Picky Eaters
WHY is it considered okay these days for kids to NOT eat what the hell is put in front of them?
When Christine the Curmudgeon was a little Curmudgoenlette, she most certainly had to eat what was served, or starve. Same in Mr. Curmudgoen’s childhood home. There was little money for extras, no fast food or other treats.
Never mind that my mother was the world’s worst cook…it was still, “eat it or starve”.
There is a very obnoxious commercial currently running for a nutritional drink for kids called “PediaSure”. In it, a mother is in the supermarket, with a little girl who looks way to big to be sitting in the baby seat of the cart, but there she is. The mother is buying broccoli, to which the brat says, ‘I don’t like broccoli.” Then she’s buying chicken, and the kid goes “I don’t like chicken”. After that, the mother is shown picking up some of the PediaSure product, and the kid looks very happy. It ends with the spoiled brat sipping at the drink, and the mother smiling adoringly at her.
The sad thing is that although this is *just a commercial*, more and more families actually live like this, put up with their kids dictating the family meals.
Many of these families cook special meals for the picky eaters, which usually involve some sort of overpriced, overprocessed crap. Then the parents have the balls to complain about how expensive food is. Yeah, it IS more expensive than it used to be, but it would be a lot LESS expensive if you’d just cook, and make the brats eat what you cook, no alternatives. A parent is a parent, not a short order cook.
A lot of the parents of these “picky eaters” never encouraged them to try new foods in the first place. Many of them just buy “kid food” crap, ASSuming that this is the only crap that kids will eat. When kids are fed nothing but kid food and other such crap, they are less likely to want to try REAL food.
They brought their problems upon themselves. No pity from Christine the Curmudgeon.
Here’s a clue – no need to buy overpriced PediaSure if the kids won’t eat real food. They will NOT die from a day or so of not eating, because of refusing to eat the chicken broccoli alfredo that was put in front of them. Grow a set of balls, and a spine, and stand your ground, parents! Let the kid go to bed hungry for one or two nights. Their health will NOT suffer. I promise you that they will change their tune about food, and eat it, after being hungry for a night. Once it’s made clear that this isn’t a restaurant, they WILL eat. It worked to get me to eat even the nastiest stuff, trust me.
It’s all a matter of who’s in charge here. When I was a kid, I was forced to eat nasty meals made with SPAM. But I swore to myself that when I was grown up, had my own house and money to buy my own food, I woul d NEVER buy SPAM. Until then, my parents were in charge, and I had to do what they told me, or else.
Well, I’ve been on my own for almost 30 years now, and a can of SPAM has never crossed the Curmudgeon threshold.
But I love GOOD food, even broccoli and chicken.
