[Rant]: Feeding Issues

[thefourthvine]

Under the cut is something I do not ever want you to say to me, please. Or to anyone else. I'm angry, so - warning for immoderate language and a total lack of humor.

Comments

[halcyon_shift]

You have remarkable restraint, I'd have beaten her around the head with a melon. An inorganic melon.

And just. You know. *hugs*

[thefourthvine]

What, and get the Earthling Eyes of Judgment for using inferior produce? Never! I would always use an organically grown, locally sourced product. Also, after some thought, I believe a winter squash might be more suited for pummeling purposes. (If you ever decide to do a cooking experiment with butternut squash - I - I - I guess I should just take this opportunity to say that I cherish you, and have faith in your husband's ability to get your limbs reattached as necessary.)

Spikes. Definitely Spikes

[wordweaverlynn]

I believe this is a situation in which durian should be forcibly inserted into every orifice. They look like a cross between a hedgehog and a hand grenade.

[mecurtin]

Hubbard squash, that's the ticket.

[claire]

Jeebus Fucking Christ, I cannot even... kasdlfjka I hate people.

[thefourthvine]

I really have to blame society for this one. They just want their girls to grow up successful, you know? AND WE ALL KNOW THAT FOR WOMEN SUCCESSFUL MEANS WEARING A SIZE ZERO.

*bursts into rage-induced flames*

[claire]

It is one of the reasons I am glad that childthing is a boy. Now I just have to make sure he grows up OK - even having the "head start" of being a white male. (BTW, I just reread your post and childthing was being very kicky - I believe he also wanted to kick that woman in the head).

I wish I could give earthling a hug - I mean my reflux isn't severe, and hopefully it will go away after pregnancy, but still, I totally get not wanting to eat because yuck and ouch. I have been food averse for much of the last six months - and that is with having an adult brain to logic with, and thirty-nine years of actual eating behind it.

[vito_excalibur]

Yeah. It is totally one of those situations where moms look at their daughter and set out to do horrible, horrible things to them, because they believe that if they don't their daughters will be kicked out of the herd and left for predators. And often (not always) they're quite right.

[nicolasechs]

You're so lucky. The Earthling is a wonderful person. :)

[thefourthvine]

Thank you! *beam*

[ashkitty]

Good lord. I wouldn't have blamed you if you had punched her in the nose. That's just...gah. I hate the ridiculous body issues this culture has developed anyway, but TWO YEARS OLD? For fuck's sake. Children need nutrition. People need nutrition. If people just ate food when they wree hungry and stopped when they were full, most people would be healthy. (Not necessarily thin, because not everyone needs to be thin, but healthy.)

BTW, many years ago when I was an au pair in Germany, one of the kids I took care of was a fetal alcohol baby who had been fed through a nose tube till she was four. She DID NOT WANT TO EAT. And you can understand that really--after having not been used to it, she didn't want to learn it. She didn't want to do it. It took hours to get her through breakfast, which meant me waking up before 6am; we worked out a system after a while where she would take a bite, then I would read a line of a story, then another bite and another line, and so on, and it was tedious but she at least got fed. So from a certain POV (

[thefourthvine]

I am grateful that I have no, so far, had to know the anguish of introducing food at a late age to a child who has been exclusively tube fed, because I know that's hell on earth. (We were terribly lucky, largely because I am a Complainy Mama and kept asking for more appointments until we got shoved off to feeding therapy fully a year before most kids get there - that year, of course, makes fixing the problems hugely harder. Hugely.)

I'm impressed with you for having the patience to do that with the girl you cared for, because, wow, there's nothing like an epic feeding battle to get taking forced deep breaths. It's HARD. It's not even like you can get frustrated, because it's only too easy to understand why they do it, but it's SCARY, because they NEED TO EAT.

[counteragent]

Feeding a baby is hard!!! My sympathies.

[nimnod]

I hate the ridiculous body issues this culture has developed anyway, but TWO YEARS OLD? For fuck's sake.
Yep, it's there. A friend's 4 year old got back from playschool the other day subdued, and wouldn't say why. She found out at dinner time when there was a huge tantrum and food refusal and it turned out that THE BOYS AT PLAYSCHOOL HAD TOLD HER SHE WAS FAT AND SO SHE DID NOT WANT TO EAT ANY MORE. I kid you not. What's even more disturbing about that, to me, is that boys of 4 have already learned to use body image as a weapon to establish dominance over girls.

[kudra2324]

god. a) how stressful to deal with this in general, i'm sorry, and b) i remember seeing an article a couple of years ago about parents - mostly mothers - who were underfeeding their children because they didn't want their two year old to be chubby. i, too, wanted to call child services.

[thefourthvine]

For a while, daycares in Britain (and, presumably, elsewhere, but Britain is where the study took place) were found to be inappropriately feeding their toddler charges by providing the kind of diet that the parents wished THEY ate - lots of whole grains and leafy greans, no sugar, no fats, that kind of thing.

It's a problem. A very large problem. *grits teeth*

[anatsuno]

This is at least three times more scary to me! I mean, I can see how parents would be deeply fucked up about their children AND uneducated about what they need to boot (it's not like there's a degree people need to get before they have kids, so there's no regulation there - not that I think there should be) - but daycares are supposed to be run by PROFESSIONALS and /they/ should be educated! and audited, and shut down when they're doing dangerous things like that. It's not a private issue, it's a public health issue, goddammit. *so scared*