Liking olives is NOT a milestone

[MizLizLemon]

Maybe it's just because I live in a naice area, but one of the most frequent boasts I hear, alongside the usual ones about reading levels and musical/sporting abilities, is that someone's DD or DS loves olives, which I frankly find really odd (not the child liking olives, but that it's considered something to boast about). Liking olives isn't a milestone, is it? I'm quite bed at middle class parenting, I'd never even heard of NCT until after I'd given birth, but the olives thing really puzzles me.

(Full disclosure, my DD hates olives and thinks they're the work of the devil).

loonvan agree. I like food too so it's fascinating to watch one twin being all experimental, and one being about 85% pudding. I probably do bore people about it but I like hearing about what everyone, whether they're kids or fully grown, have been eating and trying. Goodness, I start planning my dinner over breakfast .

It's all balance and being normal, innit. I think some of the comments on here are as guilty of snobbery as Mums boasting about their children's olivophilia, it's just inverted, so children's refusal to eat anything hi falutin becomes evidence of how grounded the family are.

I love the name Rafferty. DH wouldn't hear of it. :(

I love the name rafferty too, which is why I used it.

It's not inverted snobbery to despair of the weird class-based judgement implicit in so much of our conversations with food and how, as a result, children's eating habits become a proxy for the 'quality' of parenting (when, actually, it often simply depends on the idiosyncrasies of individual children and nothing else).

My ds1 loved olives from an early age and whenever we ate out or with friends a big fuss was made of him. Dd saw the fuss made of ds1 and so desperately tried for quite some time to like olives, which took her a few gos. Ds2 has been having them offered to him for about 2 yrs, and like Dd he doesn't want to miss out so now demolishes them. He is my most middle class child, he likes cous cous, hummus and fennel. It wasn't a milestone here, more a matter of fitting in for the second and third!

after reading this thread I rushed to open a jar to FORCE my 16 month dd to try one out of curiosity...she tasted it and spat it right back out, but then she picked it up and tried it again and did this about 5 times before she finally decided that she definitely hates them lol. These were the ones in oil not in brine.
I hated olives all my life but always liked the look of them in a Martini in the films and so I kept trying them here and there and now I bloody LOVE them lol. Seems true that if you try things several times your taste buds change to like - shame you have to go through about 10 times of hating the taste 1st though!

LMAO at CalamitouslyWrong - so what exactly are you trying to say then lol

I think it's quite reasonable to be proud of your child liking olives... they are a 'difficult' food to like (as is evidenced by reading through this thread).

If my 9 month old daughter started liking olives, I'd be pretty proud (mind you, I'm proud if she does a big poo, so I'm quite easily impressed).

Boasting about it is a different thing, though - very annoying indeed.

Olives are disgusting. I imagine chewing a slug would have the same texture and lack of flavour.

I always thought these things were made up but I overheard in the garden centre this weekend "Arthur, is that all you're going to eat? You haven't even touched your olives". Really made me chuckle.

Olives are fucking disgusting, and I consider my palate quite diverse thankyouverymuch.

I know a mother who brags about her 4yo DD eating olives, continental cheese and bread and a selection of cured meats every day for lunch

Wouldn't want to be in their house when she's feeling a bit windy.