Question: Are all mothers destined to traumatize their children with food?

It seems that no matter what I feed my children, they don’t like it. And I recently realized that this was not unique to my kids. My mom was visiting, and my sister was there, too, which brought to mind some family dinners in which many’s the time I ate pb and j because I could not handle what my mom had made.

My sister, on the other hand, was not nearly as fussy as me, and so was able to ingest my mom’s culinarily interesting creations. She went on a health food kick in the 70s (who didn’t?) and suddenly wheat germ made an appearance, sprinkled lavishly on every possible edible surface. She always used a lot of cheese on things, allegedly to make them taste better. But her favorite food was cabbage.

Lots and lots of cabbage.

Sure, it’s good for you, but in most forms it’s downright nasty. To this day I can’t eat anything with cooked cabbage. Not a thing. Sauerkraut freaks me out (hey, that rhymes!) and brussel sprouts (another fave at our house—not) turn my stomach to this day.

And the little frozen “spinach soufflés”from Stouffers were just the gnarliest thing ever. I still have issues with finely chopped spinach. And frozen broccoli bits? You know, when they’re all chopped up and the stems are prominent? Gah. In French it was called "brocolli haches", with an accent on the e that I don’t know how to do on this computer, but trust me, it was nasty.

I have grown, as an adult, to enjoy salad, but many veggies still give me the willies. This can’t be all my mom’s fault. I mean, my sister ate them all with gusto and still enjoys them. Even today she’d eat a cabbage and wheat germ casserole with nary a blink. She’d like it.

Me? Not so much. I’m a fussy eater. I never really realized it, but my husband AND mother can confirm it. I’m fussy. If I like something, it doesn’t like me. And if I don’t like it, I’m often the only one in the room who doesn’t.

But the rule in our house was: if you don’t like it, make yourself a peanut butter sandwich. And no complaining. (which I now realize was key, because I can tell you right now that I get kind of pissed off if my kids don’t like what I made. It’s like, hey, I clean you, comfort you, feed you, so you get what you get on your plate and if you don’t like it, suck it up or make your own damn sandwich.) There was a healthy respect for the fact that my mom was doing pretty much every household/homemaking duty PLUS working full time, so there was no room for guff.

And you still had to eat your veggies. Tough crowd.

Anyway, I don’t eat cabbage anymore, and my mom and I laugh about the food dramas of days gone by.

So am I going to be having this conversation with my adult kids like I just did with my mother and sister? Going over all the gnarly things we didn’t like and avoided like the plague? What am I putting on their plates now that will torment them for years to come? And most important of all, will I laugh as graciously as my mom does today?

I plan on it.