To not understand adult food vs kids food?

[SofandaCox]

I meet up occasionally with my old baby group. Our babies are 3 now. We met up yesterday for lunch and there’s a few in the group that are firmly in the adult foods are separate to kids food camp and I find it so bizarre. They make really weird comments like “why would you give that to a child” “my child would never eat that” “I wouldn’t waste that on a child” etc. my child has a long list of allergies and I’ve had gastric surgery so can’t much so we usually share a meal. The offending meal? Calamari. Basically chicken nuggets but wish squid. They acted like I had just purchased my toddler a fillet mignon with champagne and lobster tail. Which, again, don’t see the issue if that’s what he wanted! Has anyone experienced this? And also just to be so rude as to sit there and actually make comments about it. I’ve had judgey thoughts about them feeding their 3 year old jarred baby food but I’ve kept that to myself. It’s making me not want to meet up with them anymore but it would be a shame for my son as he enjoys spending time with the others toddlers.

Breastfed babies often prefer sweeter food. Childrens have twice as many taste buds as adults and so things like bitter or strong flavours can basically taste worse to them.

Ive noticed in some countries that claim children "eat what grown ups do", plenty of children fill up from the plainer options served & eat little of the spicy sauce or the bitter brassicas. Eg they'll eat lots of the breads, rices, dairy components, snacky bites of this and that.

In Britain we don't have a culture of central serving dishes where childrencan get away with simply filling up on preferred/easy foods. Children are given their own portion with a mix of foods, and we don't like waste so over time this leads to children being given blander/palatable foods they are more likely to eat.

Is it where you live?

No one I know feeds their kids chips and nuggets on the regular- that's more emergency freezer food.

There's a few fussy kids but pretty sure you get that everywhere. We have always just fed ours what we eat although toned down the chilli level.

I would consider calamari a very basic food, yummy but I'd expect every kid to eat it. Its just like, nuggest, scampi, fish fingers etc.

I'm not sure it's just a British thing though, I had a Spanish waiter get very worried at 8month DD eating a chicken leg, he was quite sure babies only ate soup until 2! We had similar in Brazil and Portugal- babies should have fruit and soup.

Jarred baby food for a 3yr old! Some people like to baby their kids- you see dummies and bottles on walking toddlers all the time.

Thinking about it yes, this makes more sense than claiming they don't want to meet up anymore, because the other mums commented on her feeding her kid deep fried beige food.

I think my eyes have rolled right out of my head.

This has been going on for decades. My mother is a particularly amazing domestic cook and an early adopter of Elizabeth David, Jane Grigson, Fay Maschler et al. So my siblings and I were exposed to a wide range of delicious foods pretty much from the word go and as a result grew up eating anything. My friends parents were regularly astonished at my breadth of taste (1980s) whereas my mother was appalled when we hosted, at how many of my friends were revolted at the sight of a tomato or whatever. She was born in 1935, so bloody grateful for easy access to tomatoes.
The cycle repeats - I've brought up my children the same way. They do love a classic spag bog, and are equally keen on fish curry, but I've learnt to stick to sausages/fish fingers when they have friends round for tea, as serving other people's 8 year olds ratatouille seldom ends well.

Child of the 70s here. We were just given our meal and we ate it. No questions asked. Obviously there were things we weren't keen on. We grew up with meat and two veg type meals, some of the veg was home grown. My parents had neither the money, nor the opportunity to give us choices. Neither of us have grown up with any issues around food.

Hmmm, my kids ate everything at 3. Now at 10 and 7 they have become more picky. For example, both would eat salmon as toddlers, but won’t touch it now unless I make it into a fish cake.
Also, I find often the kids menu just offer a smaller portion than on the main menu. I found on holiday in Italy this summer a lot of the kids food was wasted as the adult size portions were too big for them.

Yes, because that going to really help 🙄

OP, just shrug and say "I guess everyone does things differently". And stop judging them for the jars.

It's pointless and harmful to start thinking that your way of raising a baby is the "right" way, and anyone who does it differently is "wrong". Everyone has different circumstances.

It’s calamari not bloody caviar. What stone do you live under 😂

They are odd IMO for feeding their 3 year old jars…3 year olds should be eating proper food.

I find kids menus so dull, just the same old chicken nuggets and fish fingers everywhere you go like people assume that’s all children eat! My DD isn’t particularly adventurous but we try to encourage her to try things from the normal menu or share with us and we all eat the same meals at home.

It isn’t a ‘British’ thing as none of my friends are like this and nor are we. Ours both went through a slightly fussy stage but now they eat what we eat. Last night it was king prawn jambalaya, the night before it was chilli chicken udon and tonight my eldest is making us stuffed crust pizzas. We eat our food VERY spicy and I don’t adjust the heat at all for them. They used to pick out the veg but don’t at all now.

They do love chicken nuggets though 🤣

We never really did kids’ menus either; we just ordered from the adult menu and they’d share ours or share an adult meal between them. I do miss those days a lot as now it costs a fortune eating out buying four adult portions

Calamari is very chewy and nothing like chicken nugget I doubt many three year olds well apart from mumsnet three year old would eat it.

Yeah it's pretty common, and people wonder why we have issues with kids eating crap all the time. Kids should eat the same as adults, but smaller portions. My DD had allergies, and reflux. She ordered off the adult menu and people sometimes commented. I tended to respond with 'I don't agree with kids menu's'. If asked 'why' the answer was 'because it's usually junk food, or very simple and I want DD to develop broad tastes and not get stuck on crap food like chicken nuggets'.

Agree with the sweets and sweet drinks but I guess my 3 year old has had some ketchup and a bit of junk food like oven chips/nuggets because sometimes we have it as adults.

But we also ninety percent of the time do home cooked meals, lots of veg, model balance so I hope we are teaching about moderation.

I guess there are always different levels of what we approve of disapprove of as an adult. I’m privately quite judgey about my friends who allow their children squash and biscuits but I think my dentist friend probably judges me for letting mine have the occasional smoothie or bit of cake.

My uncle is a ‘child of the 70s’ and will only eat a really, really small selection of foods. My grandma eventually gave up with the take it or leave it approach (because he literally just would not eat) and just made him a separate cheese sandwich or sausages and chips. She always says it’s her fault that he’s fussy now as an adult. He has very clear autistic traits (not that she would ever agree with this) and the stories of him as a child are soo similar to my own son with ASD. Things like ARFID 100% did exist back then.

Are you new to Mumsnet?

There are loads of MNetters who think their kids are the bee's knees, due to having a wider pallet than some other kids.

Weird, but it's always been 'thing' that little Johnny and Jemima are requesting Japanese food on takeaway night, and screaming for hummus and quinoa in the middle of Waitrose before they're old enough shit alone.

Mine loved calamari, moules marinere, curry, Colman's English mustard, pate, etc. they did have chicken nuggets, fish fingers as well.

We let them try everything.

Yanbu! Our 10 month old eats the exact same food as us.

Is it? I'm British yet unaware of this!

My severely autistic child is too he's always Been happy to try anything unlike his NT brother who untill recently was very picky

Yes, I did much the same with my DD. Unfortunately she would only eat the bland elements of the meal, the rice, the pasta, the potato, certain veg, chicken, no other meat; and highly flavoured sauces meant the whole meal would be rejected. Its surprising how quickly getting a child to eat at all takes priority over getting them to eat your preferred menus when needs must.

I can solve your mystery and save you wondering. My toddler just wasn't eating, or drinking. She was later diagnosed with autism, and she has ARFID. She wouldn't drink water and professional advice was to give her flavoured water or a little bit of squash in the water so that she would at least drink something - so we did.

I offered her ketchup to see if it could entice her into eating something - but she didn't like ketchup (she won't have any sauces) so that didn't work. By the time we realised the extent of her sensory problems with eating she'd already tried the occasional chip or crisp, and had liked both of them. If I knew then what I know now, would I have let her have one? Possibly the chips but probably not the crisps.

She's up to a healthy weight now and has a wider range of foods she'll eat, but if you have never watched despairingly as your underweight toddler refuses meal after meal after meal, don't judge parents for offering "junk food" as a last resort.

Also-
Kids eats that I eat, and don’t want to raise a fussy eater.
Nothing worse than an adult that eats like a baby.

I hate "children's menus" here in the UK. Everything is just greasy brown junky shite. I normally get an adult portion of food and ask for an extra plate so my two children can share.

You’re supposed to offer children a variety of foods when they’re little so their diet isn’t restricted when they’re older. They can F off with their judgements

Mumsnet can be very uneducated and ignorant on these topics. Glad your LO is up to a healthy weight now, sounds stressful enough on its own without factoring in judgemental comments from idiots.