Clean plates rule for DC.. just why?

[Cappuccino5]

At the weekend 16yo DD and I stayed at my cousin’s house for a big family get together. We’d had a number of meals together (all lovely & home cooked by said cousin!) when over Sunday lunch she made the observation to me that DD never finishes her plate, and that her own children were strictly trained not to leave any food uneaten from a young age. I’d understand her discontent if she was leaving large amounts of leftovers every time, but she genuinely doesn’t. At the lunch in question she’d simply just left a small bit of chicken on her plate. She doesn’t have a particularly small appetite and she’s not fussy, she simply just eats to hunger (like we all should!!). AIBU to think that in this day and age ‘clean plates’ is a ridiculous rule to have?

We don’t have the clean plate rule. We all serve ourselves, children since they could nod and say when or hold a spoon and do it themselves. We don’t have an eat all you take rule either because your eyes can be bigger than your stomach. So many times I’ve been ravenous and served myself what I think I need to eat and then halfway through I feel full. If I can cover and save it for later I will, if I can’t it goes into the food waste compost bin guilt free. Also the rule we had with the kids is you must try anything new at least three meal times before deciding you don’t like it and won’t eat it. This means if a tiny spoonful of mash swede gets a fork dipped in, licked & tasted but rejected- I don’t require they finish their taster spoonful.

I think the eat all you take adds stress to mealtimes. It’s not an exact science to be able to take exactly what you need every time without fail and it kind of does create the association of you can’t stop until your plate is clear regardless off whether you served yourself or someone dished it up for you.

We also allowed courses to be eaten in any order. If they wanted dessert with their main, or before that was perfectly fine. We obviously taught them you can’t just eat dessert for dinner. Desserts tended to be pre portioned- a mini magnum, a brownie, a fairy cake, a frozen lolly, two chocolate biscuits…

It's cultural. Stems from availability of food.

UK - clean your plate = polite
US - not cleaning your plate = completely fine

My father grew up with a clean plate mentality, he literally didn’t always have shoes to go to school so food was scarce and very valuable. He was very distressed if he couldn’t finish a plate when he was elderly, it was sad to see him not enjoy a meal because of it.

Where does this end? I presume you don’t deep fry their feet and munch on them? (Delicacy, nice with a noodle soup)

Does that make you abusive because you don’t eat every part of a chicken?

Ignore her. She’s in the wrong. Best case her kids will end up with weight issues. Worst case - eating disorders.

There is nothing wrong with being a picky eater. As adults we get to decide what to eat every day, but we don’t give children the same freedom. We think, hey I’d like carrots with my chicken and maybe some rice. The child is then expected to eat some of each. Adults are just as picky. It is only because we pick what gets cooked for mealtimes that we appear to not be picky.

We always discussed meals with the kids and let them pick substitutions for anything they didn’t want or like. On the chicken, rice carrots meal, say my DC was like urgh I really don’t want carrots but peas sound nice. So I would either make both carrots and peas or shrug and say I don’t mind peas we will have them.

And as a pp said, serve dessert with the meal. We need to get away from dessert being a “reward” that you have to “earn” by eating your vegetables or clearing your plate. Its all good food and as humans we like different tastes. Savory, sweet, salty. It’s important that meals be enjoyable and we get a bit of each.

This - my grandparents lived in an occupied country during the 2nd world war so understandably had a clean plate rule for my mum which was passed onto us and yes both my sister and I had eating disorders.

So I had no such thing for my kids.

We make meals to roughly match what our kids can eat. If they have made an effort but gotten full, we wouldn’t mind them leaving a few bits on their plates. My 14 year old can out eat an adult so he will polish off everything. My youngest is very fussy with food sensitivity and we know he likes smaller meals and grazes in between but he can lose interest during a meal and sometimes would be unable to clear a plate. He would make the effort and give it a go but we don’t push it as he is weird with food, we are more than pleased that he’s eating. We’ve never trained them to eat the lot, they aren’t dogs. You would also get fuller quicker depending on what you eat. It’s a weird and outdated expectation. I sometimes struggle to clear a plate and I’m 44!

It's cultural. Stems from availability of food.
UK - clean your plate = polite
US - not cleaning your plate = completely fine

I grew up in the US in the late 80s/early 90s and have lived my entire adult life in the UK. I haven't seen this at all - the clean your plate rule was common when I was a kid and my parents certainly had it growing up. Most of my friends and I were told how ungrateful we were being when there were starving children in Africa and how rude it was to the host or cook.

Of course it was the 90s so I was also taught that ladies always leave something on their plate in front of men and company to show they weren't gluttons. It was never clear how this interacted with the clean your plate rule, so I was basically taught that I needed to clean my plate but also be embarrassed to have done so. Yay, diet culture.

I do think scarcity in past generations plays a huge part, but that's not different between US and the UK. My mother grew up very poor and my father's father even poorer (think dirt floors and outhouse, no electricity until he was a teen in 1950) but most of my peers even in my comfortable middle-class neighborhood at least had grandparents who grew up in the great depression or war time and the attitudes and anxieties they picked up early tend to linger for generations. I think we're finally seeing that dissipate a few generations on, thus the split on this thread... though if the worst economic predictions are true we may be about to have a whole new generation of depression-era children.

Did she actually say trained?

SIL does this with her kids. She has an ED and is very controlling over what they eat.

As someone who is obese, it’s a really dangerous ‘rule’ to have. My dad was the same and it’s made it really difficult for to stop eating and not finish a plate (or others plate) which has led to me being over weight.

Lol yup another bug bear

In our house the kids are played up. Encouraged to at least try everything on their plate. If they don’t like it after 2 bites they’re more than welcome not to eat that part. I always thank them for trying.

For context my kids are 3&5, both really good eaters, not fussy (other than dreaded onion and anything too spicy!😆) They’re aware of the importance of a balanced, healthy diet. An everything in moderation approach.. or at least we try 😂

I have vivid memories of being made to remain at the dining table long after everyone else had left, being made to forcefully swallow cold food until it was all gone. A horrible memory and it makes me feel sick just thinking about it.

DM now tries to do the same with my DC. She's always been obsessed about food and constantly lectures about how we're 'starving' them and don't feed them enough. She gets borderline hysterical about the fact I don't cook a roast every Sunday and seems to think it's akin to child abuse.

The only rule I have is that DC have to try everything on the plate, and always finish their (small) portion of veg.

The clean plate rule I think harks back to War time Britain.
If someone has had enough to eat that should be the end of it.
I was forced to eat food I didn't like at nursery in the 70s and it made a reappearance.

This nails it!

Food bins are often v close to dishwashers or get him to do it

That’s really insightful especially in the context we now know about how inter-generational trauma echoes down in families. Thank you for sharing.

I don't understand why anyone thinks shovelling in more food than one can comfortably hold isn't wasting it? Pushed into a stomach that's already full isn't any more noble a fate than ending up in the bin.

Far better focus on serving smaller portions in the first place with everyone free to take second helpings if they wish.

why does your dishwasher not deal with "three peas"? Loads more than that goes through mine.

have only read first post. IMO if you have a "clean plate" rule, you have to have full control over what goes on that plate.

So if you put something on your plate, you eat it.

My parents were brought up in poverty/between the wars and they had a different take on food. My Dad was an orphan. They both had HATED having to eat what they disliked and as soon as they didn't have to, they didn't do it. There wasn't massive food waste and we didn't all live on dessert but we were allowed to eat what we liked and, more importantly, refuse what we disliked. We could even refuse to try it until we wanted a try. My Mother never cooked the "several different meals" thing but would do things like add in an extra veg so that mostly there was something that everyone would eat, I also think it helped that they liked and disliked different things themselves.

I grew up with clean your plate rule as well in the 90s/00s I was guilt tripped by dad to finish it, he would harp on that growing up in the 60/70s he never knew when the next meal was coming etc. To his credit, he didn't make me sit there for hours and would eventually back down.

One of my first dinners with my MIL, she served up a big portion, about 2/3 of way through eating MIL noticed I was struggling, and said don't worry you don't have to finish it. It was a real eye opener for me tbh, and I liked her immensely.