Norah can be a picky eater. She can also be quite stubborn. So last night, as she sat and steadfastly refused to eat her pork chops, succotash and rice, graciously provided by Rachel’s mother who cooked for all of us sidelined by the stomach flu, I tried every trick in my arsenal to get her to eat: Mmm, I love this meal, can I finish yours? Your food will taste much better warm than cold. Grandmama made this meal special for you! Everything on this plate is stuff you like! Lima beans are loaded with manganese to help you grow! No dessert until your pork is all gone. Until finally it just… slipped out. You know, there are a lot of hungry kids in the world who would do anything to eat your supper.
Oh yeah. I went there. I used the “starving children in China” meme.
What was I thinking? I mean, that crap never works. Didn’t work when I was a kid, doesn’t work now. Four-year olds don’t care about hungry children in other places in the world. Hell, my daughter couldn’t even find China on a map. Did I expect her to have an epiphany over that?
As expected, it was massive parenting FAIL. She just blinked owlishly at me, cocked her head and said “What children?”
Never mind, honey.
She did eat her pork, after a final desperate combination of bribery and bartering (two bites of pork, then she can eat the rest while watching Cars in the living room). She was particularly ornery last night. The succotash and rice remained on the plate, waiting for the next emaciated foreign child to wander by and gobble it up.
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I haven’t been though this phase since… well last night actually.
Not sure I understand it either. I do recall not being fond of a great many green, ovoid substances placed on my plate, for which I got the scorn of a parent raised during the Great Depression.
I’ve now succumbed to treating my kids as pets: “This is your dinner, if you’re hungry, you can eat it.” is becoming common along with “You understand that this is all you will have until breakfast… TOMORROW?”
When you come over and on the floor of the kitchen you find dishes of food, beside dishes of water, you will know that either we have a dog, or we’ve devolved as far as possible in feeding our kids.
HA! You are right. That never works. But you have to try it. When you run out of other things, that’s the natural process. I do like DZ’s response as well. Sounds like the house I grew up in.
Every night at dinner I have to coerce my children to eat. They love breakfast and lunch, but they hate dinner. I’ve used the starving children comment, but they just ignored me.