Why Must Kids Be So Ungrateful?

So I was at the store this afternoon and had a hankering for one of my favorite meals: liver and onions. So I bought it. Now, I'm making dinner and The Girl asked what was for dinner and I told her and she told me she wasn't going to eat liver and onions and I couldn't make her. Now, this is true, but it's what I'm making and if she doesn't want it, she can fucking go hungry until breakfast (or more realistically until I go to sleep and she sneaks downstairs for a sandwich or something).

Now, growing up, there were times when I wasn't sure I was even going to get dinner, and from time to time the majority of the processed food in my house was manufactred by USDA. Yet, I don't ever remember either me or my brother telling my mother we weren't going to eat what was offered. My sister did, but she's a psycho manic-depressive bitch who we just found out has a brain tumor so she doesn't count. Where do kids get off telling the adult who is feeding and clothing and sheltering them that their efforts aren't acceptable?

I understand not liking certain foods, but if the choice is my wife's attempt at macaroni and cheese with hot dogs or starvation, I'm probably going to to with the mac & chee (and you must understand my wife can burn water).

Maybe it's simply because I had so little growing up, but I would like to think I was more grateful than The Girl is when it comes to the effort put forth, specially knowing that many kids have it a whole lot worse than she does. Is it just that out of sight really does equal out of mind when it comes to kids (and many adults) or is it just that she's a hormonal 12 year old?

That's probably the answer.

Damn it. Isn't there something I can add to her morning OJ to stop that or something?

Threaten to sell her to the Circus. I'll bet she'll behave then

Is this your kid, or your niece that's staying with you?

The Girl is my niece, yet is my brother's blood and is loved as a daughter. Would that the 1,000,000,000+ screaming Red Chinese keep him forever, she would be adopted into my house. The Boy is the fruit of my loins.

I doubt it. They don't serve liver & onions in the circus or require her make her bed every morning.

You could have her ovaries removed, but you've gotta catch her offguard and hold her down tight, because she'll kick something fierce.

I think the policy of 'you don't have to eat' is always good to have, but you should probably let her know if she expects to be given shelter and warmth she should probably address you more politely.

You're a mean dad.

Dad's don't have to be nice. As long as he keeps her off the pole, he's doing right by the Girl.

So it's your first experience with a young girl in the house? I'm not being a smartass with this. My wife, of all people, has had a harder time dealing with the emotional rollercoaster rides of our teenage and preteen daughters. Sometimes they're mad or upset for no apparent reason and they act like idiots sometimes (even though they really aren't) for no apparent reason.

Patience and understanding backed by a strong will is how I get through it (I'll tolerate their moods, but only to a certain point).

My wife just yells at them.

That's true. I figure so long as she has a job that doesn't involve taking her clothes off, this will have been 18 months well spent.

Then weather this. One night with no dinner ought to cure her. Although you'd be hard pressed to find a kid who does like liver.

And unless your combined cholesterol is <130, you probably shouldn't make a steady diet of it either.

I try not to yell since I heard enough of that growing up.

Although my wife has no patience for The Girl's nonsense when she's around.

If "Yuch, I'm not gonna eat that and you can't make me!" is the biggest problem you're facing with this kid, you should get down on your knees and thank God.

My parents got me to eat liver by lying and telling me it was steak, and hiding it under a lake of A.1.

Women seem to tolerate hormonal teen girls way less than men do. I think its because they know how much shit THEY pulled as a teenager, and aren't having any of it.

JCD, get your wife to say 'Cowboy up' to the Girl. If you can record the conversation, I'll mail you $20. :-D

I used to wait till my grandmother left the room, then fed it to the dog.
Much less stressful for all concerned, and at least the dog enjoyed it.

Liver and onions are two of the most disgusting things on Earth. You should be killed for even thinking of them, much less cooking and eating them.


My Mom's cooking was pretty awful, really. Cardboard meat loaf, vegetables boiled to within a milimeter of dissolving. Eventually I trained her to only make me chicken and rice, things she managed to cook without removing all the taste. Dad complained righteously about me getting different food, and I should be thankful just to HAVE food, why, when he was growing up in the depression yadda yadda.

Fuck it, Dad's lectures were easier to take than Mom's meat loaf.

Did you mom and my wife go to the same cooking school?

If it's good enough for the dogs, it's good enough for my kids.

My mother was pretty lenient with me in terms of not making me eat things I didn't want to. Probably, because she was a young, single mother with a physically disabled child that she wasn't sure would make it to adulthood.

As a result, to this day, I am the fussiest eater on the face of the earth. I don't eat fruits, vegetables or much of anything other than your basic "meat and potatoes."

I always wonder if she had been harder on me when I was a child, if I would have developed a taste for these things and enjoy them now as an adult, but I'm a lost cause.

Kids' tastebuds are less developed than adults'. You might try experimenting with a few things you didn't like as a child and discover you like them now.

I heard the other way around.
That your tastebuds die off/weaken with age.

S'how Dr. Pepper went from tasting like turpentine as a kid, to now it just tasting like a slightly stronger cherry coke.

Actually, in some ways, kids' tastebuds are more developed; their senses of taste and smell are more sensitive. That's why they tend to like cereal and potatoes and grapes but not liver, onions, grapefruit, asparagus . . .

I think JCD's got a case of the geezerly "in the good ol' days!" rhetoric. He was probably just as much a pain in the ass as a kid as his girl.

Why aren't you starting her out young and making her cook?

ETA: I see she can make sammiches. That's a start.

Oh, and it's also why so many baby boomers are becoming chili-heads, and why my old man salts everything to death.

Stories like this are why I'm grateful that both of my parents could cook extremely well.

Unfortunately, for me, it's a smell and texture thing, coupled with a very strong gag reflex. It's hopeless.

If every dad did that, what would Marso do on layovers?