BENGALURU: When my first born was about a year old, I took him to my former place of work to meet friends and have lunch.
Strapped into the highchair, my son was the epitome of good behaviour. No tantrums, tears or throwing things at passersby.
He topped all of this with an action etched forever in my mind. He ate a sprouted bean.
“Oh my God! Your son is too good! Look at him eat the sprouted mung bean!” my friends marvelled.
I wanted to stand up and crow, “Look ye trifling earthlings! See what repast my progeny hath digested” (or something like that). Instead, I smiled nonchalantly and batted their praise away as though to say “Pshaw! What else do you think he eats?”
He never ate another sprouted bean again.
Ma ke haath ka khaana. Amma samaiyal. It’s the stuff of legends. Mothers love to cook, feed children and watch their cheeks become round and flushed with good health. We preen when our children eat well and despair when they don’t.
We take it personally. Good food habits in a child = good parenting after all.
But we sometimes fail to take into consideration one thing: some kids are a f*%#ing pain to feed.
My 5 year old, meals and I are currently embroiled in a love-hate relationship that would star Alia Bhatt, Siddharth Malhotra and Varun Dawan if it were a movie. Mealtime starts off well enough, with my Stepford smile firmly in place as we all set the table together. By the time the rice hits the plate, the shit has hit the ceiling.
“The green thing, I hate it. Take it away. This is spicy. It’s too chewy. Too mushy. Don’t let the rice and the dal touch. My stomach hurts. I’m dying. I need to barf. I need to pee. I’m warning you.This is so yucky. Indian again?”
My five year old’s mealtime conversation is a Ginsberg-esque stream of consciousness.
At school, I ask the teachers if he eats. “Oh my God! He’s the best. Eats everything and so neatly. We wanted to ask you how you do it.”
With his grandmother he asks for seconds and thirds and praises the food in terms that would make the late A.A Gill proud.
With me, it’s Mutiny on the Bounty. I try not to take this to heart, my cooking can’t be THAT bad. Right? Right???
Last week, after a particularly long weekend, I had had enough. I finished eating and went to my room to read a book.
I emerged half an hour later to find him burying a Lego man under the rice.
I took the bowl away, told him he was done and asked him to brush his teeth and go to bed.
I waited to feel like a bad mother. For him to wake up hungry and crying. For a bolt of lightning to strike me down.
None of that happened. He did wake up the next morning, hungrier than usual though.
So, my advice to mothers, since
nobody asked, is if your kid won’t eat, let them go hungry once in a while.
I swear nothing terrible will happen. And unless you write a
column about it in the newspapers, no one will judge you harshly either.