First of all thanks to all those who read my previous post on my anguish over the food battle ‘under the tree’. Also advance thanks to all those who successfully complete reading this detailed post.

Tharini asked me the dreaded ‘How?’ question. I was dreading this because it was quite vague in my own head. For the past ten days, I have been trying to crystallize the ideas in my head. Hopefully this post where I will be putting things in print will help me process my thoughts.

I believe introspection is the first step towards a solution in any problem. Because, in many situations our reactions are a direct consequence of the believes, values, judgements and labels that are embedded in our subconscious. So when we know what we are made of, we can pro-act and not react to the situation. When I am doing something, be it cooking for Chula and Mieja’s birthday party or even day to day dinner/lunch I always do it with great secrecy. When friends offer help I turn it down and when the R asks me what my plans are, I invariably bite his head off. This has created unpleasantness between R and I in the past.  My intentions were definitely not to hurt him and keep him out of the whole jing-bang-jix. Introspection revealed that I am person who  keeps improvising things till the very last minute or wait for inspiration to hit me and do things the very last minute. So when he asks me whats up and if he can help, I get irritated with myself for not having anything solid to offer and misdirected anger lashes out. OK, now that I have illustrated the value of introspection with a suitable example, let me move on.

Introspection in this situation led me to believe that:

(1)I believe food is the gateway to culture. My kids growing up away from India only made me more determined to offer them proper South Indian food. My ideas of a culturally consistent lunch boxwent down the drain long time back. I compromised and send pasta and sandwich for lunch 3/5 days. But while eating at home, I wanted to stick to the traditional kootu, sambar, morkuzhambu, poriyal types. When Chula and Mieja say no to South Indian food, I get agitated because I equate it as ‘no to food’ = ‘no culture’ = ‘people in India criticizing me as parent’ = ‘failed parent’.

(2)Children have to eat what was cooked for that particular day. Something that I clearly remember from my childhood is my father’s voice booming, “This is not a hotel. This is a home and you may not ask for a particular food in the very last minute and expect your order to be serviced.”

(3)I label children. There…. I said it and it is out in the open now. While I am at it I must also admit that I also judge adults. With adults and the children in school, these labels are okay because the relationship is non-personal in a certain plane. Actually at work these labels make my reflexes sharper and I am more efficient. Where as I treat my children as extensions of myself or even worse as versions of myself, UTBT Version2.0 or something. So I tend to be hard with the labels because the latest version must be devoid of all bugs, it has to be perfect right?!

(4)In my previous post Yaadayaada commented that I have patience and I made some generic quip. Actually, I do have patience. Unfortunately it is misplaced patience so it is hard for me to be consistently patient. Most of my patience is quantitative and not qualitative.

(5)I don’t know to ask, even if it is myself, for food.  I eat when it is convenient not when I am hungry. I have always thought of it as flexibility, but no. It is my disability to perceive that food is for hunger. So inadvertently I have modeled to my children that food is a leisure activity. If you are too busy involved in some activity, food can wait. All along I have been thinking that they get in to one activity after another to avoid food. But it is not the case. They haven’t given enough importance to food to make a plan to avoid it. They have a list of exciting things in their agenda and food break is just an inconvenience. I have to thank COS for this thought process.

(6)I feed them because it is in my to-do list. I look at it as a chore to be done before I have to go on to the next bullet item on my list.

(7)Last but not the least, I over analyze things. Some thing you all are aware of by now.

So the problems are/were not enjoying the food, tantrum for poori or something exotic in the last minute, food shoved in while the said children were distracted with TV etc.

Some of the problems self solved and I had to put my foot down for certain things. Watching TV while eating went out the window and in to the trash during summer vacation. For a while TV lunches/dinners were perfect because they would eat by themselves. Then it came to a stage where I had to pause the TV if they forgot to take the next spoonful or if they just sat with mouthful of food forgetting to chew or to swallow. Before I knew, I was feeding them with TV on. If I am doing the feeding, I might as well do it without TV! So I said no TV while eating. Initially there were cries of disappointments, but it quickly died down because we started doing family style sit down lunches/dinners or picnics in our backyard(it was summer an was perfect for picnics). Chula and Mieja are used to family style eating at school. The kids set the table with table cloth, placemats, napkins diluted apple/orange juice, water, silverware, plates, centerpiece from their garden, salad from their garden, bread and invite other children to eat. So we did the same at home. They would set the table/picnic mat, run out to the garden and get some flowers, place them in a vase for enjoying while eating and we would make some lingonberry juice(from IKEA, yum!).

This culture of the whole family eating together has primarily taught me to respect my food. Hopefully it would do the same to my children. I am trying to model that food is a not just an extrenal need, but to some extent a bonding process that brings the whole family together. This addresses introspection#5.

Also they started getting involved in food preparation over the summer break. I would plop one child on the counter or put a step stool over the sink. They helped/watched/played but whatever they did, they did get a vague sense that food does not magically appear. It takes time and effort to cook. So Chula now changed her request from, “I want poori now” to “Amma, can we make poori for dinner on Sat?”. This works well with my introspection #2 and tantrums for exotic food.

With respect to introspection #1, I had to make compromises. I still offer them South Indian food, but the twist is I offer it like they like it. They like their rice plain, white with ghee on top, no nonsense mixed in. So plain white rice it is with veggies on the side and a teeny serving of sambar kind of stuff in the teeniest cup you have ever seen, also on the side. This plate comes with the condition that they cannot say no without tasting the food. They have to take one taste for every birthday they have celebrated so far.

As to introspection #6, all said and done, for a mother feeding the children IS a duty. It would be ideal if it is not a chore. Right now I am not doing anything to address it directly, but hoping the other things will indirectly contribute to this.

I am working on making my patience qualitative and consistent and on taking things on their face value. If they say no, it is just a no with no strings attached. It is nothing personal. I simply have to travel back in time and remind myself that I have had days when the food simply wouldn’t go through my throat and the mere thought of it made me gag. As to the appreciations from people from India, well, I know that my close relatives have confidence in my parenting skills. So, I must not bother about the ramdom comments from people who meet me in passing. Sometimes people say stuff just for the lack of things to make a conversation. In this ear, out that ear, makes the world a much better place at times.

If the food is on the plate for more than 45 min, it is dead. It is my cue for asking them to clean up. I try encouraging them to finish their plate, but if it is not done, its better to end it in the best of terms. I get “Hey, I called it quits” kind of silly closure.

Lastly the bribes. Of course there are bribes. Sometimes I read a book for them while they are eating. Sometimes I tell them stories. Sometimes I tell them that we are going to eat how I ate when I was a child and was no summer vacation and mix the food, make it in to balls and put it in their palms and add a story to go with it. This spiced up with plenty of “Oh! my goodness, you muscles look very strong. Did you finish all your veggies by any chance?”, “Oh! your eyes are so shiny, look at your skin it is glowing, did your hair just grow?”….and the likes of it.

 BTW, should I categorize this as mommy development instead of child development???

 

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