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 hide the threads on here where 'fussy' eaters are vilified and ridiculed, how it's done on purpose to be the centre of attention.

It's very triggering and painful for some of us.

I had to eat everything, i bloody hate fat on meat, i hate stuffed marrow, I hate Tesco’s own brand margerine that used to stink, I hate alcohol (parents drank every Saturday night and Sunday lunch), i hate soup. I hate black pudding

My mum and dad used to mash up veg into potatoes. Then hold my hair and force feed me. Then I’d be sick. They say it was 80s parenting 🤷‍♀️

I was born in 1986 and my parents, but especially my mother, were obsessed with plate clearing. I was never allowed to leave anything on my plate and leftovers were seen as a punishment. Food served up the next day was deliberately made unappetizing i.e. if I didn't finish soup for dinner it was served up the next morning ice cold from the fridge.

I remember forcing myself to gag down food and also hiding food around the house AND throwing up after eating. I remember being told if I threw up I'd get a smack :(. It was horrible. My mum is also very controlling about eating the exact same thing on the same day of the week and won't deviate from it.

As a parent now I am BAFFLED. DM claims it's because she hates waste, but my DS is a toddler and frequently doesn't finish his food but it rarely gets wasted. I find ways to repurpose it, or just reheat for his lunch (or my lunch!) the next day.

Needless to say I have a terrible relationship with food.

I don't recall my parents doing this but knew of other friends who had parents that did.
I remember spending the night at a friend's house and they had a lock on the fridge.

There are a lot of abusive parents out there.

My mother used to get upset that I wouldn't eat her awful cooking - everything overboiled. Her go to green vegetables were overboiled cabbage and silverbeet. I used to absolutely dread the baked chop casserole. I just wouldnt eat it and I would have rather starved. She realised nothing would have made me eat it. There were plenty of arguments but no chanting or banging. My son insists that I made him eat stuff but I think he means a sliver of tomato. His older brother was a vegetarian from about two years old.

@backaftera2yearbreak

My mum and dad used to mash up veg into potatoes. Then hold my hair and force feed me. Then I’d be sick. They say it was 80s parenting 🤷‍♀️

I am so sad for you

So sad for all of you who were treated like this xx

I'm so sorry for people who were treated so badly as children. Being forced to eat vomit, and held down to be force fed-just horrific.
I was born in the early 80s and I remember being encouraged to eat but never forced. My mum was fairly relaxed because her own mum was pretty pushy at mealtimes.

School lunches were difficult sometimes; I have vivid memories of pushing baked beans around a plate for ages, and hiding spam inside the cold lumpy mass of mashed potatoes.

My Mum didn't bang the table but you weren't allowed to leave the table until you had eaten everything wether you liked it or not. Many a night I ate my tea whilst crying my eyes out, one night she was trying to force a spoonful of custard down my throat so I tipped my chair backwards and it slipped and I ended up with my head through the glass panel of an internal door. She then sat picking bits of glass out of my hair/head still telling me off for not eating my food

I wasn’t force fed but had to eat everything on my plate. Very rarely had snacks, which would have been carefully rationed. At school we were also made to eat everything, even puddings that would be deemed too calorific these days. I have to be present if my parents are near my DC when they’re eating so they don’t pick up on the obsession with waste. I took a right bollocking once when I bought a pub meal for my toddler (there was no kids menu). Apparently I should have chopped off pieces of my own meal.
I have developed problems with binge eating; I think this is related.

My mum seems to make me eat all of the chips she had cooked.. even the hard ones. I used go be sick then swallow it.

Still gag at the thought of it.

I grew up in an abusive household and have suffered trauma

Isn't that what the Trunchball did in Matilda?

I'm a 90s child... on my dads sad wasting food is a huge thing. I have never experienced bagging on a table but we had to sit and eat our meals for some time even if we said we were full.

It stemmed from poverty on my dad's side..

No, I was born in 1980 and allowed to leave food if I wanted. I was a very fussy eater and I remember my poor mum having to separate all food on my plate so it wasn't touching and other similar finicky demands I had.

You mum was abusive, I'm sorry OP.

I hated boiled vegetables when I was a kid, I still don’t like them now, although I’m not surprised. Occasionally, not all the time but I never knew when, my parents would decide that they would put me out boiled veg and I had to eat it. I was never going to eat it, I would have literally starved myself rather than eat it. I was teased, called names, threatened, chased upstairs and beaten, pinned down and force fed. When I was about 12 my parents bought a new video camera. They videoed me crying after being sat at the table in front of cold cauliflower for an hour and a half. They told me on video that they were going to show all my friends, and as you would expect I was very distressed, then they played the video back to me. Then when I still didn’t eat it they locked me in the garage. Every Sunday dinner I would be literally shaking because I was scared that today would be one of those days where they would try to force me to eat.

It got to the point where I was absolutely terrified to try anything new because I knew I would be tortured if I didn’t like it. It took me well into adulthood to get over my issues with food. My sister would generally eat anything but she was always bullied and forced, and punished if she didn’t eat everything on her plate. She’s had issues with food and being overweight throughout her entire adulthood.

I was born in the early 80s BTW.

I have never, ever, forced my child to eat anything he doesn’t want to. I won’t let him waste food I know he likes in favor of eating crap, if I put out a meal he likes I’ll expect him to have a good go at it, and I’ve always encouraged him to try new things, but I’ve never forced anything, served it to him again if he’s refused it or withheld other food if he didn’t like something. He’s always eaten well and been willing to try new things.

I don’t understand why parents thought forcing kids to eat would ever work, it’s just abuse, pure and simple. I’ve had conversations with my mom about when my dad used to hit us with the strap or the slipper. She denies this ever happened but me and my sister both remember it clearly. Like the force-feeding, she just said it was the way things were and that their parents did it to them as well. I asked her whether she liked it or if she thought it had done them any good. She just got defensive and refused to answer. I just don’t get it, I would never do things to my child that I hated being done to me when I was a kid. I strongly believe that my parents had some weird sadistic power trip thing going on over us though, which thankfully neither me or my sister have inherited. We weren’t well-off but I’ve never been well off as a parent, so it’s not poverty, and it’s not lack of education either. It’s just trying to impose dominance, nothing more, nothing less.

No but a dinner lady at primary school forced me to eat frankfurters and lumpy mashed potato. I told her I felt sick but she stood over me and wouldn’t let me move until I’d finished it all. I managed to choke it all down and then promptly vomited it back up all over her shoes. I’ve never eaten frankfurters or mashed potato since.

Oh god, this makes me so sad for you just reading this. Most parenting decisions are fairly flexible between me and my husband, but I always told him that no one would ever force my kids to eat anything they didn't want to, and that was 100% non-negotiable.

I still hear parents all the time saying " you need to eat 3 more bites", or some other totally random, controlling bullshit. Being pushed into eating food you don't like, when you're not hungry, is the absolute pits.

We were always served food we didn't like, live and onions being a particularly hated meal. We were also forced to finish everything even if we were crying.

I never ever make a battle out of food for my children. They will never feel like that.

It’s hard reading some of these stories.

No this is abusive.

It would probably help to talk about it to a therapist if that’s helped you in the past.

Sorry you went through this.

I don't think the era is the point here. I was raised in the 50's and when I was very little, there were still a few things on ration. Even then, I was allowed to taste and try, and if I genuinely didn't like something, I could leave it (although rude comments when someone had bothered to cook were not acceptable), but there really was no point in hanging out for a better offer; we'd got the ration, and that was that. If really hungry, the only option was packing the corners out with bread and (limited) butter. I guess the fact that my mother made excellent use of available ingredients was a help!
I posted on the AIBU about the only time I was forced to eat something I knew disagreed with me, and that was at school (my "I told you so moment"). I feel very sorry for the children who were coerced in this cruel way.
However, we had far fewer opportunities to supplement what was available at home; I am old enough to remember the first branch of MacDonald's opening in Woolwich.

Some people should never have had children. What she did to you was abusive She sounds nuts.

Itwasntmeright I am so sorry that happened to you.

Our mum would put things on our plate that we had tried before and said that we didn’t like and say try it again and if we still didn’t like it this time we would be allowed to leave it, because we had at least tried it and obviously didn’t like it. But she’d still put it on our plates next time and say try it again etc etc. Sometimes we grew to like things some times we didn’t. But she was happy as long as we tried it. She worked as a cook at the school (when they cooked on the school premises) and used to serve the meals to the children. In those days (60s) school dinners were things like liver and swede - can you imagine serving that in schools these days? Anyway We had a very tall, butch female teacher who was a bit of a bully. Despite her height she would stand on a chair in the dining hall so that she could see everything that was going on.She would make each table of children resite their times tables before being allowed to get up and get their dinner. She would also insist that we ate everything on our plates. One time I had left my swede ( I liked swede at home because mum mashed it) but this was hard and dry. She stood over me and rather like # ihatethecold ‘s mother she was saying “eat it eat it eat it. “ All of a sudden my tiny 4’10” mother appeared and confronted this teacher who was over 6’ and Said if my child says she doesn’t like something then she will not be forced into eating it,. You eat it if you’re so worried about the waste.I’ve never seen the blood drain from someone’s face like that. She could be pretty fiery for a little one could my mum.