ZT: Parents of Picky Eaters, It’s Not Your Fault

The following article made me feel good. Thank you! A name I don't know how to pronounce: PHANIE V. W. LUCIANOVIC

Just when my son reached the age where I no longer have to endure other parents’ opinions in the circumcision skirmish, the breast-feeding fray and the co-sleeping conflict, a new, and truly pointless, battle looms on the horizon in the “who can be a better parent” wars: what our children will or won’t eat.

Apparently, it’s not enough for parents to worry that their 2-year-old doesn’t like green vegetables, or that their 8-year-old despises the texture of hamburgers. They also have to worry that their child’s pickiness makes them bad parents. This judgment isn’t being handed down by pediatricians or scientists or, you know, the people who actually have the facts to back up their opinions. It’s being leveled at the parents of the picky by the parents of the non-picky.

“She’s picky because you give her choices.” “I just wouldn’t allow [my child] to be picky.” “You should just let her go hungry if she won’t eat [insert disliked food here].” That’s just a taste of what has been said to a friend about her daughter, and it makes her feel like a lousy parent. She’s not. I was a picky eater, and I know: getting a picky eater is no more a determinant of parental fitness than is getting a kid with brown eyes. I am living, eating proof.

For nearly three decades, I ate very few vegetables and hardly any grains, and I lived to write about it. My food issues had nothing to do with my parents’ collective parenting prowess. I don’t know why I was a picky eater, and I’ve tried to figure it out. Scientists and medical practitioners I interviewed on this topic over the last two years have theories, hypotheses and studies, but even they can’t conclusively tell me why I was a picky eater for 27 years. If they can’t pinpoint the causes of picky eating, what makes Mommy McJudgerson down the block think she can?

In spite of what the country’s leading food scientists and pediatricians know or don’t know, parents of the picky are targeted for blame by parents of the non-picky. In our food-obsessed, competitive culture, what our children eat has become yet another yardstick used by parents to make them feel superior to other parents.

It’s time to just stop it. Stop all of it. Now.

If you don’t have a picky kid, congratulations. Pat yourself on the head and just be happy you have one thing fewer to worry about when it comes to your child’s development. Right now, today, this hour, my 3-year-old isn’t a picky eater, but it doesn’t mean I’m a better parent than the parent of a picky eater. It means I am lucky. For now.

Picky eating happens. It even happens to famous chefs like Tom Colicchio and famous food writers like Ruth Reichl. And it could be biological, genetic, psychological or just because. There’s not one cause of picky eating; there are many. Sure, some experts say there might be some strategies or practices that could possibly, maybe help stave off picky eating (breast-feeding, eating a variety of foods while pregnant, offering up a ritual sacrifice of brussels sprouts and plain pasta on a ketchup-smeared altar), but you can do everything “right” and still get a picky eater. That’s what everyone needs to understand, because the parents of the picky don’t need the comments, the score-keeping and the castigation of their parenting skills.

No parent needs that on any front, let alone when it comes to what their child might or might not like to eat. Parents need the support of other parents. None of us has all the answers to everything. Every single one of us is just making it up as we go along and hoping we don’t make too many mistakes.

That’s not to say that fellow parents have to link arms and buy the world a Coke. Instead, maybe the new way of being supportive is to stop talking about it so much. There’s a fine line between sharing information with other parents because of the desire to give and receive support, and using the exchange as a way to brag or mentally size up one another’s parenting skills. If we hear ourselves starting to say, “I don’t understand how some parents …“ we need to just stop talking. Because we’re right; we really don’t understand.