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

[ihatethecold]

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.

I was an early 80's child and neither of my parents did that. My mum insisted on very healthy food (plenty of fresh food and vegetables, occasionally sweet food, no fizzy drinks etc.) but I wasn't forced to finish or eat food I didn't like. That sounds very strange and cruel.

Agree with PPs comments that parenting could be very isolating. Amongst my DMs social group, she recalls a lot of social pressure for perfect kids and families and there was little practical advice.

As an example - she never quite got over the fact we didn't sleep at night as babies and assumed it was her fault. No one admitted it was an issue for them and there were no Internet forums etc to go to for advice.

I remember not being allowed to leave the table until we finished our food. So I started to hide food in drawers and the bin. One time my father found the food in the bin and asked who had put it there, I was so scared I let me brother take the blame. He was beaten for it. I could hear him being beaten and crying. I still think about it years later, It's horrendous and has caused me some amount of anxiety over the years. That and other things.

I'll never stop being grateful to my mum for not parenting like this with me. She cooked amazing food and never forced any of it on me in this way. We had to be polite about the food, always, but that was it.

It's not ok and the banging is just weird.

Not my mum but dinner ladies at school. I must have been about 5 and I remember one shouting in my face and the spittle from her mouth going all over me. My mum went mad and then I went home for lunch. I don’t know how my mum coped with me at meal times I was a very fussy child who gagged at everything.

YANBU Sounds like something my MIL would do. My 9 year old called me from there once because she wouldn't allow him to leave his beans even though he had never in his life liked beans. Some of the things she and FIL done to OH were massivly abusive they say it was how it was then but my mum whos the same age says it absolutely was not.

She thinks I pamper and spoil my kids I think she's an abusive control freak who enjoys overpowering children.

We had no choice over portion size. All of us had to eat what mum served on our plate otherwise we would be beaten. I was still shamed and beaten and targetted for being overweight (pcos and thyroid issues that were ignored and only diagnosed in adulthood - lost 20kg when I got treatment). I was definitely the scapegoat in the family - still am and so I’ve had to go really low contact with them all.

There wasn’t any table banging or anything but I was made to eat everything on my plate before being allowed to leave the table. My stepfather was worse than my mother, and he liked to bully young children. I remember One time when my mum was away and he served us bread pudding for afters which I didn’t want ‘cause it was all soggy snd covered in tinned milk, so I left it. After being unable to persuade me to eat it he made me sit at the dinner table all evening. At around 8:30-9pm he came over and said loudly and abruptly, right your bedtime now, get upstairs to your room. My response, I can’t cause Im not allowed to leave the table am I? Then I get a slap round the head, just one if many for adding my thoughts and opinions. this would’ve been around ‘79 I wad about 9 or 10.

I was a child in the sixties and never experienced anything like this. My mum was a good cook and I never really disliked anything put in front of me, except I really hated bread and butter. Mother just expected me to eat it (and thought I did)
I used to keep it in my mouth and sneak upstairs and spit it out between the pages of a very large book 😁 my mum eventually gave the book to a church jumble sale and I pity the poor person who took it home 🤣🤣

I have horrible memories like this. Once, our au pair gave me tea with sugar in it. I never had sugar and it was disgusting (to me as a 5 year old). I was made by my mother to sit in a dark dining room until I’d finished it. It was cold too by then. It’s the memory of it which I still have which has constantly reminded me never to force my own kids. They’re not fussy eaters either so there are other ways to encourage good eating.

No. That sounds horrible op.

I think it’s cruel when parents force/threaten kids to finish their food when they are full/not hungry.

I do know that times were different in the 70's and 80's and its hard to work out whats ok when you cant compare to other families.
it stopped as I got older, 7 onwards.

they weren't good parents unfortunately . They adopted me at 10 months old. Ive never really understood how they were allowed to get 2 kids.

We don't speak anymore.. I miss having a mum but I've had to cease contact to protect my well being.

Thankfully I have a wonderful mother and father in law that love me unconditionally.

@ihatethecold

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.

And people wonder why they don’t get any visitors when their older after doing shit like this.

I was born in the 70’s and I wasn’t forced to eat.

No, though I'm very much from the tail end of the 80s. We had to try stuff, and there was some bribery of the, "Eat the first course if you want pudding," type, but that was it.

I think trying everything is reasonable. The having to eat the savoury to get the pudding probably did mess up how I think about food a bit, but I can recognise that it came from a good place of wanting to encourage us to have a good diet nutritionally. I wouldn't do it myself, but I understand it.

I am a 70's child, never ever did anything like this happen to me or my 5 siblings. Your mother was a child abuser !

forced to clear my plate both at home and at school. I have memories of one boy at school being sick on his plate and being made to eat any of the food that he hadn't vomited on

Mine didn't do this although they were poor parents in other ways. I had a French boyfriend who was made to eat food and if he was sick he was made to eat the sick

Nope, never. I was never forced to finish food as my mum was made to finish hers and often threw up as a child because of it.

I absolutely hate tomato soup because my sister wouldn’t eat hers so my mum dunked her face in it! She denies this now that we are adults but we both remember it!

Certainly not that extreme but I remember being forced (not physically) to eat mashed potato. I remember, on a few occasions, being giving a small plate with only mash and gravy on so I would eat it before the rest of my meal. This was early 80s. Guess what? I still hate mash now.

Not that, but there was definitely a focus around making sure you had eaten everything, as a result I used to dread eating and often felt sick. I'm the complete opposite with my DC as a result as it's really not a nice position to be in.

No that was not normal nor OK! It was a form of abuse IMO!I was a child in the 60s and whilst my mother was always complaining because I refused boiled cabbage, cauliflower and sprouts, and the only boiled greens I would eat were peas , she never did anything to try and force me! She would just do me peas as well as the veg her and my dad were having and crib about my "fussy" eating, but that was it!
I remember being coerced and bullied into eating horrible stuff at infant school though. School dinners were really rotten in the 60s as I remember; so much overcooked, undercooked and just plain badly cooked slop. There was one dinner lady whom we were all terrified of and who seemed to actually hate us. She would regularly reduce kids to tears and vomiting was not a rare occurrence. No wonder we were all so glad when we heard she'd died a few years later! She should never have been allowed to work with children, she was an aggressive and vindictive woman!

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.)

Yes, sprouts and rice pudding used to be forced on me - now two of my favourite foods.

We used to get the leftovers served up for the next meal too. Mum once tipped a plate of veg and gravy over my sister’s head too.

I think I’ve gone the other way in being permissive when my children don’t want to eat something - I’ve got one who’s a fussy nightmare as a result but I still wouldn’t act like my parents did.

yes i had this except instead of the table being banged with the "eat eat eat" my father would bang my hand with a fork. it never leaves you. didn't realise how bad my childhood was till much much later in life

We were expected to not waste food. My parents didn't have a lot of money and you ate what was cooked. We were usually given small portions to start and then you could take more as desired but you were expected to eat what you took. If we complained about the food, we were sent to our room without finishing.

I don't remember it ever being an issue really. We ate what we were given and no one ever vomited that I know of.