There was no “gentle parenting” in the ’70s, especially at the dinner table. You either ate what was prepared for you, or you were labeled a sniveling, spoiled brat who didn’t care if children in China starved because you wouldn’t eat your meatloaf.
One time, I was forced to stay at the table until I’d eaten all my potatoes. I blame my dad. He had told me that potatoes have eyes and then lost his mind when I refused to eat mashed potatoes. I was convinced the lumps were eyeballs and I was not about to eat potato eyeballs.
I wasn’t trying to be picky, I just didn’t like things that were mushy, smelly, runny, squishy, eggy or slathered in mayo.
Grandma Stewart considered me the most coddled child in history. She could not fathom how I could reject her slimy bowl of lima beans, which included (if memory serves) onions, ham, shampoo and arsenic.
“If you don’t eat your lima beans, it just means you’re spoiled,” she huffed when I put my head on the table to cry. She said the same thing when I refused to eat bread crust, cottage cheese, tuna fish or canned beets.
Side note: Grandma loved Jordan almonds, the only food she refused to share. She’d hide them from the grandkids because she knew we’d eat them. We scoured the cabinets until we found them and devoured every last one. I think that’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy, Grandma.
As a kid, terrible food was everywhere. If I wasn’t being subjected to a disgusting recipe Mom found in a McCall’s magazine, I was being betrayed by school lunch ladies. They’d slide a quivering square of delicious cherry Jell-O, topped with whipped cream, onto my lunch tray. But the joke was on me when I took a big bite of the tasty dessert only to learn it was sour cream, not whipped cream. Who does that to a child? Sadists, that’s who!
While eating dinner at a friend’s house, her mom shamed me for not eating the disgusting canned peas. So, I ate it and cried. It was just another meal I was forced to eat, like a hostage.
Sometimes, I’d take a proactive approach when it came to avoiding foods I didn’t like. Mom often made chicken pockets, which were shredded chicken mixed with cream cheese, baked into crescent roll dough. I hated cream cheese (mushy, smelly). When I saw it in the fridge, I cried. I hid the box of cream cheese behind the wilted lettuce in the vegetable bin, but Mom always found it.
Other ploys included acting sick (rarely worked), “forgetting” about dinner while playing outside (never worked), pretending to sleep on the couch (sometimes worked) and throwing a fit at the dinner table (never worked, plus I lost dessert).
I don’t know why Mom refused to accommodate my delicate palate. I was only repulsed when it came to sauces, dressings, mustard, canned foods, Vienna sausages, tuna, cottage cheese, sour cream, maple syrup, vegetables, macaroni salad, yogurt, the textured vegetable protein popular in the ’70s or anything slathered in mayo.
It didn’t matter. I was expected to “Learn to like it, or else!” Or else, what? A grateful digestive system? A lack of nightmares? A healthy relationship to food?
With four daughters, I understand how hard it is to make meals for ungrateful children. I’ve had daughters who refused to eat pizza, spaghetti, meat, dairy products, lasagna, hamburger casserole or anything with onions. They probably have their own list of foods that ruined their childhood. That’s what therapists are for.
perikinder.com 