Why don't parents feed children what they eat?

[Gruffallowhydidntyouknow]

Twice this week I have had conversations with people that make me wonder why in the UK we are obsessed with children's food and feeing children bland foods.

One friend told me that they were furious at their mother in law, as they had been for Sunday lunch at the weekend and had had to go to Tesco to get food in for their children (5,7, 10) because it was ridiculous that they were being offered the roast beef dinner.

Another friend was bemoaning cooking two different meals as she had to cook something the children would eat and something separate for her and her wife. She laughed and said she couldn't wait until they were old enough to eat curry (8 year old twins).

I despair at the sight of pub menus as it's always beige and chips for the children or a token tomato pasta unless you are in a really nice place. Is that really how people feed children?

I have literally never made separate foods with the exception of not giving my children steak pre teeth.

I'm genuinely intrigued what makes people feed their children separately. Is it that people really believe that children won't eat normal foods? Do people think you "shouldn't" give children spicey foods, or Game/ an olive / duck / stir fry?

Is it that they were weaned on plain things and are now fussy?

I'm not talking about the tiny portion of additional needs selective eaters.

Yes agree.

I can’t remember anymore either who likes what on what day! 😂

DC started eating olives at 12 months old. It would never have occurred to me to give them to her but her dad was preparing g lunch that day.

They were a surprise hit. She loves them!

(I acknowledge she is weird. But that comes from her dad’s side of the family, not mine)

Same, DS used to eat most things until he was around 2. The. He started getting fussy and noticing "green bits" in his food (herbs) and refusing to eat it. Or he didn't like the lumpy bits.. but literally ate all these things for the year before that 🤦‍♀️

I ate what my parents ate growing up (70s/80s) and so did all my friends - is this a new thing?

I’m not sure why it has to be one or the other??

During the week I tend to cook an earlier meal for the kids as they are hungry while dh is still at work. Weekends and holidays we will eat together.

My kids will eat a wide range of foods (and a lot of foods I know a lot of adults won’t eat), but sometimes won’t eat the most basic, bland foods.

If we go out to eat they will sometimes choose off the ‘boring’ children’s menu and sometimes share our food or eat smaller adult meals.

The kids eat food cooked with spices and seasoning but me and dh like REALLY hot food so I have to cook separately. Same as I like to cook with salt (and adding it at the table isn’t the same).

As an adult I have preferences, and sometimes I like to try new foods and sometime I just want sausage and mash 🤷‍♀️

That’s what my parents did too.

Although, there was a rule that we had to try at least a bit of everything so we didn’t end up with a plate of only protein/rice/whatever.

I think it was a fair rule because if left to my own devices, I would have chosen my favourite element and eaten only that.

My littlest is in bed by then…. DH not home until 6. Not always possible until they have later bedtimes.

My ASD son literally cannot eat my meals. He will starve himself otherwise and become malnutritioned.

I eat lots of salad, fruit, vegetables, fish and different meats. If he was given this, he still wouldn't eat it even if it had been a month without food!

He isnt the pickiest eater, he will have pasta, pizza, standard freezer food, baked beans, a mini roast dinner (carrots, broccoli and cauliflower as the only veg), ham sandwiches/wraps, bananas (sometimes) and toast/pancakes or cocopops. He gets a multivitamin daily and drinks lots of milk and water.

I would rather my child was fed than starved!

No. Most of my friends in the 89’s had their dinner earlier than their parents and had different stuff. That was the 90s.

When they were primary school age my kids’ friends who were fussy about food seemed to be the ones who were fed tea separately and tended to have fish fingers and chips or microwave pizza etc. cheap, quick and easy food, then their parents would eat separately later in the evening. I presume the “fussiness” is just a matter of them liking what they know because they weren’t often exposed to much else (just as most people might be a bit unnerved by food they aren’t at all used to). Most of these kids expanded their taste buds over time as they got older and were exposed to other foods and don’t seem to be fussy now they’re teens. Except…the few that are still fussy mainly seem to have at least one parent who is also fussy, so there may be more going on with them.

But those are generalizations and my own experience with my kids has been different. We fed our kids what we ate and we like all sorts of food. My kids were not at all fussy and loved all sorts of food from a pretty young age with a few preferences - one didn’t like carrots, one didn’t like pasta with tomato sauce, etc. nothing big but they had their own opinions on what they liked and didn’t. But when one of them hit 13 they suddenly became really fussy, all sorts of things they used to like were suddenly unacceptable and their range of food narrowed alarmingly. It seems to be linked to anxiety and a desire for control. We’re working on it, but haven’t seen much improvement yet. It’s a hard one to tackle without making things worse.

I'm another one who was too lazy to do dinner twice. When mine went through picky phases I tended to 'deconstruct' the meal and serve as a buffet so they could at least pick at the things they didn't hate. Encouraged them to try everything but didn't crack it if they wouldn't.

There were definitely days that they didn't eat much dinner, and they were ok with that. I'd rather they catch up at breakfast the next day, than be stuffed full of nuggets (and learn that if they refused everything else, they'd eventually get nuggets).

They are now adults and will happily cook themselves a spicy veggie stir fry one night then eat a whole pizza each the next.

We sit down as a family and all eat the same food at weekends but during the week, my 3yo DD is at nursery until 5pm when I finish work and has quite a substantial late snack - chicken strips, pizza, home made sausage rolls or cheese and crackers all served with fresh fruit and yoghurt and this is at 3.30pm. My DD goes to bed at 6.30pm because she goes to nursery for 7.30am so needs to be up at 6.30am (and she loves and NEEDS her sleep!). Because of this, she will have a snack rather than an evening meal when she gets home - spaghetti hoops, Noodles, toast, Crumpets or beans and will also help herself from the fruit bowl.
My DP and I have our evening meal around 7pm.

When DD is older, we will all eat the same meal each evening.

I’m vegan, my son isn’t, so other than a few times a week when he eats what I eat - I have to cook him something entirely different. Is a faff but that’s my fault I guess for choosing to be vegan.

My son from a very early age loves potatoes, meat and two veg type meals. I find them boring an could live with never having them. I love spicy things, pasta, rice Mexican type meals etc. so quite often will do two separate meals. But it means I can batch cook things so I only need to do the potatoes an rice/pasta on the nights where we are eating separate meals. Foods we both like I only cook once and on occasion if he’s the only one eating and requests chicken nuggets and chips, he has them. I like to eat things not necessarily good for me so don’t see the issue in doing same for him.

This is exactly what I did! I had what you would call a 'fussy eater' between maybe two and three and a half, but I read up on it and it's really normal. I think what often happens is people.maybe assume their kids won't eat anything else and worry that they won't eat anything, so they stick to what they know.

I started out by putting an unfamiliar food on her plate, and it quite often got ignored, but then over time she would start trying it and I just built up from there, now she eats anything apart from mashed potatoes and bananas 🤣

It's saved me so much time and money not having to make separate meals.

Why can't he eat vegan, at least for the cooked meals you eat at home? He could still eat meat and dairy for his breakfast, snacks, at school etc.

Op you sound like type of person that thinks adding flavour/using spices means salt and pepper. You probably cook jar sauces and call it a curry too.
I cook separately for my dc because our cultural food is hot, spicy, and not really suitable for children. The only people I've ever come across whose babies eat the same thing, don't know how to cook properly or prefer bland, tasteless food.

My dd started eating the most varied diet and started eating really young in general. All kinds of casseroles and stews, pies, all kinds of side salads and olives etc everything. She would actually refuse fish fingers but loved fish. Wouldn’t have kids yoghurt but loved greek yoghurt tsaziki etc.
Until she turned around 2.5 she developed a real problem with texture and bits in her food. All beige with the odd bit meat and fish. Plain pasta. Pizza margaritas only. It is such hard work.

Totally agree with you.

In many other cultures including my parents, children are simply given smaller portions of whatever the adults eat. There is not making other meals. Everyone eats from the same pot. Maybe adjust spices/salt.

What’s about game, olives and duck? Is there something about them that is inherently odder than bacon, ketchup and fish fingers?

And anyone who knows how to cook properly will tell you adding salt after the meal is cooked is very, very different to cooking with salt.

The kids menu at restaurants though, I think they're fair enough. When you eat out you're usually eating out as a treat and you don't tend to look too much into what you're eating, so I think it's fair that the kids get to do the same.

I was quite fussy as a child but eat pretty much everything now as an adult. My mum was quite relaxed and never forced food I didn’t want or cook things she knew I didn’t like. I just seemed to naturally get less fussy as I grew up.

The kids menus are the way they are so they are cheap and encourage adults with kids to eat out. They aren’t because kids love that food, though some do.

I always did a family dinner with small portions for the DCs but by god there were many occasions when I was sorely tempted to just serve them something I knew they would eat and avoid the whining and the picking through dinners for 'green bits' or minute traces of onion.

You can easily get to a point where dinner becomes such a bloody ordeal for everyone involved that all you want to do is just feed them whatever and get it all over with. And I was a SAHM when my DCs were young.

If I had WOH I would have ripped my hair out at the performance of at least one DC every single night at the dinner table, and frequently more than one, turning up their noses at perfectly nice, tasty food that i had taken time and effort to plan and cook.