Today’s post brought to you (again!) from the New York Times
Once, a therapist said that I should feel free to blame my parents for what ailed me. “But,” I said, “I don’t really think it’s their fault. It’s just how I am.”
“Well then,” she shot back, “you can blame them for supplying you with the genes that made you how you are.”
Ah yes. Damned either way, those parents.
Well, that could be true, but I’d rather be blamed for my gene pool, over which I admit to having no control, than for my useless, crap parenting techniques. And I have long suspected that certain aspects of my children can be traced to certain, apparently nature-driven (rather than nurtured) aspects of myself or Ed.
Such as being a picky-eater. I am not a particularly picky grown-up (although please don’t offer me cauliflower, cooked spinach, okra, steamed squash, beetroot or vindaloo curry) but I was a reasonably picky child. Daniel is also a picky eater and now, according to this article in today’s Times, there’s scientific proof suggesting that such picky-ness is indeed genetic.
I did know this, sort of, in my sample-of-two study. And it has given me the grace to be more accepting and less bat-out-of-hell motherish about Daniel’s (or Helena’s for that matter) food choices. Pretty much, if they like it, they will eat it. And if they don’t, they won’t. And no amount of haranguing from a stressed mother will change that.
And I did go from a person who pretty much only liked what she liked, how she liked it, to someone who eats almost everything (even including the above list, only please not cauliflower). So I think there’s hope, and a strongly comforting sense that if I don’t fix everything in my children right this freakin’ minute, that there’s time and more time for them to grow. And some of that growing, they will do entirely on their own.
Whew.
I’ve conducted in-depth research on a scale similar to yours, and I’ve noticed that one kid’s hatred for bananas will be matched by a passion for, say, chickpeas, while another will loathe beans but adore soup. It’s such a waste of energy trying to force people to eat things they don’t like, especially if their nutritional needs are being met, more-or-less.
I think this has as much to do with the current trend among certain parents to want their kids to be “cool” and sophisticated, precocious and perfect, because of course, that reflects on your own coolness. Cool people have cool kids, right? And if your kid prefers grilled cheese and vanilla ice cream to caprese salad, that makes you — horrors — conventional and boring.
Why can’t we just let kids eat like kids? That doesn’t necessarily mean junk food, but aren’t certain foods an acquired taste? Can’t we let our kids acquire their tastes on their own time? No, because it is cooler at cocktail parties to say that your kids eat sushi and vindaloo. We want our children to have adult palates, but we do not afford them the right to have preferences.
I once told a foodie friend that he needed to remember that it was not a character flaw to be ambivalent about food. Our children are not an amalgam of our high-minded exposures and our imposed interests and passions. Jocks can raise aesthetes, and the gourmand can rear a philistine.
Same. I’m kind to my kids about their fussiness because deep down I sympathise. Even if that makes my job as head chef deeply frustrating.
Oh yeah!! We just had that dicussion today with our daughter. She disliked things for some years, because Mum or Dad did. Then she discovered she could choose!! And some of the things on the ‘hate’ list became ‘like’ lists!!
Iti s always the thin red line in parenting!!
You are invited to dinner where I’ll cook mostly stuff you like–and okra. I’ve cured many many friends (even children) of their supposed okraphobia. (For most people, it isn’t the food–it’s the preparation.) And if you think you don’t like Brussels sprouts, I may be able to fix that, too. And I’ll let you hold some yarn during that first bite….
hey! you stole my line–I used to tell my mom: “I’m not picky, I like what I like” : )