Most of us grew up with rules around dinner – whether it was to at least try everything or to make sure you finishing everything on your plate.
But is putting food-related expectations on our kids outdated? And does it foster an unhealthy relationship with food?
A 29-year-old mums says she’s had a falling out with her mother-in-law, after she tried to force her four-year-old daughter to eat vegetables that she doesn’t like. The mum of two, who also has a two-year-old son and is pregnant says the family was having dinner at her husband’s parents’ house over the weekend, when the argument unfolded.
“They always do DIY style dinners where we serve ourselves,” the mum explained. “My daughter does not like broccoli or Brussels sprouts and so when I helped her with her plate, we left those off and included all the other veggies on the plate because she likes those.
“MIL saw that we had not included two of the veggies and went and added a small amount of each to her plate. She then told my daughter to try at least everything on her plate. My daughter said she doesn’t like them (this is when my husband and I heard what his mum was doing because we had already started digging in and helping our two-year-old). We told MIL to stop and she doesn’t need to eat those.
“MIL argued that they were on her plate and every kid needs the rule that you need to at least try a bite of everything. I told her it was not our rule and I did not put those things on my daughter’s plate. She said she did because she should eat them. My husband told her to leave it alone. She told my daughter yet again to eat the broccoli and sprouts and I told her she cannot force my child to eat something she doesn’t want.
“MIL yelled and told me I am going to raise a picky eater with a bad attitude toward food if I didn’t stop catering to her like that. My husband became enraged and told his mum she was out of line, cruel and she owed us an apology. MIL and him argued it out until my husband and I left early.”
The woman says her own past with eating disorders has helped her formulate how she’s raising her own children.
“I was diagnosed with OCD and anorexia when I was 13. I had a very unhealthy relationship with food my whole childhood. Part of that, it is believed, was due to how strict my parents were about food. They did not believe you could dislike a piece of food and would always insist I eat everything and eat it all up.
“They would berate me, yell at me and intimidate me into eating the stuff I did not like. It created some bad compulsions that led to me starving myself through a large portion of my childhood. I was removed from my parents thanks to my grandparents stepping in when at the age of 13 I passed out in school and was rushed to the hospital. I was malnourished, weak as a preemie kitten and I did almost lose my life because of it.
“It took several years for any kind of healthy attitude to food to begin and I am very much still a work in progress. So MIL saying what she did really upset my husband because MIL is aware of what I went through and that I of all people do know what an unhealthy attitude to food is like.
“Despite all this, my telling MIL she couldn’t force my daughter to eat something started off a big chain reaction and I wonder if I’m the a**hole for saying it to her like that and whether I could have made things less explosive.”
What do you think of this situation? Let us know in the comments below.
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Dockerchic replied
- 19 Apr 2023 , 9:11 pm
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