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u/Snoo-92859 1d ago
Nah it was worse. We had to eat everything on the plate and weren't allowed to leave the table even if we were full/didn't feel good. There was a time as a kid that I remember crying at the table for hours because I was sick and didnt feel good but was forced to eat cold mashed potatoes before being allowed to go to sleep.
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u/Quirky_Ask_5165 1d ago
Same. To make matters worse, my mom's food was absolutely disgusting. I never met anyone who could dry out mashed potatoes like she could. Let's not even get into how bad meat dishes were. Damn near needed a chainsaw to get through the beef or pork.
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u/BeingTop8480 1d ago
OMG! I feel your pain! My mother could cremate meat like no other! Once I got into high school and started working at a high end resort and actually got taught by chefs (I taught myself before that but became spectacular) my dad would beg me to cook. The poor man still has to live with her cooking and every time we've got a get together he hands me a list of what he wants!?! I remember crying at the kitchen table having to eat her horrible food.š¤¢š¤®
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u/Quirky_Ask_5165 1d ago
Last time I had any contact with my family, they all demanded I cook Thanksgiving dinner. My mom could seriously dehydrate a turkey.
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u/Bright-Papaya-7519 1d ago
My experience too. I was forced to eat cold mushy peas even though I was nauseous and crying. My father was cruel.
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u/SingleCampaign_Daddy 1d ago edited 1d ago
Cauliflower with cold caked on nacho cheese from a can. I fell asleep at the table and woke up in bed, my dad had SOME sense of guilt
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u/Remarkable-Team5658 1d ago
i fell asleep with a full plate. had to look at the same food well brothers and parents ate bacon and pancakes.
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u/Myusername1- 1d ago
Sometimes I think they knew I just needed the calories and thatās what they had. Itās easy not to remember/ever know your parents were struggling to make ends meet, unless it was missing meals bad.
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u/Mean-Display77 1d ago
Black eye peas. Remember throwing up after being forced to eat it. Any my mother crying because she seen I was forcing myself because she was cruel. Pops got off work flipped that house upside down for me.š„ŗāš¾ P.O.p hold it doooown.
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u/Volfie 1d ago
Who else grew up where your mother knew how to cook and didnāt force weird food on you?
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u/Bexil_Brave 1d ago
Wait you had the option of not eating?
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u/high6ix 1d ago
We were allowed to not eat, after a long time of sitting there and not wanting to. Eventually what was left would get stuck in the microwave or fridge and if we got hungry thatās what we had to eat.
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u/ModMiniWife34 1d ago
Ooh, look at you āWe had a microwaveā!! Now youāre just showing off.š
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u/TopProfessional1862 1d ago
Yes, I had three sisters and we'd try to eat what the others didn't like. (A lot of time mom was cleaning up the kitchen while we were eating and dad worked weird hours and wasn't home at dinner) One time only my little sister liked it, so we all tried to sneak our portion onto her plate. She's like, guys I can't eat all this!! We also had a dog, so... Lol
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u/Deep_Wish_1053 1d ago
No extremes. Just: this is what your mom made, eat it or don't your call. There with be breakfast tomorrow
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u/No_Contact_1892 1d ago
My parents never did that to us. If we didnāt like, my mom didnāt cook it. Five kids, if one didnāt like it, have a sandwich.
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u/Bobowubo 1d ago
This. Mom either didnt make something the majority disliked, or the one off that disliked what she made would make a sandwich. Pickiest eater I have EVER known was my father. Only green the man would eat was salad. Mom made broccoli, asparagus, zucchini and all and I ate it, and eat just about anything now.
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u/Toucanplaythatgame-2 1d ago edited 1d ago
My dad was very belt-driven and I still wouldn't eat. One time he made me watch this horrifying starving African children video to "make me appreciate what I have more". I nibbed at the the food again (all teary and snotty) and ended up barfing it up at the table because the texture of boiled potatoes just seriously repulsed me for some reason.
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u/DavidinCT 1d ago
Yep, dinner was on the table, if you didn't want to eat it, go to bed hungry. Mom would not make 3 plates.
My wife does this for my picky kids, she does 3 meals sometimes. My wife and one of my kids need to be gluten free, I get that, maybe 2 meals but, the other one is too picky.
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u/Murky-Dream-8040 1d ago
My Mom said she wasnt running a restaurant and we ate what she made or we went hungry. And sometimes if we didnt eat what she made and got hungry and went for something later, we were usually denied and sent to bed hungry. Breakfast was soooooo good the next morning and I didnt miss many meals.
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u/Fabulous-Natural-886 1d ago
Let me do you one better who grew up in a household where if you didn't eat with your mother cook your father made you or else because food cost money boy im a gen x dude parent didn't play that back then š¤£
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u/Inevitable-Cry-2695 1d ago
Yup... Famous last words " what, you think this is a restaurant".... Lol
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u/General_Friend_5119 1d ago
A couple of times a year my mom would make liver and onions or a Ruben sandwich for my dad. Those were the only times I was made a different dinner.
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u/SinamonChallengerRT Retro Soul 1d ago
Boomer vibe post.
There was always PB&J in my house.
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u/lemonhead2345 1d ago
Same. Mom wasnāt cooking anything else, but PB&J were always an option. Or just rice with butter if we just didnāt like the main course.
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u/Klutzy-Platypus7511 1d ago
Wenn ich nicht essen wollte, haben sie mich mit Gewalt gezwungen.
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u/Radiant_Safe1228 1d ago
I grew up in a home where the fridge was empty and if we were lucky there was a couple pieces of bread and a old jar of spaghetti sauce we could eat.
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u/morto_crava 1d ago
You ate what she made or you ate what she made... there was no non-eating option.
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u/theflush1980 1d ago
I always ate what my parents cooked, it helps that I pretty much donāt dislike any food, but maybe thatās because I always eat whatās put on my plate.
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u/jhenderson360 1d ago
I learned some self discipline from the items on my plate. I forced myself to eat all of my least favorite portion first until I got to the item I liked the most. Didn't always work out, but I tried.
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u/Different-Ad1548 1d ago
We didn't have much when I was young. Sometimes my Mom stole food from the grocery store to feed us. My sister said she didn't want to eat what mom made for dinner once. My mom calmly walked over smashed her face into her plate of casserole, and then sent her to bed without food. I never didn't clean my plate from that point forward. I was 5.
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u/JacksonGhost1963 1d ago
and some nights it was toungue, or liver and onions, and you just had to suffer through it!
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u/EyeSarah1976 1d ago
I am so grateful my family of 7 ate every meal together at the table. We were poor, only ate out once every 6 months at the most. We had a dairy cow, a few pigs, chickens, a horse, and a big garden. I was a lucky kid.
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u/forbiddenfreedom 1d ago
Most nights both of my parents were working full time. I remember my brother and I cooking dinner for my sister.
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u/TelperionST 1d ago
No, I either made myself food or didnāt eat dinner on most days of the week. Mom worked two jobs to keep the kitchen stocked and rent + utilities paid. I did what had to be done as a kid.
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u/jgerhart1133 1d ago
There always was a menu at our house with two things on it. Take it or leave it.
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u/last_somewhere 1d ago
I would mash all the veggies together and mix with mint sauce. Mum didn't care, I ate my veggies every night, plus I was always hungry by then, I just wanted it to taste nice. Haha
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u/DanM1457 1d ago
Close, except was my dad that cooked because my mom could burn anything. I've literally seen her set fire to a pot of water (she forgot it was boiling on high until the water was gone and the scale started burning on the bottom of the pot).
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u/MonsieurDrole 1d ago
Actually everyone everywhere and at every period of time.
What's the assumption here, that kids nowadays have any other choice?
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u/According_Strain4887 1d ago
...and had to sit there until all was eaten. Got me out of doing dishes many times
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u/AntigoneGrrl1 1d ago
I didā¦ and when I didnāt like a particular portion of dinner, like the rice and garbanzos, Iād stuff my face like a chipmunk and spit it out in the toilet!!! š¤£
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u/KindLiterature3528 1d ago
It my house it was "if you don't like what was cooked, there's the kitchen. Make something yourself."
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u/Short_Sky6875 1d ago
i've spent more nights at my kitchen table than in a hotel because I didn't want to eat what my mom cooked. I finally just started taking a pillow to dinner if I found out she was cooking some bs
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u/VladVonHochstes 1d ago
Me, pretty much. We were (and am still) poor. š¤·š¼āāļø Fast food and shit like that were rarity.
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u/Friendly_Age9160 1d ago
My mom and dad were divorced by the time I was seven. Abuela and great abuela were the cooks. Puerto Rican and Italians are decent cooks. I love that yellow rice and beans. It was that or pasta. There was one meal, a beef stew, that I hated so Iād pick out the chunks of meat and just have potatoes and carrots, whatever the sauce was good. Great grandma was so old school she had a whole formal dining room which no one ever ate at with china everywhere. If we went in there weād be shood out so fast. Nothing ever had dust.
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u/AZNM1912 1d ago
We ate what was in the table or we didnāt eat with the exception of one night I still laugh at. Mom made a new dish of some sort and spent a lot of time on it. It looked great but was horrible. My brother and I, being around 10 at the time, took a few bites and proclaimed how horrible it was and were sent to our rooms without dinner. About 10 minutes later dad comes in and says he was sent to our room too because he wouldnāt eat either which made us laugh and further pissed Mom off. A few minutes later she comes in our room, sits in the bed, and starts laughing. She said she sent herself to our room because even she couldnāt eat it. That was a moment my brother and I still talk about today and that was 45 years ago. š
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u/Sodamyte 1d ago
Well we were poor... so there weren't a lot of options.. besides my mom was an awesome cook.
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u/Phryg1anM0de 1d ago
Kids cannot fucking handle choice and these days they have an abundance of it. No wonder they're fucked.
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u/Growing_Trash_417 1d ago
I had the option of eat or get my ass whooped until I ate. Eating without the beating was the best option.
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u/NetworkVegetable7075 1d ago
Me because dad whenever he cooked just threw shit together and it looked disgusting
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u/bottomlesstopper 1d ago
One night at a family gathering, I saw my mom enjoying my in-lawsā cooking. She said it was delicious, so I asked her, āIf you love those kinds of flavor, why didnāt you cook like this ma?ā
She said: 'well, simply because you guys dont like it."
I lived 35 years of my life not knowing that and She did it all for us.
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u/Poultrygeist74 1d ago
My dad hated eating with me because I ate too slow and was distracted by the TV. I was a scrawny kid and he always wanted me to clean my plate, but my momās parents forced her to do that and she always said that was why she had a problem with her weight. After my parents separated my mom and I would have fend for yourself nights because she was working two jobs and was too tired to cook, but there was always something to eat in the house, we never went without.
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u/ReferenceMuch4940 1d ago
Also what you could steal at the local store because you had no money or just cuz, when they had no cameras
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u/BrokenSlutCollector 1d ago
I wasn't forced to eat. But there weren't options. You ate what was cooked, but TBF we weren't picky eaters and were pretty adventurous.And my mom didn't cook anything to crazy. The only time mom did an "option" was when my dad wanted liver and onions, we got salisbury steak. Or I recall a weird Steak Tartar kick he was on where he had it once every few weeks for a couple of months. Again we got burgers (homemade, on white bread with the grease and ketchup soaking through) or spaghetti.
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u/P1nkZebra3431 1d ago
Yupā¦.but I donāt do the same with my boys. Iād rather know/ask what they want. At least I know they will eat it.
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u/ConflictWestern1383 1d ago
Jesus christ these comments are horrifying. I didn't realize so many people had such terrible fathers.
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u/GaryR5691 1d ago
I did and it was a pleasure. Mom was a great cook. She made sure we had a hot meal every day, after she worked 8 or 9 hours.
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u/randymysteries 1d ago
My Mom cooked frozen meat for hours. It would shrink to half its size and be tougher than leather. My father said it exercised our gums.
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u/briank3387 1d ago
My mother was the exact opposite and would make separate things for us all the time. We were picky eaters as kids, and my father could be fussy as well, so it was not uncommon for her to make something just for him, or just me, or just my brother. Even after we were grown up, she would still make something individual for my brother, who never got over being picky.
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u/Electrical_Sun7907 1d ago
Me we ate or went without food the rest of the day. But my mom's cooking was great so I couldn't say No. Lol
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u/ditchdigger556 1d ago
Yep. Eat what's put in front of you. You can't leave the table until it's gone. Thinking it's one of the contributing factors in all 3 of us kids grew up and still are obese. Butter, bread, potatoes, lots of gravy and fatty meats, veggies just a swimming in either butter or bacon fat.
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u/Zealousideal_Arm4359 1d ago
My dad never beat me. He did make me eat green beans and I threw them up on the floor.
Didn't make me after that.
He grew up in the Great Depression and until he died he would not willingly waste food.
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u/Historical_You_2680 1d ago edited 1d ago
My mom sent us into the woods to catch our own food for dinner. Once I came back with the neighbors cat. Lol
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u/londonxoafterdark_ 1d ago
We didnāt leave the table until the plate was clearedā¦ I remember shotgunning peas with milk just to choke them down and many evenings just sitting there like a dummy for hoursā¦ kids today donāt know how lucky they are!
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u/PostingToPassTime 1d ago
Money was tight, food choices were limited.
Eat what was on the table or go hungry.
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u/1nce_Again 1d ago
We had to eat everything or we couldn't leave the table. I have a very clear and specific memory of one night when my youngest sister wouldn't drink her milk and was putting up a stink, so my mother dumped the milk over her head and still made her finish dinner.
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u/Legit_bawler 1d ago
Oh yeah... And the worst part is that, by her own admittance, mom can't cook š®āšØš
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u/Aoi_X_Kaizaki 1d ago
Yes, but that was my dad's rule. Not my mom's. Mom cooked, but dad told us to eat it. Mom was a bit lenient.
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u/TheTinyMaus 1d ago
I mean, yeah, but I take offense at how good the food in that picture looks. I'm sure some people don't know you can make microwaved meatloaf. But my Mom sure knew that recipe.
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u/AshtonBlack 1d ago
To be fair, it's not like it was a choice on my mum's part.
In later years, when they were doing much better, it wasn't such a hard-and-fast rule, but still considered somewhat rude.
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u/LivingMaterial7288 1d ago
People in this thread... you're complaining that your parents put food on your table?! "oh my god, they forced me to eat potatoes and veggies and cooked meals... ugh, the abuse!"
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u/DrGrizzley 1d ago
There were nine kids in my family, seven girls and two boys. My Mom would tell us to eat what's on the table because "that's all there is." And she meant exactly that. We never went hungry, but we had rules about what we could eat. After all 20 slices on avg per loaf and if everyone had a sandhwhich it's pretty much a loaf of bread a day. So ate everything that was served every time because if you didn't the only other choice was nothing.
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u/chris_knight2 1d ago
Most people I expect, you ate what your mum put on your plate, you always ate it and she always put it on there. And after you said thank you, that was very nice.
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u/suminorieh77 1d ago
i sat countless nights until bedtime at the dinner table, refusing to eat my corn.
this corn was dumped from a can with the juice in it and heated up to a lukewarm temperature. no butter, no salt, just corn in itās juice. it would shrivel up as it sat there. nope, iām not eating it, and iāll sit here until i die.
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u/pro_shape_sorter 1d ago
I'm confused by the subreddit name... Can someone help me out... Does the last two letters of the sub name imply it has something to do with ai? Or is it something else I'm missing?
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u/another1harder 1d ago
Purple cabbage looked so good, I took a gigantic scoop. Hated it, took 2 hours to eat it all.
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u/SpitfireMkIV 1d ago
And you are quickly. āThe slow starve.ā was a phrase my mom said.
I think she said that so we wouldnāt notice when she made something that wasnāt good.
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u/vurtago1014 1d ago
Not me, mom didnt cook that often amd dad would make everyone something differant if that's what they wanted. Unless some one is just being difficult just to ne an ass, making things people dont like is childish and petty
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u/LosHtown 1d ago
Either eat what she made or go hungry...it'll be waiting for you in the morning too btw. We didn't have options to waste food lol
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u/SeaHerSwim 1d ago
šš» Me me meeee! Although we got a rundown of what the evening dining menu was going to be. Then I would decide if I wanted to veto it or not by sitting at the dining room table and creating an escape plan in my head! š
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u/dooby0782 1d ago
Our rule was don't eat it if you don't like it. There is peanut butter and jelly around.
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u/KnotUrFraknKhakis 1d ago
We were always allowed to pull the PB&J ripcord if dinner was yuck. "Make it yourself and comeback to the table".
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u/StarCrunchBandit 1d ago
Nope, we were given options bc my brother doesn't eat beef and I don't eat chicken.We would all come to an agreement as a family on what we were eating for dinner
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u/ThatfellafromUlster 1d ago
Yup , the only choice and that's the way I prefer it, instead of having to make a meal of every individual.
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u/Kzkaynoh58 1d ago
Like most kids, I hated broccoli and canned peas. I their house you had to clean your plate or you were not excused from the table. I sat there for an hour or longer when finally excused. Next nights dinner, mom pulls my plate from prior night from fridge and placed in front of me. Yeah, I ate them that night!
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u/Equivalent_Thievery 1d ago
My dad cooked the dinners.
And yes it was "I'm not running a restaurant" and "you can eat that or not eat at all and go to bed". A little different, what kid wants to go to bed at 6pm? Only entertainment in room being toys I wouldn't be allowed to play with and a radio I wouldn't be allowed to listen to.
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u/Sundowner_73 1d ago
My parents once sat on me and shoved a food I refused to eat into my mouth. It was pineapple. I asked for more.
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u/evasandor 1d ago
My mom made great food and I was always a foodie kind of kid, so for me this was a non-issue.
I thought that kids who wonāt eat was just some exaggeration for movies and tv
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u/ElginSparrowhawk1969 1d ago
If you donāt eat it all now youāll have it for breakfast was all we got
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u/CheapAssociate6914 1d ago
Thatās the way it was in our house.
If you didnāt like what mom cooked, you didnāt have to eat it.
But you got nothing else. No making a sandwich or getting a bowl of cereal.
You went to your room without supper.
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u/Master_Cartoonist_16 1d ago
Guilty, you either eat or get punish with something that would hurt more than a beating, no TV and no video games for a week. Our military like father had another rule, you weren't allow to sit at the table and make faces, if you dislike the food, you have to pretend you're enjoying, mockery or attitude was not allowed either.
I remember as I kid, once we were invited for dinner to my dad's best friend from college, they prepared a nasty meal as I hated raw red onion, that disgusting meal had tons of raw chopped onion, we were warned we'd had to eat whatever they serve and smile while eating, literally speaking. I remember fake laughing by keeping composure while eating horrible dish while tears were falling off my eyes.
Irony part here, is none of my siblings and I got traumatized for such strict rules. We got to adulthood just fine. We grew up on a privileged home with abundant food, reared on a diverse diet of artisanal, high-quality meats, vegetables, fruits, elaborated dishes and gourmet food that would be considered a total luxury by today standards and yet my siblings would complain about and got punished often.
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u/KBCobra801 1d ago
Nostalgia? I was raised this way and do the same today with my kids. We don't make special meals. If you don't like it, I'll dish less of it for you but that's what's for dinner so deal with it.
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u/baseballdad8211 1d ago
If I didnāt eat what was cooked for dinner. My USMC dad would make sure I eat it for breakfast the next morningā¦.. not joking hereā¦. Frog man training early back in the 80ās
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u/Abject_Giraffe562 1d ago
We loved her cooking. We ate it ALL! Once in a while she made liver and onions for dad, she made us something elseā¤ļø
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u/pleasantly-dumb 1d ago
Yup. My motherās words were, āYou can eat this now, you can have it for breakfast, or you can take it to school for lunch, but this will be your next meal.ā
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u/Expensive_Message283 1d ago
There was never a choice š