automatedeating wrote:I'd love to hear what you think occurred in your past to cause these issues? I am mostly curious because I don't want to incite these issues in my own children.
And I don't think I have any of those three issues, but I'm wondering why I don't. LOL, what did my parents do RIGHT?
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I'm a bit torn on this one, because I kind of want to defend parents, especially mothers. I understand that food = love is a difficult issue, but one way I express my love of my family is feeding them. In fact, the first thing I did, for both my babies, literally minutes after they were born, was breast feed them. Even now, making sure there is good, healthy food in the house, and on the table 3 times a day is mostly done by me (my husband helps a lot, but I'm the main planner and cook). I don't do this because they pay me, but because I love them and I feel a responsibility to care for them.
Sure if the ONLY way of expressing love is food, then that's problematic. If food is used instead of cuddles / communication etc as the way of dealing with tough emotions, then that's an issue. But I don't like the idea of parents beating themselves up for a pretty normal behavior of expressing love and care by providing for their family, which is shared by cultures all over the world.
Also, special food and drinks with celebrations is the norm for cultures all over the world throughout history. My problem is not that my kids get a birthday cake, it's that we've created a culture where cake is available daily, whether special or not.
Considering whether guests in my home have enough to eat and drink to me and my husband is part of being a good host. Just as I make sure someone has a comfortable seat, or a glass of cold water on a hot day, I will make sure they are not hungry and that the food they do have is to their taste. I imagine this is close to the norm all over the world for hospitality.
All of these things can be taken too far of course - everyone has known that anxious host who bobs up and down every second checking that everyone is ok, or the pushy relative who won't let you say "no" to something.
Up until the last generation or two and still today in a lot of countries in the world most families deal with scarcity. Is it surprising that our culture hasn't caught up yet on "the best way to parent" when abundance, not scarcity, is the norm for food? My grandmother taught us to make cakes by breaking the eggs into a cup one at a time in case they were rotten, because if you broke them straight into the bowl with your sugar and butter, one rotten egg would ruin a whole fortnight of sugar ration.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I agree with a lot of common sense ideas out there for parents, parents didn't create our food culture and advertising and they aren't solely responsible for any issues their kids might have around food. I feel like with a lot of issues, we're very quick to blame parents and create a bunch of "mommy guilt" over stuff that has a lot of sources and influence.
The things I try to do (whether these help or not, time will tell):
Eat sensible meals in company with my kids to model moderate behavior
Enjoy occasional treats at birthdays and special occasions with my kids
Don't put my kids on a diet
Don't demonize or canonize foods to my kids
Don't offer to comfort an injured / sad / frightened / angry kid with treat food
Don't criticize my own body in front of the kids.