Thursday, May 01, 2014

Food : How we show our love differently

Got inspiration to write this post after reading a blog. It was about a father kept giving fish meat to his son even though he himself loves fish. His wife told him to keep some for himself, he replied : " As long as my wife and my son are happy with their food and eat well, I'm a happy man."

This is so typical in my family. Growing up, whenever my mother prepared chicken, me and my brother, the two youngest in the family, would each get a drumstick (considered the best chicken part). Other siblings would share other good parts, my mother would finish the rest. When eating fish, children get the meat, my parents would clean the rest. I don't know if other siblings complained about not getting drumstick, everyone seemed to get used to it. Now that we are adults, we understand that this is a way of showing love to kids. Now the parents are being served the good parts.

Things are handled quite differently in my in laws family. Kids do not always get the good part, but they try to be fair as much as they can. Imagine my shock seeing my FIL quickly grabbed the last tomato and served it to him and his wife, while their children and me would just fill with what was left into our sandwiches. While eating shrimps or oysters, they would divide them by the number of person then place them directly in our plates. My FIL would always make sure that the tarts / cakes are cut equally before serving them. Over the years, I understand that they have to do this if not their kids would complain who's who got to eat a bigger tart / shrimps. And apparently the kids ate like a pig, they finished everything so the parents have to save some for themselves.

No one method is better than the other, it is simply the way you brought up. Now with my daughter, naturally I apply my family method. She can get whatever she likes from my plate. The other day, we were being served different kind of dessert, she chose an apple tart, but she also loved the strawberries in my tart. So I gave her all, she was happy, I was happy. One day I bought a box of strawberry, she finished everything by herself. It was not a problem for me, but hubby was not happy as he wanted some too. I realized that there is a problem, because she doesn't think about sharing, so from there on I make share she leaves some for others. As for hubby, he wasn't the guy that would give very slice of beef in a bowl of beef noodle soup to his girlfriend like some Malaysian guys would do, but now he would share some food that I like from his plate. I don't know how my daughter is going to turn out, as I'm showing her that I love her so I will give her the best part of foods; while her daddy is more like I love you so I would make sure everything is shared equally with you.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:10 AM

    I tend to "spoiled" Mark a little bit and to give him the good stuff. Now, he also likes to eat sand so... maybe I'm wasting my time :-D

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  3. I think it is good that you are now teaching both your daughter and husband to share food.

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