It seems socially unacceptable to serve up a bowl of cereal for dinner and call it a night. Honestly, I’m nearly ready to announce that my kids will have to handle their own meals if they want anything to eat—I’m just so tired of watching them push my lovingly prepared dishes around their plates, claiming they’re full, only to beg for snacks a half-hour later.
They don’t grasp that feeding a family involves more than simply cooking. There’s tedious meal planning, where I tirelessly try to come up with options that are somewhat nutritious but also won’t end up in the garbage. I know they’ll devour anything beige or artificially orange, which makes it tempting to serve dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets and neon mac and cheese every night, knowing they’ll finish their plates.
But then the mom guilt kicks in, my thoughts spiraling into phrases like “nutritional deficiencies” and “health crisis.” So, I find myself endlessly scrolling through Pinterest, searching for nutritious meals that won’t be a flop. I remind myself to include a vegetable. Are cucumber slices just crunchy water? Does tomato sauce actually count?
I’ve tried to broaden their palates by introducing new foods; they’ve sampled risotto, radicchio, quinoa, kale, mashed cauliflower, and butternut squash. I’ve resorted to smothering everything in cheese, blending them into soups, or serving them over pasta, which kids will always eat.
I go to great lengths to experiment with meals, hoping one day they’ll choose healthy foods over processed junk. But despite a few wins here and there, it typically ends with polite nibbles (we call it a “no-thank-you taste”), some selective picking of “too squishy” items, and a lot of creative rearranging of food to make it seem like they’ve eaten more than they have. It’s enough to make me clench my fists and shout, “You’ll eat a booger, but not quinoa?!”
To make matters worse, their picky eating leaves me with leftovers, which, let’s face it, are only good for a couple of meals. The amount of uneaten food I’ve guilt-consumed instead of tossing has added at least 15 pounds to my waistline—at the very least.
And after all that effort, I still have to clean up after a meal that my kids treated like a pile of garbage. It’s incredibly disheartening.
Nevertheless, I maintain my “eat it or go hungry” stance. It won’t harm them to eat whole foods once or twice a day. If they’re hungry enough, they’ll eat whatever is placed in front of them—newsflash: it won’t always be pizza and fries (though that would be amazing).
So, I’ll continue my quest for recipes that balance health and taste—because surely there’s a middle ground between kale chips and mozzarella sticks. Even if they never appreciate my efforts, I refuse to stop trying to convince them that my cooking isn’t as disgusting as they pretend it is.
But I’m allowed to vent about it in the meantime. If they can eat boogers, they can figure out how to nibble on some whole grains or vegetables.
For more insights on a related topic, check out this post, which discusses home insemination. If you’re interested in enhancing your fertility, Make a Mom offers valuable resources. For further information on pregnancy and home insemination, visit the CDC.
In summary, navigating the complexities of feeding picky eaters can be exhausting. Despite our best efforts, it often leads to frustration and leftover meals. However, we remain committed to providing nutritious options, hoping that one day they’ll appreciate the effort that goes into their meals.