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Original poster

Did other parents do this to their young kids in the 80's?

174 replies

ihatethecold · 08/02/2022 15:23

When I was 4/5/6/ my mum would sit next to me at the dinner table if I was refusing to finish something on my plate. If I left my peas she would sit and bang the table rhythmically and say the Eat, Eat , Eat each time her hand hit the table. She didn't do this really loudly but she was persistent with it.

I remember hating it and trying to eat the food I'd left. One time she did this when she had made me scrambled eggs.
I couldn't eat it all so she started banging the table and saying Eat. I remember then finishing the food and 5 mins later I was sick everywhere.

This isn't/ wasn't ok was it?

Did other parents do this?

I never realised really how weird it was until I tell my kids things that used to happen to me.... They do comment that I had a weird abusive upbringing.

Ive had tons of therapy for what they put me through but i've never spoken about this in counselling.

OP posts:
HaywardGrey · 08/02/2022 15:31

No it's not ok. I definitely didn't do that to my kids and I have never heard of anyone doing it.

yorkshireteaspoonie · 08/02/2022 15:43

No. That's deeply weird

Sundancerintherain · 08/02/2022 15:45

I'm a child of the '70's, your parents were borderline abusive.

TheRoundOne · 08/02/2022 15:46

Not the banging and chanting, but I wasn't allowed to not like the taste of what we were having for dinner. Even as a teenager my parents would try to force me to eat stuff I didn't like, it was horrendous.

Pinotpleasure · 08/02/2022 15:47

No

Stickitupua · 08/02/2022 15:49

I wasn't allowed to leave the table until I had eaten all my vegetables.

Fl0w3ry · 08/02/2022 15:49

My parents didn’t do the tapping, but I was forced to finish my food. I was also sick several times after this happened, then I got in trouble for being sick. Some food I can’t eat now because just the sight of it makes me feel sick because of it. I also had a generally very abusive childhood. I don’t think it was normal for everyone else.

Mo1911 · 08/02/2022 15:51

Yup. She didn't bang the table but I wasn't allowed to love until is finished everything while thinking about everyone else in the world starving and how ungrateful I was for food that other people would love to have.

My vomiting all over the kitchen was caused by fish fingers 😏

AmyDudley · 08/02/2022 15:53

I had my children in the 80's - I never did anything remotely like that to them. It's abusive. Sorry OP you mother sounds at best completely clueless at worst nasty and cruel.
I wonder why people do these things to children when if someone sat beside them (the adult) and banged the table shouting 'eat eat eat' they'd think they were insane.

Idbemonica1 · 08/02/2022 15:53

Not the banging thing but i was pressurised to eat food that i just didn't like - sitting for what felt like hours watching a plate of food go cold and hoping that i would be allowed to leave the table. Had my nose held once so i would be forced to open my mouth so food would be put in. I don't think this happened at every meal but we remember things that are memorable, if probably forgotten the many times where nothing happened.
My Mum still remembered the war years and probably felt bad about the waste.

MaryAndHerNet · 08/02/2022 15:55

My mum didn't bang the table, she just sat opposite and tapped my plate with her fork if I hadn't eaten what she seemed "Enough"

Didn't matter if I was full to feeling sick.
No wonder I ended up a bit overweight by the age of 13.

I don't do that with my daughter, if she's full, she's full.

Original poster
ihatethecold · 08/02/2022 15:55

for me, its not so much about having to eat the veggies or whatever it was, it was the banging and saying Eat, Eat, Eat continuously.
I don't remember her doing that to my older brother.

I can still picture/hear the sound now.

OP posts:
HPandTheNeverEndingBedtime · 08/02/2022 15:56

I think parenting was a much more isolating experience back then, going off of what their parents did to parent them often perpetuating odd or abusive behaviour. At least now we have access to mumsnet and accessible parenting books and shows.

I had to finish what was on my plate, if not we'd get a lecture on children starving in Africa and then our dinner would be kept for later to be eaten cold if we said we were hungry.

SpinningTheSeedsOfLove · 08/02/2022 15:57

I was a child of the 60s/70s. The uptight weirdness around children and food was pretty standard, it just varied between families.

I had friends who were the children of incredibly wealthy parents by anyone's standards (London city banker types), and any food that they left was served up to them for their next meal, even if it was sprouts for breakfast. (We were forced to eat everything on our plates before we could leave the table, even if it made us sick.)

Puking up is probably a child's best response to being force-fed by a weirdo adult. Nice one Flowers

Powerpotpie · 08/02/2022 15:57

I remember my Mum shoving food on my fork and telling it had to be finished before I left the table. Sometimes my DB and I would end up sitting there for a good hour after my parents had finished because we hadn’t cleared out plates. I do think it was a generational thing and how they had been parented too.

De88 · 08/02/2022 15:58

This sounds horrible. We weren't allowed to not like or leave anything, but we served ourselves so if we put it in front of ourselves, we had to eat it.

mumto2teenagers · 08/02/2022 15:59

I grew up in the 80's and didn't experience anything like this and nor did any of my close friends as far as I'm aware.

Suzanne999 · 08/02/2022 16:00

@SpinningTheSeedsOfLove

I was a child of the 60s/70s. The uptight weirdness around children and food was pretty standard, it just varied between families.

I had friends who were the children of incredibly wealthy parents by anyone's standards (London city banker types), and any food that they left was served up to them for their next meal, even if it was sprouts for breakfast. (We were forced to eat everything on our plates before we could leave the table, even if it made us sick.)

Puking up is probably a child's best response to being force-fed by a weirdo adult. Nice one Flowers

That is very odd behaviour, quite disturbing really.
Suzanne999 · 08/02/2022 16:01

Sorry @SpinningTheSeedsOfLove, no idea how I did that.

RJnomore1 · 08/02/2022 16:01

Not quite like that but remember a lot of the parents then were raised in the early post war years when food had been scarce and clean plates were a thing. Where I was raised there wasn’t much food to spare in the early 80s either, and I think a lot of odd behaviours grew from that. Not getting down from the table until your plate was cleared, getting it put away for the next time you were hungry etc. very different to the current attitudes.

This is why we have a bit of a fucked up relationship with food too. At least partly.

niceupthedanceagain · 08/02/2022 16:03

Yes DM's abusive boyfriend (who had no DC of his own) would sit next to me at the table haranguing me to finish all my food otherwise I couldn't leave the table. I remember being there for what felt like hours (and also going to the loo to spit out food).

Tdcp · 08/02/2022 16:04

My mother is emotionally abusive, she never did that or anything like that...

blyn72 · 08/02/2022 16:04

It certainly was not OK.

I do remember at school, and in hospital, children were made to eat their food. It was abusive, no doubt about that. By all means gently encourage but nobody should have to eat what they don't like.

deleteasappropriate · 08/02/2022 16:05

I grew up in the 60s/70s and definitely didn't have any issues like this! It's absolutely horrific. However I was a child from a council estate, maybe it was a posh persons thing.

I do think it's something you might be able to come to terms with if you discuss it with a counsellor though. I'll never understand parents who behave like this towards their children.
Flowers for you op

Shortbread49 · 08/02/2022 16:06

Yes mine dud this to my older brother I remember him crying so much he was sick they also locked him out of the back door and made him put his plate in the bin and eat off that wasn’t nice and now I won’t leave my children alone with them

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