really justify asking something of my kid that I'm not willing to do myself?

 

[mom'sfolly]

My "alert" parents thought I threw up on purpose. It didn't seem to matter that every time I was made to eat my mom's meat loaf, I barfed. Mom used cheap beef, and thought bread crumbs and large chunks of bread were the same thing. The texture of the fat soaked bread in the meat loaf made me vomit every time I was forced to eat it. My grandmother even remember my parents doing a "watch what happens when we make her eat this" situation.

Certain foods in my household became a battle of wills, which I usually won. A much smarter approach would have been to stop the battle before it started and let me eat the veggies and the potato and skip the meatloaf.

Let me also mention, my mother probably has an eating disorder, and rarely ate with the family. And as an adult, I'm clinically obese.

 

[Prettiest Frog]

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the ones that I actually did throw up from didn't get served to me so often, but the ones that only made me feel really ill they thought I was making excuses about which is why they kept giving me them.

The problem with something like lactose intolerance is that sometimes it takes a while to kick in. If I don't take my meds and drink a glass of milk I might not feel sick right away. It could even take a few hours before the stomach upset gets bad. But it's going to happen, and I know it's going to happen, so I developed a strong distaste for the items. Trust me, if I could throw it up two minutes after eating it I would have. I actually resorted to that a few times when I was about nine. Eat the cream covered noodles so grandma doesn't throw a fit, then sneak to the bathroom and put my finger down my throat.

Even after my grandmother learned about my lactose intolerance and quit making me have a glass of milk with breakfast (guaranteed to have me puking within an hour) she'd still insist that the butter and cream in the mashed potatoes weren't a problem and I should shut up and eat them. Sure, they didn't make me puke or have to spend 4 hours on the toilet, but frankly mild stomach cramps and nausea aren't a whole lot of fun either.

 

[SallyF]

My children both had likes and dislikes. I tried not to cater to those, but also didn't make a big deal over it. We had the one bite rule at our table. My daughter, as an infant, was an instinctive vegetarian. When I started her on baby meats, she spit them all back at me. For a few years the only meats she would eat were very expensive ones: shrimp, halibut, veal, etc., and eventually she quit eating those. I just made sure that there were high protein alternatives available for her at every meal. My son would eat everything except squash; he would burst into tears in the grocery store vegetable section if I even picked up a squash. Now they're both grown, enjoy cooking and are very adventurous eaters, with the exceptions, of course, of meat in one case and squash in the other! As a child, I didn't like macaroni, tomato soup, and green peas. Now I love them all. Bottom line: the dinner table should be neither a battleground nor a catering service.