blackberryfairy
"Not a fantasy of how it leads to you wrapping your children up in cotton wool (mine are primary school aged and have just come back from swimming and are helping to make pizza) but an actual real consequence."
Because what you've responded with is exactly that - a ridiculous, hyperbolic fantasy about some imaginary consequences that you think it would have to cut up grapes.
If I am not mistaken, you are telling me it's hyperbolic fantasy to focus on the psychological ramifications of over-protectiveness and the dangers inherent in letting your unreasonable and irrational anxiety run away with you. There are well-recognised consequences to parents putting their own emotional needs before the child's - which is what is happening when parents indulge their anxiety like this.
A few examples of consequences if this becomes a pattern (and apparently other foods including lollipops, satsumas, raw carrots, sausages and more are also cut up in your particular case, blackberryfairy)......
The over-protective parent prevents them from learning life lessons - he or she is doing the equivalent of giving a man a fish instead of teaching him to fish for himself.
What parents should be doing wrt grapes (and all other food) is teaching children to eat with their mouths shut (and therefore no speaking with food in the mouth), to sit still while they eat, to put only a bite sized piece of food into their mouths. Or to bite grapes in half themselves. Teaching them a skill emphasises a parent's confidence in their ability to acquire competence. The result is a net increase in self esteem. The opposite is true when the parent takes over the task herself.
They will lose confidence in a parent's ability to handle whatever their lives really consist of (which they will hide from you) if the parent is over-protective. They will learn from seeing other children's lunches that cutting grapes is an odd thing to do and will wonder why their mum cut theirs. They may feel a bit impatient of a parent, or even a bit ashamed of the parent for her over-protective approach.
The over-protective or inappropriately protective parent creates a wedge between her children and herself when she asks them to bear with her over something that is so important to he - apparently a matter of life or death - but that is not seen that way by the parents of other children. It's perceived by children as 'fussing' or 'treating me like a baby', or 'mum over-reacting'. Feeling they are a baby makes children feel ashamed of themselves once they get beyond 5ish.
A perception on the part of children that they are babies (arising from recognition that mum is babying them) will cause them to fear that they are in fact not competent enough to manage commonly eaten foods - parental over-protectiveness affects their developing sense of who they are and how competent their parent believes they are capable of becoming. They can feel they are inferior to other children, and they can become anxious. It's not really very funny to joke about cutting grapes for them until they are 18. Children should be gradually developing ever-increasing mastery over all aspects of their lives from the time of potty training on. A sense of mastery and self-efficacy is a very significant predictor of ability to handle life's challenges in a healthy way.
The perception that a parent over-reacts damages lines of communication between parent and child. The expectation of an ott reaction from a parent makes children, tweens and teens keep things to themselves. What this means irl is that you won't hear what happened at a given party because your teen fears she would (a) never hear the end of it, or (b) never be allowed out again if she told you the details and you indulged in your typical response - taking away agency and not acknowledging that a child can learn to minimise risk or conquer a situation herself (whether by teaching her to chew with mouth shut or by teaching her to handle herself in situations of peer pressure).
Children who learn that things outside of themselves hold such power over them can become fearful and inclined to shy away from challenge. They look to someone else to take charge and to make decisions. Teaching children practical, sensible ways that they themselves can use to minimise danger and stepping back to let them try the methods out increase their confidence.
If they don't rebel against over-protectiveness or if a parent doesn't back off as a result of their complaints, they will become conditioned to indulging the parent's anxiety. 'Minding mum' makes the child responsible for the parents's feelings, which is a scary thing for a child. Children need to be confident that a parent is able to maintain her own equilibrium. They need to know the parent has a sense of perspective. Boundary setting and boundary policing are required here on the part of the anxious parent. Solving problems in a practical way that involves allowing children agency is an example of setting good boundaries. Parents set a sensible limit on their anxiety and they acknowledge their children's capacity to learn.
(The over-protective parent will be lucky if rebellion is direct btw, and the thing that is bothering the child is explicitly stated. Many children rebel covertly in ways that reveal low self esteem and low sense of self efficacy.)
............
There is a contradiction here in the approach to grapes and risk. Either they are or they are not an absolute danger. If grapes represent an absolute danger even to children with a full set of teeth, why would you buy them? Even if the danger is relative, why take the risk?
Grapes are not necessary to a happy and healthy life.