Picky eater vent

[NMAmy]

As long as the parents of these "picky eaters" aren't complaining, I don't really see why the OP is...

But the thing is, the parents often are complaining but blame the restaurant instead of themselves. Over the years, I have seen many, many threads started by parents of picky eaters complaining that a restaurant they would like to try does not serve, for example, a certain kind of mac & cheese which is the ONLY thing Little Junior will eat in all of WDW. They're often outraged with WDW because they'll have to miss that restaurant for this reason. These posts always make me roll my eyes.

I don't even give a thought to what anyone's kids are eating in the parks. DD is 20 so I don't even have to worry about what my own kid is eating anymore.

 

[skitt]

Check out some of the juices they sell--just as much sugar as pop. But, I guarantee that more people would be ok with that given to young children. Also, I guess I was just confused as to why you put babies in quotation marks??? Babies are babies, right? I assumed you meant children that were older than babies, b/c then the quotation marks would make sense. BTW--I did not give my daughter pop when she was an infant, and I've never seen anyone else do it either--I'm beginning to think it's an urban myth.

I said *babies*, not "babies". Asterisks are a way of adding emphasis on the internet, like all caps meaning shouting. And I saw it on a Disney bus. The parents had to put a lid from a sports water bottle onto the Coke bottle so the very young child could drink from it. As far as juice goes, I completely agree, but if I complained about all the apple juice I see in baby bottles at WDW I'm sure I would have raised a lot of hackles and I didn't want to add to any drama - I thought I was safe condemning pop consumption by babies.

 

[Colleen27]

But the thing is, the parents often are complaining but blame the restaurant instead of themselves. Over the years, I have seen many, many threads started by parents of picky eaters complaining that a restaurant they would like to try does not serve, for example, a certain kind of mac & cheese which is the ONLY thing Little Junior will eat in all of WDW. They're often outraged with WDW because they'll have to miss that restaurant for this reason. These posts always make me roll my eyes.

Exactly. It really goes beyond any individual post, though a particular post might be the reason the thread was started. It is about the broader trends/expectations - the idea that kids shouldn't/can't be expected to eat real food, that all restaurants should serve an assortment of fast-food type options to cater to the palates created by the American fast-food/heat-and-serve food culture, and that the pickiness of a child should be allowed to dictate dining options to the rest of the family.

And since the market generally drives menu offerings, is it any wonder that those of us who want our children to appreciate real food get frustrated with the sentiments that reinforce/encourage a "kids food" mindset?

I said *babies*, not "babies". Asterisks are a way of adding emphasis on the internet, like all caps meaning shouting. And I saw it on a Disney bus. The parents had to put a lid from a sports water bottle onto the Coke bottle so the very young child could drink from it. As far as juice goes, I completely agree, but if I complained about all the apple juice I see in baby bottles at WDW I'm sure I would have raised a lot of hackles and I didn't want to add to any drama - I thought I was safe condemning pop consumption by babies.

To me, that's another example of learned pickiness for a lot of kids - they don't drink water because they haven't really been exposed to it. Parents offer something sweet because that's what we view as appealing, and the bad habit of thinking every beverage has to be sweetened is passed along from one generation to the next.

But I will say this when it comes to "babies" (and I am using quotes) - sometimes looks can be deceiving. My youngest is consistently in the 5th percentile for height & weight and I've gotten more than my share of crosswise looks over something I'm letting her eat/drink. When she was about 18mo I took her into a restaurant still in her baby carrier because it was so snowy outside, and actually had a waitress lecture me about ordering cow's milk for her on the assumption that she was an infant.