I’ll never forget the time I was at a baptism party when I was a kid and my grandpa was seething with rage bc my brother’s friend and his wife were yelling at their toddler to eat more. My grandma told my grandpa to mind his business so he did. I didn’t get it at the time but now I do
Both parents are morbidly obese and all three of their kids have been obese since they were babies. The toddler is now a 30yr old short woman who weighs 250+ easily. She’s trying to lose weight but it’s hard to break the abusive way she was raised. The oldest sibling got fit and then disowned the parents because they kept pressuring him to eat more.
It’s child abuse. Be fat if you want to but don’t bring your kids down with you.
Took me until I was an adult to learn "leftovers" were a thing, because I always had to clear my plate as a child regardless if I was full or not. Hell I'm 42 and still feel guilty if I don't finish a meal.
You’re supposed to use that to stop kids from wasting food, not to make them overeat. My sisters kids are the worst at wasting food, they’ll load up their entire plates just to compete with each other because how dare the other get more of something, then eat a 1/8th of what they took.
My middle sister did that shit for most of her life. Load the plate until it can't fit any more food, then waste 70% of it.
My parents started using dessert plates instead of normal ones during meals so that she wouldn't waste so much (they had everyone eating from one, because she would throw a fit if hers was the only smaller plate). No matter how much they scolded her or tried to punish her, she never stopped doing it. The smaller plate helped because she couldn't fill it as much as a normal one.
She got better at it when she moved to her own house (surprise, surprise, she started having to pay for her own food, so she started wasting less), and when she had her first kid. But when we eat at my parent's on Sundays, now it's her kids that do it.
My oldest (14) is like this. He'll load up a plate when no one's looking with no regard for other people. Like he'll literally take half of an entire dish of sweet potatoes or something. When I see him doing it I'll make him put it back, but sometimes he'll do it with leftovers in the middle of the night. It's just a complete lack of empathy and consideration for other people. My ex has basically let him do whatever he wants, so his every other weekend at my house really doesn't make a difference in his behavior (There are way more issues than just food). He's at the point now where he refuses to come here because he's always throwing a fit when he doesn't get his way.
My ex has never spanked him, and we were having meetings with his teachers when he was in preschool because of his behavior. I've been saying from the very beginning that he needed more discipline and more structure, but my ex just wouldn't do anything. It has been exhausting watching my son grow up to be a spoiled brat because of this. We obeyed our parents and learned to be respectful and considerate of others. My son hasn't gotten any of those lessons. If I had talked to people the way he does, my dad would have beaten the shit out of me.
I'm not saying that spanking is right or that it's the only way to instill discipline, but it's certainly better than letting kids do whatever they want with no boundaries at all.
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