all about the tough love

i parent so differently than my mother did. she was so nice. so patient. so persistent with her good tidings. me? i am all about the tough love.

my kids do something that goes right over my head. they get mad at me, and then they refuse to eat. uhhh, this is punishment for me? i feel like saying, but honey, i don't like to cook. a better punishment would be demanding a well-balanced meal. what you are basically doing is giving me the morning off. the afternoon off. the night off. you are giving me a really great gift.

and yes, i do feel bad if they don't eat. but there's one in particular who, let's just say, it's not gonna hurt him to miss a meal or two.

i buy fruit. lots of fruit. i have healthy choices and snacks. i have taught them to read the serving size off the nutrition info on packets of cookies and goldfish. we talk about what makes people fat and unhealthy: sitting around, grazing, eating bad foods. we do good things: we ride bikes, we cook together, i use my apple slicer several times a week.

but this not eating thing.... to me it is like making a giraffe stand in peanut butter. the giraffe may feel bad for a little while, but it's not going to ruin his day. ditto for me.

when i think back over my formative years, i can recall practicing tough love on my friends. i had one friend who would always say stuff like, i'm so ugly. i wish i was pretty. to hear her talk, you would think she was a forest troll. and i'm not the kind of person who knows what to do with this kind of information. it was more of a statement, really, than a plea for help.

i tried. you're not ugly, i would say.

YES I AM, she'd come back.

oh, ok. well, then, make the most of what you've got.

you've got a good personality, i would say. and this would seem to upset her more. she didn't want the personality, she wanted the pretty. and i never thought of her as ugly or pretty, she just looked like herself. and i was usually happy to see her. because of her personality and all.

years would pass. god, i'm ugly, she'd say.

hey, i would come back, wanna go out later?

i gave up. i felt like i should have been handed a script so i would know more what to say. but i don't like my lines to be fed to me -- i'm a straight shooter. she wouldn't believe me if i told her she wasn't a forest troll, so i just ignored her statements. it's tough love. and it might hurt a little at first, but you know what you're getting and it's not a bunch of fluff.

it's the same now when someone gets mad at me and says, well, i just won't eat anything then. this is usually brought on by my making some outlandish request, like "no computer before school," or "it's time to brush your teeth." if i say this at the wrong time, it releases a torrent of outrage. furor. disbelief.

and it's sweet, really, that the best comeback they've got is, fine. i just won't eat ANYTHING.

i mean, i've walked this planet a few more years than they but i could think of a lot worse things to say to someone who has made you mad. of course, if my mother gets wind of someone in this house not eating, she is in her car on the way to the grocery faster than you can say strawberries and ice cream. but again, that is the difference between her and me.

she looks at it as a challenge. i look at it as a day off.

bon appetit. or not. it's your choice.