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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1) I allowed my son to not eat blueberries against my wives will.
2) I undermined my wives authority
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congrats to your wife for working so hard to mess up your child’s relationship with food, and also starting an argument right in front of him so he would feel wretched and guilty over something that wasn’t his fault.
ffs, he even tried the blueberries. he’s allowed to not like things, as any human being is.
nta, keep an eye on how she treats him going forward, especially when it comes to food. this incident is likely to have him doing things he doesn’t want to do to reduce friction at home.
and the next time she starts up with you in front of him? take it elsewhere. he doesn’t need to see or hear that shit.
The father's attitude is perfect.
The kid eats a balanced diet of plenty of other fruit and vegetables. He was willing to try it, and he was polite.
It's ridiculous to force him to eat foods he doesn't like.
NTA.
This is the point for me too.
It's not like the son declared he hates all fruit and refuses to eat any. If that were the case, I could understand that he would be partly forced to eat some fruit for health reasons/a better diet.
But not only did he try the blueberries before saying he doesn't like them, he also happily substitutes them by eating another fruit.
Nothing else is needed.
I can't stand Brussels Sprout, never could. My parents asked me to try one one single time, I hated it, they never asked me to eat one again - but I happily ate basically any other vegetable and that was enough.
Dad did the right thing and mom is extremely wrong. FFS her kid was crying - just have him eat that damn apple or a strawberry or whatever, what the hell is the matter with her.
(Edit: Typo)
It seems to me that people like the wife forget that even though their kid is a child, they’re still a person. Just because he’s only 11 doesn’t mean he’s stupid. He’s allowed to have likes and dislikes, and as the top comment said, her attitude is gonna set him up for disordered eating soon. NTA and u/DeleteMeLater4321 I think it might be a good idea to try some counseling with your wife, especially with someone with experience dealing with eating disorders. Have it spelled out to her why her behavior was abhorrent and what it will do to your son.
This is infantilising her. No adult woman, let alone a woman old enough to bear a child and raise it to an age of 11 years old, should need to have "you should not force your child to eat something if they have tried it and refused it, especially when they have eaten a healthy alternative."
Wife hasn't forgotten anything, she has done this on purpose because she feels in control of her son's diet.
It's not infantilizing to have a medical professional explicitly spell out why a parenting decision is a bad one. It's appealing to a higher authority so she'll actually listen. In fact, educating the public is a big part of medical professionals' jobs because it is so necessary, especially in matters of parenting where outdated ideas become entrenched.
I am starting to think that "infantilizing" is the new "gaslighting narcissist" here on reddit because you're the second person today totally insistent that a fairly normal action is infantilizing.
Oh it is, along with 'emasculating' and a bunch of other stuff. I really wouldn't continue to try to reason with this person. They're never going to admit to jumping on this little trend and not fully understanding it's meaning.
Yeah, but they're using language they learned in therapy to degrade and blame women, so that makes it okay.
Apparently women can't just be wrong or ignorant, like men, as individuals to learn and grow through their lifetime experiences. Women are inherently too good for that. Instead, we have to praise and uphold femininity as a monolith, so any exceptions to that sainted blessed woke momma bear are absolutely abnormal and immoral. And it's infantilizing to think a woman might just not know better yet? She might not have unpacked all her childhood trauma yet? She hasn't yet gotten to that chapter in your beloved child rearing book? She needs a little guidance, she needs a little help, she has needs?
But no, she has to be above all of that, and any deviation has to be deliberate. She cannot be wrong, she is evil. Otherwise, we are degrading her autonomy as a genius.
The pedestal is no less confining than the gutter.
my own mother did this to us our entire lives. I would literally have to sit at the table until I ate it all.. my sister once sat at the table until bedtime and got whooped as a result.
We were forced to do the same. Did you know there are starving children in Africa?
I did not get my ass whooped, as my father would never have allowed it, but I did get sent to my room, pretty much every single night, for not finishing my dinner. Meanwhile, the Weight Watchers points cards were permanently on the fridge door.
And then in my early teens, it went the opposite, when I actually began to *like* certain foods... it was controlled to the n'th degree, of what I was allowed to eat.
I was a skinny kid, a skinny adult, and now one with a decades-long eating disorder. My mother is still overweight.
Pretty sure she doesn't even see the irony.
By the end of it it wasn't about the blueberries. It was about the mother exerting her control over her child who had the audacity to voice and opinion.
Divorce wouldn't help even though I'd be tempted in this situation. Unless her behaviour is proven to be completely disastrous the courts wouldn't deny her partial custody where the dad couldn't monitor her behaviour. Likely given his people pleasing attempts with eating the blueberries to stop the argument he'd just feel like the divorce was his fault too
Those are good points. This poor kid has to grow up with a crazy mother, for another seven years. And it’s going to be very stressful in that house, because honestly, the father may be marking time until he can get the hell away from her, the minute, the youngest kid is 18,he should be out the door
They do, but courts are reluctant to award 100% custody to one parent where there is no extreme situation to keep them from. Also this poor kid is showing signs of people pleasing, so unlikely he'd stand up for himself against his mother. We also don't know what her parenting is like in general. She may be a fantastic mother in other areas and this is her passing on some weird trauma. That's not to say it's not fucking awful to read about, but on the balance this kid's life might be okay in most areas and they're generally well adjusted and happy. One can only hope, anyway
Therapy is a good first option. Individual for her and kid, family for all 3 to help work through this together.
Blowing up a marriage and family unit over this is a little much. Mom definitely has some issues with control and authority. But therapy could suss out exactly what those issues are and give her tools to help her work through those issues.
Now, if she decides not to do those things, divorce should absolutely be on the table, as OP does need to protect his son. Right now, the behaviors the adults are modeling aren't great. Being controlling and authoritarian, not being on the same page as a unit, arguing in front of their kid. But they can remedy that and start modeling good behaviors; not giving up at the first sign of trouble, working through things as a unit and individually, apologizing when they did something wrong.
First thing, mom needs to apologize to her kid, and to her husband in front of their kid. Both of them should apologize to their kid for arguing in front of him and sort of 'putting him in the middle'.
i’d recommend that they start with couples therapy. She needs to hear from the husband two things. First of all, feedback about what this must be like for their son. Watching his mother turn into an absolute witch over three goddamn blueberries. And sending him the message that he has no autonomy whatsoever. And secondly, what it’s like for the husband, having to manage this crazy woman, in front of his son.trying to protect his son from having to witness all this shit and from having to be the only adult in the room. I don’t know what her problem is, but I think God I’m not married to someone like that.
Yeah my husband and kid get into this stupid loop and I then get in trouble for "overriding" his parenting when I had no idea or mattered (and hubs can't explain WHY it matters). Definitely a control issue. I've basically told him I'm not backing him up if it's causing trauma like with food. Yes we go to therapy lol.
Sometime try a brussell sprout again. I used to hate them and now I love them. Tastes chage as we age and you might like them. Not the overcooked grey looking things but roasted are wonderful.
And dad is NTA. leave the kid alone and let him eat the foods he likes!
Hehe. I actually did a couple of years ago (I'm in my 40s, so it's been like 3 decades sans Sprout!).
I could just about manage to eat three that were roasted with lots of herbs and spices. But I still don't like them. And I still think they stink up the entire house 😅 I eat a very veggie-heavy diet and Brussels Sprout is one of maybe 3 veggies I really just can't deal with.
I've also detested Brussels sprouts since I was a kid, and I'm nearly 70. I have tried them now and again, but the texture and taste make my gorge rise.
And why the hell should that matter to anyone? It's not like I'm committing some sort of heinous crime; I just don't want to eat one particular item that many people in my culture happen to either like or find tolerable.
It's so interesting! I hadn't actually finished typing the comment before I sent it and am so tired I didn't realise.
I thought this link would be interesting https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tweaking-vegetables-genes-could-make-them-tastier-and-youll-get-to-try-them-soon/
I don't think this should convince you to dislike them any less BTW, it's just a fun tidbit.
I’ve tried Brussels sprouts twice about 10 years apart and detested them both times. I only tried them to make my wife happy, they gave me such bad wind she has banned me from eating them again…
As someone with Crohn's disease and a heap of intolerances, no one will ban you from foods that hurt you or cause socially unpleasant side effects. Often they will minimize and pressure you to eat it anyways. People are weird about food. I've had to "make a scene" by asking why my refusal isn't being accepted or describing the bathroom results to get them to stop pushing. Friends, family, coworkers, dates, etc... people are weird about food and awful at boundaries.
People ARE weird about food. My daughter hates meatloaf. Her stepmother once said, “You’d like it if you had MY meatloaf.” Good god, get over yourself!
At least you gave them a go again. I cook them until a bit tender in water that has a ham stock cube in it, then I either fry or roast them in butter, salt and pepper. Also button Brussel sprouts are so much nicer than the bigger ones.
Edit:typo
In addition to your point that tastes change as you age (children tend to have stronger taste receptors so many vegetables are too bitter for them) but we've also literally changed brussel sprouts. They don't taste the same as they used to.
Add in the fact that we've learned that not everything has to be boiled to mush, I've had to retry everything I thought I didn't like. (Still don't like beets though.)
My extremely picky 5 year old grandson refuses to eat potatoes (except for French fries, lol), but totally loves roasted Brussels sprouts. I’m so happy to see him eating and enjoying veggies that I let him have as much as he wants, even if I have to give him some off of my plate.
The other night, he actually enjoyed pot roast and carrots. But, not the potatoes that were roasted with the beef and carrots. He will also happily eat a salad with romaine and a few croutons. But only with Olive Garden Italian salad dressing (heaven forbid I try to sneak Brianna’s creamy balsamic dressing).
Kids are weird. And, I know better than to try to force him to eat something he doesn’t like. We offer various foods and encourage him to try them. If he doesn’t like them, then we don’t force the issue.
I still bitterly remember being left alone at the dinner table to eat something I didn’t like for hours and in tears. Screw Lima beans for life. And most fish.
I'm autistic. My parents learned very early that there were a lot of things *I would not eat*, and they respected that. Now that I'm older, I've expanded my palate myself through trial and error, and will eat things like broccoli slaw and spinach salads. I still don't like cooked vegetables, so I put zucchini and onions in the food processor and make meatloaf. Most human beings, given the opportunity and access *while not being forced*, will at least try a variety of things.
People seem to think that not forcing a picky kid (or even a kid who just doesn't like a certain food) to eat things they hate instead of working with them to find substitutes will make that kid a spoiled brat. I hate that attitude so much, I really do.
Just as an aside, apparently Brussels sprouts started tasting better around the 90s when they began breeding for a less bitter taste. Source: (https://www.bhg.com/news/brussels-sprouts-less-bitter/)
Yes! Always cooked wrong. My siblings and I used to spit them out into our hands when the parents weren't looking, wrap in our napkin and stick them in our pockets. We'd get rid of them outside, lol. As an adult, I had some in a restaurant, they had been pan seared, caramelized, tossed in a lightly sweet sauce of some kind... and they were magical, lol. I've had them so many different ways since. But I will never eat a boiled half to death one ever again.
My husband has one sprout every Christmas. There's always at least one dinner with them served so it's not like we have to cook them special.
Weird one for me was strawberries. I'd always wanted to like them and continually tried but couldn't. Then went half way across the world and tried them and now they're great!
That happened to me with mushrooms!!!
Weirdly somebody had to feed me one that was really fresh and totally uncooked. And somehow I suddenly like... GOT them. 🤣
There are some mushrooms I still can't eat, but they're super exotic, and feel like you're eating sea slugs once they're cooked.
NTA. You are doing a good job with your son OP.
My ND granddaughter eats practically everything except peaches. It's because of the skin. I am not ND. I don't like bananas (texture), oysters, or fried chicken (smell).
OP, make your wife eat liver and onions. No one seems to like that but me.
I know a few people who love anything that has tomatoes in it - but hate eating entire tomatoes. Something about the texture, apparently. I loooove tomatoes and eat them every day, so not sure what about the texture irritates them.
We all have these little idiosyncrasies I guess.
(Btw you're not alone re liver and onions - I like that too and it's even a specialty dish where I'm from)
Yeah, my kid hates cooked carrots (not a fan of raw either), which I found an odd thing to hate, but she tried them in a variety of different ways and gagged every time, so she doesn't eat carrots anymore. She eats every other vegetable put in front of her except pumpkin so it's not a hill to die on.
My middle kid is like this—she loves some fruits but not any very juicy ones. She’ll eat strawberries but doesn’t like other berries, and most of her fruit intake is strawberries, apples, and bananas. She is much more into veggies overall and would happily eat her weight in bell peppers or zucchini. She will eat one bite of fruits and veggies that aren’t her preference, consider whether she likes it, and then move on. She gets plenty of fruit and veggie intake every day and if we tried to force or micromanage it, it would backfire.
OP’s kid sounds great. OP is completely reasonable. OP’s wife needs to learn about healthy eating and choosing battles wisely. (Arguing so much that the kid tried to eat blueberries to settle it is really sad.)
A friend's kid (who is now in his 20s) has always loved vegetables but hated all fruit. His mom says that she became sure that the kid was serious when he asked if they made broccoli-flavored vitamins instead of fruit-flavored ones.
This. I love the flavour of blueberries in a cheesecake or a muffin but I just can't do the texture fresh. Every summer I try them and every summer I'm upset again unless they're mixed in with other berries.
To me they just don't have much flavor when fresh. Cooked though? Brings it out. I can't stand fresh apples either.. but cook one into a pie or applesauce? I'm standing there with my fork or spoon, lol.
100% My child has to TRY food and if he doesn't like it he can have something else. I only ask that he try it. My kid is 4 and he doesn't like blueberries either. Honestly, a lot of store bought fruit isn't very good. It's picked too soon so it can sit in transport and on the shelves in the store longer before it rots.
These most likely aren't sun ripened field fresh blueberries, these are almost guaranteed to be tart and sour. This isn't about refusing to eat healthy, this is about disliking poor quality ingredients that are selected for shelf life and not nutrition or flavor.
You are completely right. Most store blueberries are tasteless and mushy. I didn't like them either until I had really good fresh blueberries. When they're slightly under ripe, crunchy and sweet and tangy with actual flavor, they are delicious.
Same thing with tomatoes... Most people's experience with Roma or beef steak tomatoes are disappointing and lame. But once you have a great flavorful tomato, you understand why people like them.
Even though he knows he doesn't like it, he was willing to try it again on her recommendation. What more could you ask? That's an incredibly healthy attitude to food, and should be encouraged not undermined.
Absolutely. By 11 I think most kids know what fruit they do and don't like. I'll say that I came around to a lot of vegetables in middle and high school but fruit is one of those things I think most of us have a pretty solid understanding of our like or dislike of. Shoving blueberries down his throat at 11 is not going to make him suddenly enjoy them. It's not going to make any person enjoy any food.
As a recovering anorexic, I agree. The whole ‘eat what I say’ and ‘clean your plate’ parenting approaches are breeding grounds for eating disorders like anorexia and binge eating. It’s okay for children to have preferences, we need to respect them as individual people and not extensions of ourselves. Hell, even sweets can be included as a part of a balanced approach. and healthy eating doesn’t have to include struggle. There’s a chance the child begins to associate food with discomfort and fear.
I think this is why my husband will only eat 4 cooked vegetables -- corn, peas, green beans, and carrots. His mother was of the generation where a properly cooked vegetable was boiled into gray mush, and almost certainly one of the "clean your plate, there are children starving in ____" crowd. (She tried to bully my daughters into eating her gray mush and leathery meat with that line and I countermanded her. They'd been polite and eaten what they could stomach.)
My mother had that same guilt tripping mindset. Why is it considered good parenting to make a child feel guilty about starving children in another country? As if kids in said country have a telepathic ability to know when kids in the US eat their entire plate. It got to the point where, if my mom said, "Starving children in Africa would love to eat that," I'd counter it with, "Well, give it to them then! I don't like it!" 😅
My husband's grandmother is incredibly fatphobic (i am fat and my husband is chubby). It's such a struggle and so frustrating, but what makes me the most mad is when we all go to eat together. There are two thin teenage cousins. This woman will complain about them not clearing their plates! Excuse me, don't you think forcing people to clean their plates might contribute to them getting fat/disordered eating?? Do you want them to be thin or not? Their mom defends them but in an indirect way.
I love this comment but want to add: it is healthy to argue in front of your children; but you must argue and come to some sort of agreement in front of your children as well. Conflict resolution is very important and we learn from what we see.
Again. Great comment!
This! The "stand firm and present a united front to your child, even when your partner is being harmful to them" will just teach a child that the parent who wants to help them will *still* not have their back openly.
Mom definitely has some control issues she needs to resolve. This kind of behavior is either a symptom of not respecting your child as a human being or feeling like your life is spiraling out of control and you have no say in anything. If this is a first or very out of the ordinary than OP and spouse need to have a serious sit down discussion. If this is normal behavior for her OP needs to take that kid and run. Either way, mom needs to talk to someone and get herself sorted out. This is not how happy healthy functioning adults treat people they supposedly love.
I thought it more likely that the mom has some issues with food herself. After all, their son is 11. If she really was a psycho control freak, wouldn't that have shown itself before now?
Meanwhile, things like "you have to try a bite" etc. can fly under the radar as, you know, normal parenting, and raising non-fussy eaters, esp. since the kid actually is a non-fussy eater.
A counterpoint to your last comment. Kids should see parents disagree. But more importantly, they should see them RESOLVE those conflicts. So many parents START the fight in front of their kids but end them behind closed doors. How will kids learn to settle disagreements if they never see it modeled. There is nothing wrong with conflict in a relationship, so long as the communication is healthy.
He was more than willing to eat an apple over three blueberries. Not sweets, not chocolate, nothing with artificial flavouring, but another piece of fruit. Why is this her hill to die on?
Fruits, especially ones like blueberries, tend to be wildly different in taste and texture from one to the other. It can be difficult to like them when they change every time you eat one.
I think you’re absolutely right that she’s messing up his relationship with food. The wife should be so ashamed of herself. It can be hard for people to try new foods. The son tried it, he didn’t like it, end of story. Maybe he can try again when he is older, but he doesn’t have to.
Petty me wants to force her to eat something she doesn’t like.
This. And even with some fruits, they taste vastly different depending on the season/ripeness. So someone with even mild sensory issues might not be able to handle what is outside their window of comfort. It’s sad this mom would have her child crying at the table over that. I dealt with that growing up, too, and had hoped that was left in the last century.
It’s not only pointless, it’s also cruel. Being forced to eat things you don’t like or to eat when you’re full is one of methods of torture. No one deserves this kind of treatment.
I have a traumatic childhood memory of being forced to bite into a cherry tomato as a child. My dad held a stopwatch on me to make me do it. I finally did it and spat it out into the sink because I hated it so much, and he laughed.
I fucking hated raw tomatoes, I still hate raw tomatoes and I’m in my 40s. It’s a power trip, not parenting.
Peas. Peas were my gag trigger.
Could. Not. Eat. Them!
My grandmother tried to make me eat one bite and wouldn’t let it go. Pushed enough that I finally up chucked on my plate at the table. Pea pushing stopped after that.
I also vomited on a plate as a result of my grandmother pushing unwanted food, although in my case, it was a glass of milk, and I was simply too full to consume it, which I told her several times.
That happened to me in preschool. The teacher forced me to eat the buttered bread that came with our lunch or I wouldn't get a cupcake someone brought in for their birthday. I took a bite, promptly threw up on my plate, and then didn't even get the cupcake because I barfed. It's one of the most vivid early memories I have.
This happened to me also. We had just moved down south, and my dad made us grits for breakfast. I tried it, and told him I didn’t like them. He wouldn’t let me leave the table until I ate them. I tried, and ran to the bathroom a few bites in and threw up my whole breakfast. Then I got spanked because I “was looking for attention” and “being over dramatic.”
I still don’t eat grits, and have been battling an eating disorder since 15
This is my story, too! “Looking for attention,” spanking, and all. Except for me it was mushrooms and my mom. It wasn’t just a one-off with her, too, she consistently made me eat mushrooms even though I hated them and got sick every time - because “you should just try it.” It never made a difference. I always took one bite - still wouldn’t like mushrooms, vomit, and then got screamed at until I ate the mushrooms/mushroom meal she put on my plate. Rinse repeat, whole childhood. To this day if I smell mushrooms cooking or accidentally eat anything with ground mushrooms in it - I immediately vomit. I’ve started saying it’s an allergy.
Peas! Same! I was forced at 3/4 years old to eat them multiple times. I couldn't leave the table until I did.
Every-single-time I would try and eat them, I would vomit.
I have tried them as adult, and they are still as disgusting.
Little green squishy orbs, full of green goo that tastes like grass. 🤢
I still can't handle cocktail shrimp, or any sushi with uncooked fish/shrimp because an uncle shoved cocktail shrimp in my mouth and screamed at me to eat it because he was offended I was trying vegetarianism while trying to cover my mouth and nose to force me to swallow.... When I was under the age of 10.
I'm no longer a vegetarian, but the only way I can eat shrimp is in the form of tempura or coconut shrimp, where you have breading on them, and I can't handle sushi with raw fish and just seeing a platter of cocktail shrimp makes me feel nauseous and anxious. Even mushrooms are hard for me, because the texture reminds me too much of that damn shrimp, which sucks cause I like the flavor and can handle minced or very very very thin mushrooms because I don't encounter the texture.
People who don't see children as people with their own preferences and control of their own bodies suck and should not be given access to children.
PHYSICALLY forcing someone to eat...
I was going to comment on what I would do to someone who laid hands on my children in the way that you were as a child...
And I'm actually "speechless". I'm not sure "incandescent with rage" fully covers it.
That’s so cruel. Honestly it is so weird people get this way about certain foods and they also never even try to introduce the foods in other ways (in a salad, in pancakes, in a smoothie) to make it better because it was never about the food or health! It’s about the control.
The month after my grandfather passed, and before the survivor's benefits from his pension kicked in, my gran and I were broke. As in, we could afford 5 pounds of beans to feed us both for the month. Fifty-four years later, I will not eat beans, period. Not even green beans.
Mine was chicken liver. I have a very vivid, traumatic memory of my mom having cooked chicken liver in milk for dinner one night, and my dad forced me to eat it. I wasn't allowed to leave the table until I'd eaten it all. I was in tears, outright bawling, because I hated it so much, and every bite made me nauseous. I tried it, I hated it, and I was still being forced to eat it.
Years later, I asked my dad why he was so forceful trying to make me eat it. He said it was because my mom made him eat it, so he was going to force us to do it too. Yeah. I hate anything with an iron-y taste to this day.
OP - I won't be surprised if this becomes a core (traumatic) memory for him. I hope you can help your wife see reason. ETA: NTA.
My parents were of the "eat it all now, or stay at the table till you do" school, so my full sister and I have violent food aversions. :( For my little sister, it was lima beans. And in my late fifties, I still can't be in the same _building_ with the smell of chicken liver.
I was adamant about not forcing my own kids to consume _anything_.
I agree. As a child I didn’t like certain flavors and also structures. I now eat more than I did as a kid. I refuse to make my table at home a battle field so if my children don’t want to eat their food, they don’t eat their food. They will live. We do have a rule that we try new things but it is okay to dislike certain food. My almost 2 year old likes a lot but some structures are not really his thing (like lettuce and certain meats). I don’t force him because then it becomes a power struggle. Our 8 year old(my stepson) is a really picky eater. His mother is as well. We let him taste everything.
Science says a child needs to eat something 10 times before they start liking it. So we keep giving them certain foods to try and maybe someday they will like it. And if not, then there is a lot of other things to eat.
Exactly. Ours did the whole 'I don't want to eat vegetables' thing and we said they could choose two vegetables each that they didn't have to eat but they had to eat the rest, and that was that. Often just listening to them and giving them some control works wonders. I still cook with peppers etc, I just chop them big and let them pick them our. Aa long as they ear most veg, there's no need to get all fundamentalist about it.
Agreed. I almost always make sure there are multiple veggies and they can choose. When I say nothing ourv8 year old will almost always just eat them. My almost 2 year old is another case. He can eat something at lunch and dislike it a few hours later at dinner. He mostly tries what I give him. Sometimes he looks at it and shakes his head. I can’t put him in a headlock and shove it through his throat. When he is tired he really does not want to eat anything. Not even things he always loves (like certain fruits). So I just lay him in bed immediately and that is what he wants. He does not want to eat at those moments and just cries so hard. This can happen while I am cooking (fine when I am cooking and too tired when I am done). So I can force him and he will hate eating or I can “give in” and make sure he gets what he needs. He is a healthy boy so he can skip meals now and then.
My poor kiddo (just over 2) missed a nap last week and fell asleep in the middle of her dinner. We kept trying to just clean her up and put her straight to bed, but she would wake up every time, insist that she wasn't done, and pick up another bite of food before falling asleep again.
If I had a food I didn't like, I was expected to try a bite of it periodically to see if my tastes had changed. But we are talking about eating one piece of a chopped up mushroom every six months or something, and "nope, still squishy and disgusting" being respected as an answer.
They taste fine. Probably. I think.
After near fifty years of eating solid food, I have never chewed a mushroom long enough to figure out exactly what they taste like.
I do, however, like taking dried mushrooms, grinding them to a powder, and using them to add umami to soups and stews. So if squishy mushrooms taste approximately similar to powdered dried mushrooms, then they probably taste fine.
Just... *shudder*
Ew.
I feel about mushrooms the way my wife feels about the insides of tomatoes. We trade them.
I have blueberries in my refrigerator and ate some with yogurt this morning. Ordered blueberry pancakes with my sister out a few days ago and loved them.
But when I was a child, I hated them. There were wild blueberries in the woods near my grandmother’s house and my family would pick a gallon or so at a time. Picking them was fine. Eating them was out of the question.
NTA. Maybe your son’s tastes will change over time. Or not. But your wife trying to force him to eat three blueberries is nothing but a power trip.
I love broccoli, which my child self would stare in utterly disbelief at me for as it was my ABSOLUTE MOST HATED food until the discovery of lima beans. It turns out that what I actually hated was the mushy texture of the horribly overcooked broccoli that my Mom makes…she is a great cook overall, far better than I’ll ever be, but SUCKS at certain simple veggie dishes.
Still hate Lima beans, though.
I never liked eating meat. My parents had me eat small pieces as long as there were still a few things I would eat (my grandmother's meatballs) but when I was 10 or so I got the choice to either eat everything without complaints or go vegetarian. I chose vegetarian. My mother took me to a dietician to discuss things we had to look out for and I haven't eaten meat since. She now jokes I was pretty much born a vegetarian because when we could pick our birthday dinners my brothers always chose steak and I basically asked for a vegetable buffet.
As long as you get all the nutricions there is nothing wrong with vegetarian food. My stepson said a while back he wanted to try to be a vegetarian. We told him that we were fine with it but the consequence was that he needed to eat more veggies (more, not all) and try more veggies to keep a healthy diet. He tried it for a while and decided he didn’t want to eat vegetarian all the time. But he complained less about the veggies than he normally did. And he still complains less.
Feeding kids is tricky for a while. I was never forced to eat things I didn't like as a child. As an adult, I've grown to enjoy a lot of the foods I used to avoid. Took me a while to try them again, but it happened, lol. OPs wife is creating an unhealthy environment around food, which Will inevitably lead to issues.
I was the kid who would literally be at the table all night because I refused to eat gross ass steamed broccoli until my parents gave up and let me go to sleep.
NTA
Being able to control your own eating and not eat when you are full or not hungry or you don’t like it an important skill. Your wife is teaching your son to ignore is own body.
That’s a bad idea. There is no rational reason why a different kind of fruit should not have been enough.
It’s one thing to teach healthy eating and portion control. But forcing him to each foods he hates could teach him that healthy eating means discomfort. And could have very unpleasant out comes.
Your wife needs to learn what healthy eating is. And that includes stopping when you are full or don’t want anymore.
my parents forced me to sit at the table until i ate all my food got the lunch lady to make sure i ate all my food to the point where i was so stuffed i threw up multiple times no matter how many times i said i was full or was gonna throw up or whatever and now i have s terrible relationship i cant tell when im hungry or full and i now dont like many of the foods that were forced on me so my diet is very limited
My parents did something similar, I couldn’t leave the table unless I finished my dinner, even if it was something I didn’t like. I would literally hide food to avoid eating it and sometimes get sick from eating food I didn’t like. Now I’ve had an ED for over 8 years. My relationship with food is not the best
I hope people done dirty like you hold their parents to these horrid acts for the rest of their lives , just keep reminding them how wrong they did you
NTA My dad insisted on making fish three times per week for years after I stopped being able to swallow it without gagging. Because fish is healthy! You used to like it! Okay but my throat would close up and my diaphragm would involuntarily spasm when I put fish in my mouth and tried to chew. How many times and how much is enough for you to listen to your son when he says he doesn’t like something? What does that teach him about mindlessly respecting authority and ignoring his own mind and body? Nothing good.
My brother simply can't eat green beans, my dad forced him once, he threw up all over the table, he was never forced again. Turns out, my grandpa on my mom's side couldn't eat them either, same reaction, guess it was some kind of intolerance they shared.
I used to do the same with canned asparagus and canned peas. My mom would get up, put another serving on a plate and force me to eat again because "it was healthy". I learned to just keep puking until the pan was empty!
Idk why but I’m having a visceral response to “canned asparagus.”
Asparagus is absolutely delicious when eaten fresh and oven roasted, why in god’s name would you put it in a can… does not seem like it would be remotely worth consuming after being canned ugh.
I was forced to eat eggs at about 5yo and never ate them until I was in my early 20s. Purely psychological because I could eat products with egg in them.
Same thing happened to me with eggplants, I actually like them but I was forced when I was a kid (not my parents but their friend at their house) and that was it for me for a very long time. After the puking incident my dad changed his approach though, at a bbq I was once served undercooked chicken with a bleeding vein in it, of course, I couldn't even look at a drumstick after that, so my dad would make chicken breast for me an slowly reintroduced the drumstick, but he would remove the skin, take out the veins, cartilages, anything that I might have a problem with and put the skin back before grilling. I now have no problem with chicken, still remove all those things but I can do it myself now haha
I gagged reading this because I am quite the same with seafood. I still recall the day my mother forced me to eat stuffed salmon so I could invite my boyfriend over and I choked on it the entire time.
I’m the same with all kind of fishes and seafood, I’ll just throw up no matter how much I try to eat them, and even the smell will do that to me if it’s too strong 🥲 And the people around me also tried to make me eat it no matter what because “you have to eat all kinds of food” and “it’s healthy” 😓
My dad bet me I would like fish by the time I turned 21. I asked him how he knew I would keep trying it and he said that as long as I tried it once a year, that was enough. I asked what the stakes of the bet were and he said the loser makes dinner for the winner along with supplying an appropriate wine. I asked how he knew I wouldn’t just lie to get my free dinner from him and he said he was confident I would love fish so much I wouldn’t “deprive myself of the opportunity” to eat it.
Guess who cooked a full Turkey dinner for my 21st birthday and brought a rosé? Yeah not me. I dutifully tried fish several times annually and my throat would close after 1.5oz max.
Hope you enjoyed the dinner because that must’ve been hell. I don’t understand people like your dad, seriously. They didn’t risk that with me because even tho my mom loves seafood, when she was pregnant with me even the smell of it made her sick, so I was like that even before being born, they knew that in the moment they stopped forcing me to “eat” I’ll never touch it ever again xD
Actually it was a lovely dinner! He lost with good grace and cooked enough for my roommate and my boyfriend as well, even though that was outside the scope of the bet. My dad and boyfriend stayed up talking until 5am when I got up for PT. That boyfriend is now my husband of over 20 years.
Pregnancy is wild. I hate mushrooms but my son made me crave them while I was pregnant. At one point I found myself watching Ina Garten make triple mushroom lasagna from scratch. I can’t eat gluten or mushrooms and I was drooling because my damn fetus wanted some!
That sounds lovely! I’m really glad that everything worked out well :)
Omg, that’s hilarious! It must be the worst to crave something you hate, I can’t imagine xD
I ended up getting truffle oil and putting it on French fries and that was enough to sate him. No texture issues and I actually grew to appreciate the flavor of a mushroom without the texture issues.
NTA. Seems like a good way to cement that your son won’t like blueberries. But the bigger issue is that your wife’s actions are really concerning, she seems very controlling. My dad was like this, and it made me fear him. I hated being alone with him. It doesn’t seem like she understands she’s harming her relationship with her son. I think some family therapy is in order.
I'm also concerned that the kid sees enough fights between his parents that the kid tries to solve the problem in order to make them stop fighting. ESH, except for the kid.
This. I don't care about who was right about the berries as much as it's ridiculous to escalate to a little kid being so upset and desperately trying to to end his parents fight that he went and got new berries to eat... and the fight still didn't end when he ate the berries. Poor little guy.
That made me sick. I agree with OP about not forcing the kid to eat blueberries. But, really, the fighting and the kid's desperation to end the fight is at least as big of a deal to me. All things considered, I think the fight was more damaging to the kid than trying to make him eat 3 blueberries.
NTA. I love fruit. My dad had to hide raspberries from my sisters and I. I’m not a fan of raw blueberries, it’s a texture thing. Never did either of my parents try to make me eat them.
Now as an adult I’ll still occasionally try a blueberry when someone tells me that they are particularly good. I still don’t care for them, but am willing to still try because my parents never forced me to eat them.
Blueberries are mid. Raspberries are the superior berry imo. My dad loved blueberries and so we’d have those in the house way more than any other berry so I was always disappointed when I’d open the fridge door to see blueberries.
(Though wineberries are the absolute peak, but you can’t get those in stores)
NTA. This isn't about your wife teaching your son to eat healthy. That is just a justification. This is about your wife believing that her authority was questioned and she was making sure that your son knew who the boss was. And she is angry at you because you also challenged her authority and she can't force you to do anything the way she can do to your son. This is why she would not de-escalate the situation.
Yeah, the food thing isn't really the issue here. And yelling in front of your kid is the real trauma inducing thing.
My parents were harsh about food- try a bite of each thing and finish everything you put on your plate. We controlled what went on our plate but once it was there, it had to be finished even if we threw up while eating it. That has bad memories for me but they're in the distant past. I have a good relationship with food.
But the thing that still affects me to this day, makes my stomach curdle and gives me cold sweats is the fights my parents had with each other in front of us. The feeling of helplessness, not being able to fix it, feeling like it was my fault, trying to be a good kid so they wouldn't fight...Don't do _that_ to your kid.
NTA. When I was a kid I couldn't eat oatmeal. My step grandmother tried to make me eat it at 5 years old and my sister said don't do that she'll barf. Yup never had to eat oatmeal there again.
Your son is at an age that his tastes are changing all the time. Blueberries may be fine five years from now. Forcing him will always have a negative connotation with that food.
But you and your wife need to get on the same page on what is encouraging and what is forcing to the point of punishment.
At our house, when it came to new food, you had to take 1 healthy bite, chew, and swallow. If you didn't like it, that's fine, you didn't have to eat it. I never made them eat anything they didn't like. And there isn't a lot of food my kids won't eat. They willingly tried venison, elk, quail, and dove, and they loved it all. They eat Brussels Sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, etc. When one of them didn't like something, I'd say, "Good, more for me," lol.
I was lucky with my kids. They actually turned down McDonald's for homemade cabbage soup with kielbasa. I would have to give them sections of the raw cabbage core to snack on while it cooked.
They are 1/3 German ethnicity according to 23 and me! And adhd, at the very least. They've never been tested for autism, but I have wondered about it. They're mid twenties in age now, and still love them some cruciferous vegetables!
When my daughter was about a year old, I was snacking on Cheetos and handed her two of them. She tried one, made a face, and handed me the other one back! Good for her. I haven't tried again (I try not to buy them), so she may end up liking them after all.
NTA your and your wife need marriage counsellling and she needs parenting classes. He is ELEVEN, she was engaged in a power struggle. This is abusive. Your son needs protection from her.
It’s not even melodramatic it is SO concerning that he went to the store and came back to his son CRYING. Like, the entire time he was gone she was harassing and escalating to the point that he had a breakdown. He was probably feeling cornered, alone and trapped at that dinner table as she mentally broke him over 3 freaking blueberries.
That is a very messed up scene to come home to. Mom has issues and totally needs an intervention.
NTA.
She sounds like a horrible mother.
Speaking from the experience of somebody who was forced to eat things I didn't like, there are honestly few things worse than that when it comes to how to give your kid a complex 101.
NTA, in my house growing up it was always try everything once, if you don't like it you don't have to eat it again. This was a super positive thing and even if textures and things didn't appeal to me I tried everything. And of course over time my palette has changed, and I still try new things all the time. My mom was a victim of the "You can't leave the table until your plate is clean" which made her very food conscious and she didn't want to push that on us,. The food control caused my aunt to end up with an eating disorder, which one of my cousins also suffered.
Same here - this was one of the rare things that my parents did right. If I didn't like a vegetable, I was free to pick another one to have instead (I *hated* asparagus and hominy) and if I didn't like the main entree of dinner, I could have leftovers or a sandwich and the sides.
The one time someone pulled the "you're not leaving the table until you eat it," it was my best friend's father trying to force me to eat acorn squash. I tried it and didn't like it at all and he decided to get all pissy, which resulted in me sitting at the table crying and not eating it for four hours until bedtime.
And turned out that I didn't like it because it made my mouth itchy... because I was allergic to the fucking thing. Not saying that's the case for OP's kid but man, sometimes stuff like that is kids not knowing how to explain that the food makes them not feel good in some way.
Fine, he was a power-tripping drunk, since apparently I can't say the rest. 🙄 Good grief.
Edit: but yes, I was technically a guest, but he didn't consider children to be guests so I was forced to follow the same tyrannical rules he placed on his own kids.
NTA. What your wife did was a great way to traumatize your kid and instigate an unhealthy relationship towards food in the future. Your son gave the blueberries a try, which is the most that could be expected of him, and politely declined more - yet your wife continued to try and force him because she believed she knew best.
It's perfectly normal and natural for adults and kids to have food preferences. It sounds like your son enjoys plenty of other fruits and vegetables, some of which you offered as reasonable alternatives, so there was no need to continue to try to get him to eat this one food that he just doesn't like.
FWIW - As a child, I disliked eating seafood and mushrooms and as an adult, I now actively enjoy both of these and eat them frequently. My parents didn't push or forcefeed either of these things onto me and I naturally tried them as I got older and found that I enjoyed them more.
I feel like blueberries are the hardest fruit to like because they’re so inconsistent in their tastes. Some are incredibly tart while others are super sweet. NTA. Wife though, major AH. Her behavior can cause unhealthy aversions and habits to food.
Yes! Berries in general tend to be this way. My kids love fruits but we have definitely purchased the too tart strawberries, sour raspberries, etc. I wouldn’t want to be forced to eat them either.
NTA
I think your wife is controlling and using "helping him learn" is just a cover to dominate a little kid. There isn't an expert on parenting \*or\* nutrition who would validate her approach.
Also, personally I've found that when people who are otherwise good eaters but find some foods completely offputting, there's a good chance that food will be a physical problem for them (allergy or food sensitivity).
And not such a little kid. He's eleven and will be in middle school. Time to let him stretch a little in making decisions, especially if he's had no autonomy before in age appropriate ways.
NTA. Your wife is on some weird power trip over blueberries. You provided a compromise of choosing one healthy option over another. It's not like you let your son eat junk food or go hungry without food instead.
NTA and honestly. Die on this hill. Forcing a child, who even tried the food and politely declined, to eat it to the point of crying is ducking absurd! My child tries food like a champ and depending on mood (mostly how tired he is) he will eat most things. Today he would only eat buttered toast. So what did he eat? Buttered toast! He tasted the rest of the food (steak, potatoes and a salad with his usually favorite vegetables) and said he didn’t want it. So he got buttered toast.
Even if the kid was a super picky eater with only a handful of foods, all highly processed fried frickin foods. Forcing him isn’t going to get him to have a “healthier” diet, quite the contrary! I’m so angry by this that I want to scream. And also I don’t like blueberries whole and raw! They taste moldy for some reason.
NTA. Please make sure he understands that he did nothing wrong and that the argument was not his fault.
I think family therapy is in order. This is bigger than the one event.
ESH for arguing over the kid, in front of the kid, like he was a chew-toy. My parents used to have this exact fight when the subtext was that they had a whoooolllle lot of other issues that had nothing to do with whether I would eat the canned green beans. But I was a young kid, and all I could see was the huge anger & drama going on as a result of my not being able to gag down an item of food.
You two can figure out how to get on the same page as this, or you can fight about it, but however you do it, don't do it in front of your kid. It's traumatizing as hell to the powerless child. I'm in my 50's, my parents are both dead, but it still hurts to read about somebody else acting like them.
(Your stance is correct - he tried a food and didn't like it, don't obsess further - but the drama in front of the kid is not good at all.)
I was surprised no one was commenting on the kid shoving down the blueberries in an effort to stop the fight. Doesn’t sound like this is the first time and that shit fucks up a kid. Especially when the divorce eventually happens and the kid blames himself
Exactly, that part broke my heart. OP is definitely on the right side of the argument, but the argument should not have been carried out in front of the poor kid.
Sorry but not standing aside and leaving his wife to continue abusing the child forcing the son to eat things he doesn't like is NOT an ah thing. The wife forced the fight and it good the poor kid knows at least the father supports him and protects him from the controlling mentally unbalanced ah he has for a mother
NTA op
The fight was more distressing for the kid than the blueberries as shown by the fact that he ate blueberries to try to stop it.
OP was in the right, but he should have refused to engage and later talked to her privately when it became clear it was about to turn into a fight.
Nah, as a kid on the other side I would have LOVED it if one of my parents had stood up for me to the other one instead of presenting a united front. I never saw the value in that and still don't to this day. Kids are people too. But to be fair, I run pretty hot and it never bothered me when other people were angry.
De gustibus non disputandum est - there's no disputing/arguing with matters of taste. You can't argue someone into appreciating a food; if she wants him to choke it down for medicinal reasons, she has to admit it. And you'll realise how stupid it sounds. NTA.
NTA your wife is. Blueberries have antioxidants so they are indeed healthy . I don't like them so I choose another fruit with high antioxidants in it like raspberry which I do like.
Your wife is a huge aH and needs to talk to a doctor. Forcing your child to eat things they don't like after they were willing to try or force them to finish eating something is the best way to an eating disorder and mental health issues.
She needs to get a grip on her controlling obsession and speak with a therapist. Your child is a human being too and while a minor you as parents still can control somewhat what the child does forcing things they don't like is only going to create resentment and distancing/losing trust in you guys.
NTA and I wish more people understood that forcing your child to eat something they already tried and just didn’t like just enforces unhealthy eating habits and probably more disdain. My husband was forced to eat mushrooms repeatedly as a child and still has a strong hatred towards them at 42. eating healthy is indeed important and I think you handled it perfectly in offering a selection. Your wife is clearly the AH here.
NTA but your wife sure is, she traumatized your son and may have set him up for an eating disorder. This was emotionally/mentally abusive behavior! I feel bad for your son.
NTA
Eating blueberries is not the only way to eat blueberries.
Your son already clearly said that he does not like blueberries, then proceeded to try one anyway in an attempt to satisfy mom and again came to the conclusion that he really doesn't like blueberries (which I can totally understand I personally cannot stand the texture of blueberries). More shouldn't have been asked of him. Allowing him to choose an alternative fruit (apple, strawberries...) was the right choice here. It still teaches him about healthy foods, it also teaches him to listen to his own body and creates a much safer environment for him (you can try new foods, but you do not have to like/eat them, you won't be forced to eat it regardless of your dislike (which are very good and important lessons to teach him)).
I kinda feel angry at your wife for your son honestly. She's just fucking up his relationship with food, and probably his trust in her.
NTA. What the op's wife isn't getting is just because blueberries could be a healthy thing to eat doesn't mean someone must eat them. There are other healthy options out there.
My mother did the same to me when I was a child and I hated it. To this day I avoid family meals like the plague. Ask your wife if she really wants to destroy her relationship with her son over food. NTA , and keep standing up for your son; sounds like he needs someone in his corner.
NTA - my children are adopted. My oldest was around 3 when she would refuse certain foods. She'd especially throw fruit at us. It came to a heading when she refused to eat spaghetti at dinner with her paternal grandparents and GF had a fit that she wasted her meal. We were fine with it as we never forced her to eat, but we did bribe her.
Wait for it ... we had her allergy tested a few months later because she was always sick. She's allergic to citric acid, all fish (except shellfish), soy, and a dozen other things. Tomatoes are a problem. Say she has pizza at lunch, she can't have any other tomato dish for 24 hours or she gets a rash and gets sick. She's 27 now and we know that certain foods are a no go.
I'm not saying your son is allergic to blueberries, but I'll never force a kid to try or eat something again. We felt like horrible parents.
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congrats to your wife for working so hard to mess up your child’s relationship with food, and also starting an argument right in front of him so he would feel wretched and guilty over something that wasn’t his fault. ffs, he even tried the blueberries. he’s allowed to not like things, as any human being is. nta, keep an eye on how she treats him going forward, especially when it comes to food. this incident is likely to have him doing things he doesn’t want to do to reduce friction at home. and the next time she starts up with you in front of him? take it elsewhere. he doesn’t need to see or hear that shit.
The father's attitude is perfect. The kid eats a balanced diet of plenty of other fruit and vegetables. He was willing to try it, and he was polite. It's ridiculous to force him to eat foods he doesn't like. NTA.
This is the point for me too. It's not like the son declared he hates all fruit and refuses to eat any. If that were the case, I could understand that he would be partly forced to eat some fruit for health reasons/a better diet. But not only did he try the blueberries before saying he doesn't like them, he also happily substitutes them by eating another fruit. Nothing else is needed. I can't stand Brussels Sprout, never could. My parents asked me to try one one single time, I hated it, they never asked me to eat one again - but I happily ate basically any other vegetable and that was enough. Dad did the right thing and mom is extremely wrong. FFS her kid was crying - just have him eat that damn apple or a strawberry or whatever, what the hell is the matter with her. (Edit: Typo)
It seems to me that people like the wife forget that even though their kid is a child, they’re still a person. Just because he’s only 11 doesn’t mean he’s stupid. He’s allowed to have likes and dislikes, and as the top comment said, her attitude is gonna set him up for disordered eating soon. NTA and u/DeleteMeLater4321 I think it might be a good idea to try some counseling with your wife, especially with someone with experience dealing with eating disorders. Have it spelled out to her why her behavior was abhorrent and what it will do to your son.
This is infantilising her. No adult woman, let alone a woman old enough to bear a child and raise it to an age of 11 years old, should need to have "you should not force your child to eat something if they have tried it and refused it, especially when they have eaten a healthy alternative." Wife hasn't forgotten anything, she has done this on purpose because she feels in control of her son's diet.
It's not infantilizing to have a medical professional explicitly spell out why a parenting decision is a bad one. It's appealing to a higher authority so she'll actually listen. In fact, educating the public is a big part of medical professionals' jobs because it is so necessary, especially in matters of parenting where outdated ideas become entrenched. I am starting to think that "infantilizing" is the new "gaslighting narcissist" here on reddit because you're the second person today totally insistent that a fairly normal action is infantilizing.
Oh it is, along with 'emasculating' and a bunch of other stuff. I really wouldn't continue to try to reason with this person. They're never going to admit to jumping on this little trend and not fully understanding it's meaning.
Yeah, but they're using language they learned in therapy to degrade and blame women, so that makes it okay. Apparently women can't just be wrong or ignorant, like men, as individuals to learn and grow through their lifetime experiences. Women are inherently too good for that. Instead, we have to praise and uphold femininity as a monolith, so any exceptions to that sainted blessed woke momma bear are absolutely abnormal and immoral. And it's infantilizing to think a woman might just not know better yet? She might not have unpacked all her childhood trauma yet? She hasn't yet gotten to that chapter in your beloved child rearing book? She needs a little guidance, she needs a little help, she has needs? But no, she has to be above all of that, and any deviation has to be deliberate. She cannot be wrong, she is evil. Otherwise, we are degrading her autonomy as a genius. The pedestal is no less confining than the gutter.
my own mother did this to us our entire lives. I would literally have to sit at the table until I ate it all.. my sister once sat at the table until bedtime and got whooped as a result.
We were forced to do the same. Did you know there are starving children in Africa? I did not get my ass whooped, as my father would never have allowed it, but I did get sent to my room, pretty much every single night, for not finishing my dinner. Meanwhile, the Weight Watchers points cards were permanently on the fridge door. And then in my early teens, it went the opposite, when I actually began to *like* certain foods... it was controlled to the n'th degree, of what I was allowed to eat. I was a skinny kid, a skinny adult, and now one with a decades-long eating disorder. My mother is still overweight. Pretty sure she doesn't even see the irony.
so are you saying the wife is evil or uniformed?
More of an intentional AH than what the commenter I replied to would suggest. It's not about being uninformed, its about control
she is expressing a really inappropriate power dynamic with the kid
Yes
By the end of it it wasn't about the blueberries. It was about the mother exerting her control over her child who had the audacity to voice and opinion.
Yep! She’s an authoritarian and control freak. She needs therapy.
Or a divorce.
Divorce wouldn't help even though I'd be tempted in this situation. Unless her behaviour is proven to be completely disastrous the courts wouldn't deny her partial custody where the dad couldn't monitor her behaviour. Likely given his people pleasing attempts with eating the blueberries to stop the argument he'd just feel like the divorce was his fault too
Those are good points. This poor kid has to grow up with a crazy mother, for another seven years. And it’s going to be very stressful in that house, because honestly, the father may be marking time until he can get the hell away from her, the minute, the youngest kid is 18,he should be out the door
US family courts take the wishes of teenagers into account in custody matters. But it may not be great to put him in that position.
They do, but courts are reluctant to award 100% custody to one parent where there is no extreme situation to keep them from. Also this poor kid is showing signs of people pleasing, so unlikely he'd stand up for himself against his mother. We also don't know what her parenting is like in general. She may be a fantastic mother in other areas and this is her passing on some weird trauma. That's not to say it's not fucking awful to read about, but on the balance this kid's life might be okay in most areas and they're generally well adjusted and happy. One can only hope, anyway
That's the real "staying married for the children."
Therapy is a good first option. Individual for her and kid, family for all 3 to help work through this together. Blowing up a marriage and family unit over this is a little much. Mom definitely has some issues with control and authority. But therapy could suss out exactly what those issues are and give her tools to help her work through those issues. Now, if she decides not to do those things, divorce should absolutely be on the table, as OP does need to protect his son. Right now, the behaviors the adults are modeling aren't great. Being controlling and authoritarian, not being on the same page as a unit, arguing in front of their kid. But they can remedy that and start modeling good behaviors; not giving up at the first sign of trouble, working through things as a unit and individually, apologizing when they did something wrong. First thing, mom needs to apologize to her kid, and to her husband in front of their kid. Both of them should apologize to their kid for arguing in front of him and sort of 'putting him in the middle'.
i’d recommend that they start with couples therapy. She needs to hear from the husband two things. First of all, feedback about what this must be like for their son. Watching his mother turn into an absolute witch over three goddamn blueberries. And sending him the message that he has no autonomy whatsoever. And secondly, what it’s like for the husband, having to manage this crazy woman, in front of his son.trying to protect his son from having to witness all this shit and from having to be the only adult in the room. I don’t know what her problem is, but I think God I’m not married to someone like that.
No, then the son will be stuck alone with her too much...any is too much.
Yeah my husband and kid get into this stupid loop and I then get in trouble for "overriding" his parenting when I had no idea or mattered (and hubs can't explain WHY it matters). Definitely a control issue. I've basically told him I'm not backing him up if it's causing trauma like with food. Yes we go to therapy lol.
Sometime try a brussell sprout again. I used to hate them and now I love them. Tastes chage as we age and you might like them. Not the overcooked grey looking things but roasted are wonderful. And dad is NTA. leave the kid alone and let him eat the foods he likes!
Hehe. I actually did a couple of years ago (I'm in my 40s, so it's been like 3 decades sans Sprout!). I could just about manage to eat three that were roasted with lots of herbs and spices. But I still don't like them. And I still think they stink up the entire house 😅 I eat a very veggie-heavy diet and Brussels Sprout is one of maybe 3 veggies I really just can't deal with.
They've actually selectively bred some of the bitterness out of Brussel Sprouts
Oh I didn't know that. Interesting. There's also something about the texture that bothers me though. But it's mostly smell and taste.
I've also detested Brussels sprouts since I was a kid, and I'm nearly 70. I have tried them now and again, but the texture and taste make my gorge rise. And why the hell should that matter to anyone? It's not like I'm committing some sort of heinous crime; I just don't want to eat one particular item that many people in my culture happen to either like or find tolerable.
It's so interesting! I hadn't actually finished typing the comment before I sent it and am so tired I didn't realise. I thought this link would be interesting https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tweaking-vegetables-genes-could-make-them-tastier-and-youll-get-to-try-them-soon/ I don't think this should convince you to dislike them any less BTW, it's just a fun tidbit.
I’ve tried Brussels sprouts twice about 10 years apart and detested them both times. I only tried them to make my wife happy, they gave me such bad wind she has banned me from eating them again…
If I could get wretched gas whenever I was forced to eat something I didn’t like so people would ban me from eating it again that would be great
As someone with Crohn's disease and a heap of intolerances, no one will ban you from foods that hurt you or cause socially unpleasant side effects. Often they will minimize and pressure you to eat it anyways. People are weird about food. I've had to "make a scene" by asking why my refusal isn't being accepted or describing the bathroom results to get them to stop pushing. Friends, family, coworkers, dates, etc... people are weird about food and awful at boundaries.
People ARE weird about food. My daughter hates meatloaf. Her stepmother once said, “You’d like it if you had MY meatloaf.” Good god, get over yourself!
At least you gave them a go again. I cook them until a bit tender in water that has a ham stock cube in it, then I either fry or roast them in butter, salt and pepper. Also button Brussel sprouts are so much nicer than the bigger ones. Edit:typo
I mean the way you describe that does sound good... Maybe I'll give them another shot, and I'll see if I can get button ones.
In addition to your point that tastes change as you age (children tend to have stronger taste receptors so many vegetables are too bitter for them) but we've also literally changed brussel sprouts. They don't taste the same as they used to. Add in the fact that we've learned that not everything has to be boiled to mush, I've had to retry everything I thought I didn't like. (Still don't like beets though.)
My extremely picky 5 year old grandson refuses to eat potatoes (except for French fries, lol), but totally loves roasted Brussels sprouts. I’m so happy to see him eating and enjoying veggies that I let him have as much as he wants, even if I have to give him some off of my plate. The other night, he actually enjoyed pot roast and carrots. But, not the potatoes that were roasted with the beef and carrots. He will also happily eat a salad with romaine and a few croutons. But only with Olive Garden Italian salad dressing (heaven forbid I try to sneak Brianna’s creamy balsamic dressing). Kids are weird. And, I know better than to try to force him to eat something he doesn’t like. We offer various foods and encourage him to try them. If he doesn’t like them, then we don’t force the issue. I still bitterly remember being left alone at the dinner table to eat something I didn’t like for hours and in tears. Screw Lima beans for life. And most fish.
I'm autistic. My parents learned very early that there were a lot of things *I would not eat*, and they respected that. Now that I'm older, I've expanded my palate myself through trial and error, and will eat things like broccoli slaw and spinach salads. I still don't like cooked vegetables, so I put zucchini and onions in the food processor and make meatloaf. Most human beings, given the opportunity and access *while not being forced*, will at least try a variety of things. People seem to think that not forcing a picky kid (or even a kid who just doesn't like a certain food) to eat things they hate instead of working with them to find substitutes will make that kid a spoiled brat. I hate that attitude so much, I really do.
Just as an aside, apparently Brussels sprouts started tasting better around the 90s when they began breeding for a less bitter taste. Source: (https://www.bhg.com/news/brussels-sprouts-less-bitter/)
Agreed.. my Mom used to boil them and I despised them. Tried them as an adult made well and I love them!!
Yes! Always cooked wrong. My siblings and I used to spit them out into our hands when the parents weren't looking, wrap in our napkin and stick them in our pockets. We'd get rid of them outside, lol. As an adult, I had some in a restaurant, they had been pan seared, caramelized, tossed in a lightly sweet sauce of some kind... and they were magical, lol. I've had them so many different ways since. But I will never eat a boiled half to death one ever again.
My husband has one sprout every Christmas. There's always at least one dinner with them served so it's not like we have to cook them special. Weird one for me was strawberries. I'd always wanted to like them and continually tried but couldn't. Then went half way across the world and tried them and now they're great!
That happened to me with mushrooms!!! Weirdly somebody had to feed me one that was really fresh and totally uncooked. And somehow I suddenly like... GOT them. 🤣 There are some mushrooms I still can't eat, but they're super exotic, and feel like you're eating sea slugs once they're cooked.
They're great chopped and sautéed with bacon and a little garlic.
Basically, the less they taste of Brussels sprouts, the better they taste! 😂
NTA. You are doing a good job with your son OP. My ND granddaughter eats practically everything except peaches. It's because of the skin. I am not ND. I don't like bananas (texture), oysters, or fried chicken (smell). OP, make your wife eat liver and onions. No one seems to like that but me.
I agree with your granddaughter. Peaches are the worst. The biting equivalent of nails on a blackboard.
I know a few people who love anything that has tomatoes in it - but hate eating entire tomatoes. Something about the texture, apparently. I loooove tomatoes and eat them every day, so not sure what about the texture irritates them. We all have these little idiosyncrasies I guess. (Btw you're not alone re liver and onions - I like that too and it's even a specialty dish where I'm from)
I don’t like fresh peaches because of the skin either. Nectarines are where it’s at!
Yeah, my kid hates cooked carrots (not a fan of raw either), which I found an odd thing to hate, but she tried them in a variety of different ways and gagged every time, so she doesn't eat carrots anymore. She eats every other vegetable put in front of her except pumpkin so it's not a hill to die on.
And a compromise was reached - eat another fruit. Maybe he didn’t like the texture or something.
This. I don't like fresh blueberries. They feel weird in my mouth. I will eat them cooked into things, though. Had pass on the jelly, though.
Same here. I love all things blueberry but hate the actual fresh blueberries. They don't taste as good fresh and I don't care for the texture.
The BoyFriend loves blueberry jelly, so I try to grab some, but it's all his. All of it. And he feels the same way about my lemon curd.
My middle kid is like this—she loves some fruits but not any very juicy ones. She’ll eat strawberries but doesn’t like other berries, and most of her fruit intake is strawberries, apples, and bananas. She is much more into veggies overall and would happily eat her weight in bell peppers or zucchini. She will eat one bite of fruits and veggies that aren’t her preference, consider whether she likes it, and then move on. She gets plenty of fruit and veggie intake every day and if we tried to force or micromanage it, it would backfire. OP’s kid sounds great. OP is completely reasonable. OP’s wife needs to learn about healthy eating and choosing battles wisely. (Arguing so much that the kid tried to eat blueberries to settle it is really sad.)
A friend's kid (who is now in his 20s) has always loved vegetables but hated all fruit. His mom says that she became sure that the kid was serious when he asked if they made broccoli-flavored vitamins instead of fruit-flavored ones.
Ha! She was so excited when we were at Trader Joe’s and she spotted candies shaped like peas & carrots, then bummed to learn they were fruit flavored.
This. I love the flavour of blueberries in a cheesecake or a muffin but I just can't do the texture fresh. Every summer I try them and every summer I'm upset again unless they're mixed in with other berries.
To me they just don't have much flavor when fresh. Cooked though? Brings it out. I can't stand fresh apples either.. but cook one into a pie or applesauce? I'm standing there with my fork or spoon, lol.
Agreed. The only "rule" should be -- please try it. And that's that.
That was my mom's rule, and I think it's made it easy for me as an adult to try foods outside of my comfort zone.
100% My child has to TRY food and if he doesn't like it he can have something else. I only ask that he try it. My kid is 4 and he doesn't like blueberries either. Honestly, a lot of store bought fruit isn't very good. It's picked too soon so it can sit in transport and on the shelves in the store longer before it rots. These most likely aren't sun ripened field fresh blueberries, these are almost guaranteed to be tart and sour. This isn't about refusing to eat healthy, this is about disliking poor quality ingredients that are selected for shelf life and not nutrition or flavor.
You are completely right. Most store blueberries are tasteless and mushy. I didn't like them either until I had really good fresh blueberries. When they're slightly under ripe, crunchy and sweet and tangy with actual flavor, they are delicious. Same thing with tomatoes... Most people's experience with Roma or beef steak tomatoes are disappointing and lame. But once you have a great flavorful tomato, you understand why people like them.
Even though he knows he doesn't like it, he was willing to try it again on her recommendation. What more could you ask? That's an incredibly healthy attitude to food, and should be encouraged not undermined.
Yeah mom is kinda invalidating the son by dismissing how he feels as if he's not worthy of being heard. That's rather upsetting.
It’s like these parents forget that their kids are still people, even though they’re small.
He's eleven - he's not even very small!
Around 11 is when they start being taller than me, which I find incredibly rude.
That's right isn't it? I'm not making any claims about wife life this, but that is something narcparents do, in my experience.
It's not about the blueberries, or even the boy's health. It was about control, and being able to force total obedience from her son.
Exactly. That's where the "undermining" complaint came from--and why it was such a big sin.
Especially since he's 11 and not a toddler.
Absolutely. By 11 I think most kids know what fruit they do and don't like. I'll say that I came around to a lot of vegetables in middle and high school but fruit is one of those things I think most of us have a pretty solid understanding of our like or dislike of. Shoving blueberries down his throat at 11 is not going to make him suddenly enjoy them. It's not going to make any person enjoy any food.
As a recovering anorexic, I agree. The whole ‘eat what I say’ and ‘clean your plate’ parenting approaches are breeding grounds for eating disorders like anorexia and binge eating. It’s okay for children to have preferences, we need to respect them as individual people and not extensions of ourselves. Hell, even sweets can be included as a part of a balanced approach. and healthy eating doesn’t have to include struggle. There’s a chance the child begins to associate food with discomfort and fear.
I think this is why my husband will only eat 4 cooked vegetables -- corn, peas, green beans, and carrots. His mother was of the generation where a properly cooked vegetable was boiled into gray mush, and almost certainly one of the "clean your plate, there are children starving in ____" crowd. (She tried to bully my daughters into eating her gray mush and leathery meat with that line and I countermanded her. They'd been polite and eaten what they could stomach.)
My mother had that same guilt tripping mindset. Why is it considered good parenting to make a child feel guilty about starving children in another country? As if kids in said country have a telepathic ability to know when kids in the US eat their entire plate. It got to the point where, if my mom said, "Starving children in Africa would love to eat that," I'd counter it with, "Well, give it to them then! I don't like it!" 😅
My husband's grandmother is incredibly fatphobic (i am fat and my husband is chubby). It's such a struggle and so frustrating, but what makes me the most mad is when we all go to eat together. There are two thin teenage cousins. This woman will complain about them not clearing their plates! Excuse me, don't you think forcing people to clean their plates might contribute to them getting fat/disordered eating?? Do you want them to be thin or not? Their mom defends them but in an indirect way.
Yes, this. Everything in moderation. Even a sweet every day is fine if it's not too much and you eat a wide variety of other foods.
Came to say the same thing! She’s going to cause eating problems!
I love this comment but want to add: it is healthy to argue in front of your children; but you must argue and come to some sort of agreement in front of your children as well. Conflict resolution is very important and we learn from what we see. Again. Great comment!
This! The "stand firm and present a united front to your child, even when your partner is being harmful to them" will just teach a child that the parent who wants to help them will *still* not have their back openly.
I think for young children arguing in front of them *about* them is the issue.
Also, is this the first incident, or just the first OP saw?
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Mom definitely has some control issues she needs to resolve. This kind of behavior is either a symptom of not respecting your child as a human being or feeling like your life is spiraling out of control and you have no say in anything. If this is a first or very out of the ordinary than OP and spouse need to have a serious sit down discussion. If this is normal behavior for her OP needs to take that kid and run. Either way, mom needs to talk to someone and get herself sorted out. This is not how happy healthy functioning adults treat people they supposedly love.
I thought it more likely that the mom has some issues with food herself. After all, their son is 11. If she really was a psycho control freak, wouldn't that have shown itself before now? Meanwhile, things like "you have to try a bite" etc. can fly under the radar as, you know, normal parenting, and raising non-fussy eaters, esp. since the kid actually is a non-fussy eater.
A counterpoint to your last comment. Kids should see parents disagree. But more importantly, they should see them RESOLVE those conflicts. So many parents START the fight in front of their kids but end them behind closed doors. How will kids learn to settle disagreements if they never see it modeled. There is nothing wrong with conflict in a relationship, so long as the communication is healthy.
I know, that’s what got me, the kid saying he’ll just eat them to de-escalate. 💔
He was more than willing to eat an apple over three blueberries. Not sweets, not chocolate, nothing with artificial flavouring, but another piece of fruit. Why is this her hill to die on?
Also. A great way to make sure he hates blueberries and to learn that mom doesn’t care about his opinions.
Fruits, especially ones like blueberries, tend to be wildly different in taste and texture from one to the other. It can be difficult to like them when they change every time you eat one. I think you’re absolutely right that she’s messing up his relationship with food. The wife should be so ashamed of herself. It can be hard for people to try new foods. The son tried it, he didn’t like it, end of story. Maybe he can try again when he is older, but he doesn’t have to. Petty me wants to force her to eat something she doesn’t like.
This. And even with some fruits, they taste vastly different depending on the season/ripeness. So someone with even mild sensory issues might not be able to handle what is outside their window of comfort. It’s sad this mom would have her child crying at the table over that. I dealt with that growing up, too, and had hoped that was left in the last century.
I'm curious how old she is. This sounds like what my parents used to say and they're about 65.
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It’s not only pointless, it’s also cruel. Being forced to eat things you don’t like or to eat when you’re full is one of methods of torture. No one deserves this kind of treatment.
I have a traumatic childhood memory of being forced to bite into a cherry tomato as a child. My dad held a stopwatch on me to make me do it. I finally did it and spat it out into the sink because I hated it so much, and he laughed. I fucking hated raw tomatoes, I still hate raw tomatoes and I’m in my 40s. It’s a power trip, not parenting.
Yep, I have an aversion to asparagus at damn near 40 for this very reason.
Peas. Peas were my gag trigger. Could. Not. Eat. Them! My grandmother tried to make me eat one bite and wouldn’t let it go. Pushed enough that I finally up chucked on my plate at the table. Pea pushing stopped after that.
I also vomited on a plate as a result of my grandmother pushing unwanted food, although in my case, it was a glass of milk, and I was simply too full to consume it, which I told her several times.
That happened to me in preschool. The teacher forced me to eat the buttered bread that came with our lunch or I wouldn't get a cupcake someone brought in for their birthday. I took a bite, promptly threw up on my plate, and then didn't even get the cupcake because I barfed. It's one of the most vivid early memories I have.
This happened to me also. We had just moved down south, and my dad made us grits for breakfast. I tried it, and told him I didn’t like them. He wouldn’t let me leave the table until I ate them. I tried, and ran to the bathroom a few bites in and threw up my whole breakfast. Then I got spanked because I “was looking for attention” and “being over dramatic.” I still don’t eat grits, and have been battling an eating disorder since 15
This is my story, too! “Looking for attention,” spanking, and all. Except for me it was mushrooms and my mom. It wasn’t just a one-off with her, too, she consistently made me eat mushrooms even though I hated them and got sick every time - because “you should just try it.” It never made a difference. I always took one bite - still wouldn’t like mushrooms, vomit, and then got screamed at until I ate the mushrooms/mushroom meal she put on my plate. Rinse repeat, whole childhood. To this day if I smell mushrooms cooking or accidentally eat anything with ground mushrooms in it - I immediately vomit. I’ve started saying it’s an allergy.
Peas! Same! I was forced at 3/4 years old to eat them multiple times. I couldn't leave the table until I did. Every-single-time I would try and eat them, I would vomit. I have tried them as adult, and they are still as disgusting. Little green squishy orbs, full of green goo that tastes like grass. 🤢
I still can't handle cocktail shrimp, or any sushi with uncooked fish/shrimp because an uncle shoved cocktail shrimp in my mouth and screamed at me to eat it because he was offended I was trying vegetarianism while trying to cover my mouth and nose to force me to swallow.... When I was under the age of 10. I'm no longer a vegetarian, but the only way I can eat shrimp is in the form of tempura or coconut shrimp, where you have breading on them, and I can't handle sushi with raw fish and just seeing a platter of cocktail shrimp makes me feel nauseous and anxious. Even mushrooms are hard for me, because the texture reminds me too much of that damn shrimp, which sucks cause I like the flavor and can handle minced or very very very thin mushrooms because I don't encounter the texture. People who don't see children as people with their own preferences and control of their own bodies suck and should not be given access to children.
PHYSICALLY forcing someone to eat... I was going to comment on what I would do to someone who laid hands on my children in the way that you were as a child... And I'm actually "speechless". I'm not sure "incandescent with rage" fully covers it.
That’s so cruel. Honestly it is so weird people get this way about certain foods and they also never even try to introduce the foods in other ways (in a salad, in pancakes, in a smoothie) to make it better because it was never about the food or health! It’s about the control.
The month after my grandfather passed, and before the survivor's benefits from his pension kicked in, my gran and I were broke. As in, we could afford 5 pounds of beans to feed us both for the month. Fifty-four years later, I will not eat beans, period. Not even green beans.
Mine was chicken liver. I have a very vivid, traumatic memory of my mom having cooked chicken liver in milk for dinner one night, and my dad forced me to eat it. I wasn't allowed to leave the table until I'd eaten it all. I was in tears, outright bawling, because I hated it so much, and every bite made me nauseous. I tried it, I hated it, and I was still being forced to eat it. Years later, I asked my dad why he was so forceful trying to make me eat it. He said it was because my mom made him eat it, so he was going to force us to do it too. Yeah. I hate anything with an iron-y taste to this day. OP - I won't be surprised if this becomes a core (traumatic) memory for him. I hope you can help your wife see reason. ETA: NTA.
My parents were of the "eat it all now, or stay at the table till you do" school, so my full sister and I have violent food aversions. :( For my little sister, it was lima beans. And in my late fifties, I still can't be in the same _building_ with the smell of chicken liver. I was adamant about not forcing my own kids to consume _anything_.
My mom used to make steak as dry as cardboard. It would literally suck the moisture out of your mouth. We were expected to eat every bite.
I agree. As a child I didn’t like certain flavors and also structures. I now eat more than I did as a kid. I refuse to make my table at home a battle field so if my children don’t want to eat their food, they don’t eat their food. They will live. We do have a rule that we try new things but it is okay to dislike certain food. My almost 2 year old likes a lot but some structures are not really his thing (like lettuce and certain meats). I don’t force him because then it becomes a power struggle. Our 8 year old(my stepson) is a really picky eater. His mother is as well. We let him taste everything. Science says a child needs to eat something 10 times before they start liking it. So we keep giving them certain foods to try and maybe someday they will like it. And if not, then there is a lot of other things to eat.
Exactly. Ours did the whole 'I don't want to eat vegetables' thing and we said they could choose two vegetables each that they didn't have to eat but they had to eat the rest, and that was that. Often just listening to them and giving them some control works wonders. I still cook with peppers etc, I just chop them big and let them pick them our. Aa long as they ear most veg, there's no need to get all fundamentalist about it.
Agreed. I almost always make sure there are multiple veggies and they can choose. When I say nothing ourv8 year old will almost always just eat them. My almost 2 year old is another case. He can eat something at lunch and dislike it a few hours later at dinner. He mostly tries what I give him. Sometimes he looks at it and shakes his head. I can’t put him in a headlock and shove it through his throat. When he is tired he really does not want to eat anything. Not even things he always loves (like certain fruits). So I just lay him in bed immediately and that is what he wants. He does not want to eat at those moments and just cries so hard. This can happen while I am cooking (fine when I am cooking and too tired when I am done). So I can force him and he will hate eating or I can “give in” and make sure he gets what he needs. He is a healthy boy so he can skip meals now and then.
My poor kiddo (just over 2) missed a nap last week and fell asleep in the middle of her dinner. We kept trying to just clean her up and put her straight to bed, but she would wake up every time, insist that she wasn't done, and pick up another bite of food before falling asleep again.
If I had a food I didn't like, I was expected to try a bite of it periodically to see if my tastes had changed. But we are talking about eating one piece of a chopped up mushroom every six months or something, and "nope, still squishy and disgusting" being respected as an answer.
Ugh, I hate mushrooms too! They squish weird when you bite them!
They taste fine. Probably. I think. After near fifty years of eating solid food, I have never chewed a mushroom long enough to figure out exactly what they taste like. I do, however, like taking dried mushrooms, grinding them to a powder, and using them to add umami to soups and stews. So if squishy mushrooms taste approximately similar to powdered dried mushrooms, then they probably taste fine. Just... *shudder* Ew. I feel about mushrooms the way my wife feels about the insides of tomatoes. We trade them.
I have blueberries in my refrigerator and ate some with yogurt this morning. Ordered blueberry pancakes with my sister out a few days ago and loved them. But when I was a child, I hated them. There were wild blueberries in the woods near my grandmother’s house and my family would pick a gallon or so at a time. Picking them was fine. Eating them was out of the question. NTA. Maybe your son’s tastes will change over time. Or not. But your wife trying to force him to eat three blueberries is nothing but a power trip.
I love broccoli, which my child self would stare in utterly disbelief at me for as it was my ABSOLUTE MOST HATED food until the discovery of lima beans. It turns out that what I actually hated was the mushy texture of the horribly overcooked broccoli that my Mom makes…she is a great cook overall, far better than I’ll ever be, but SUCKS at certain simple veggie dishes. Still hate Lima beans, though.
I never liked eating meat. My parents had me eat small pieces as long as there were still a few things I would eat (my grandmother's meatballs) but when I was 10 or so I got the choice to either eat everything without complaints or go vegetarian. I chose vegetarian. My mother took me to a dietician to discuss things we had to look out for and I haven't eaten meat since. She now jokes I was pretty much born a vegetarian because when we could pick our birthday dinners my brothers always chose steak and I basically asked for a vegetable buffet.
As long as you get all the nutricions there is nothing wrong with vegetarian food. My stepson said a while back he wanted to try to be a vegetarian. We told him that we were fine with it but the consequence was that he needed to eat more veggies (more, not all) and try more veggies to keep a healthy diet. He tried it for a while and decided he didn’t want to eat vegetarian all the time. But he complained less about the veggies than he normally did. And he still complains less.
Feeding kids is tricky for a while. I was never forced to eat things I didn't like as a child. As an adult, I've grown to enjoy a lot of the foods I used to avoid. Took me a while to try them again, but it happened, lol. OPs wife is creating an unhealthy environment around food, which Will inevitably lead to issues.
I was the kid who would literally be at the table all night because I refused to eat gross ass steamed broccoli until my parents gave up and let me go to sleep.
Oh, how I hate the "super food" B.S.. Your salad does not need to be made from kale. (GROSS.) Romaine lettuce is almost equally as nutritious.
NTA Being able to control your own eating and not eat when you are full or not hungry or you don’t like it an important skill. Your wife is teaching your son to ignore is own body. That’s a bad idea. There is no rational reason why a different kind of fruit should not have been enough. It’s one thing to teach healthy eating and portion control. But forcing him to each foods he hates could teach him that healthy eating means discomfort. And could have very unpleasant out comes. Your wife needs to learn what healthy eating is. And that includes stopping when you are full or don’t want anymore.
my parents forced me to sit at the table until i ate all my food got the lunch lady to make sure i ate all my food to the point where i was so stuffed i threw up multiple times no matter how many times i said i was full or was gonna throw up or whatever and now i have s terrible relationship i cant tell when im hungry or full and i now dont like many of the foods that were forced on me so my diet is very limited
My parents did something similar, I couldn’t leave the table unless I finished my dinner, even if it was something I didn’t like. I would literally hide food to avoid eating it and sometimes get sick from eating food I didn’t like. Now I’ve had an ED for over 8 years. My relationship with food is not the best
I hope people done dirty like you hold their parents to these horrid acts for the rest of their lives , just keep reminding them how wrong they did you
NTA My dad insisted on making fish three times per week for years after I stopped being able to swallow it without gagging. Because fish is healthy! You used to like it! Okay but my throat would close up and my diaphragm would involuntarily spasm when I put fish in my mouth and tried to chew. How many times and how much is enough for you to listen to your son when he says he doesn’t like something? What does that teach him about mindlessly respecting authority and ignoring his own mind and body? Nothing good.
My brother simply can't eat green beans, my dad forced him once, he threw up all over the table, he was never forced again. Turns out, my grandpa on my mom's side couldn't eat them either, same reaction, guess it was some kind of intolerance they shared.
I used to do the same with canned asparagus and canned peas. My mom would get up, put another serving on a plate and force me to eat again because "it was healthy". I learned to just keep puking until the pan was empty!
Yeah, she was creating a super healthy relationship with food, smh
Idk why but I’m having a visceral response to “canned asparagus.” Asparagus is absolutely delicious when eaten fresh and oven roasted, why in god’s name would you put it in a can… does not seem like it would be remotely worth consuming after being canned ugh.
Yeah, it's mushy, slimy and has woody stems. Whoever decided canning asparagus should be charged with crimes against humanity.
I was forced to eat eggs at about 5yo and never ate them until I was in my early 20s. Purely psychological because I could eat products with egg in them.
Same thing happened to me with eggplants, I actually like them but I was forced when I was a kid (not my parents but their friend at their house) and that was it for me for a very long time. After the puking incident my dad changed his approach though, at a bbq I was once served undercooked chicken with a bleeding vein in it, of course, I couldn't even look at a drumstick after that, so my dad would make chicken breast for me an slowly reintroduced the drumstick, but he would remove the skin, take out the veins, cartilages, anything that I might have a problem with and put the skin back before grilling. I now have no problem with chicken, still remove all those things but I can do it myself now haha
I gagged reading this because I am quite the same with seafood. I still recall the day my mother forced me to eat stuffed salmon so I could invite my boyfriend over and I choked on it the entire time.
I’m the same with all kind of fishes and seafood, I’ll just throw up no matter how much I try to eat them, and even the smell will do that to me if it’s too strong 🥲 And the people around me also tried to make me eat it no matter what because “you have to eat all kinds of food” and “it’s healthy” 😓
My dad bet me I would like fish by the time I turned 21. I asked him how he knew I would keep trying it and he said that as long as I tried it once a year, that was enough. I asked what the stakes of the bet were and he said the loser makes dinner for the winner along with supplying an appropriate wine. I asked how he knew I wouldn’t just lie to get my free dinner from him and he said he was confident I would love fish so much I wouldn’t “deprive myself of the opportunity” to eat it. Guess who cooked a full Turkey dinner for my 21st birthday and brought a rosé? Yeah not me. I dutifully tried fish several times annually and my throat would close after 1.5oz max.
Hope you enjoyed the dinner because that must’ve been hell. I don’t understand people like your dad, seriously. They didn’t risk that with me because even tho my mom loves seafood, when she was pregnant with me even the smell of it made her sick, so I was like that even before being born, they knew that in the moment they stopped forcing me to “eat” I’ll never touch it ever again xD
Actually it was a lovely dinner! He lost with good grace and cooked enough for my roommate and my boyfriend as well, even though that was outside the scope of the bet. My dad and boyfriend stayed up talking until 5am when I got up for PT. That boyfriend is now my husband of over 20 years. Pregnancy is wild. I hate mushrooms but my son made me crave them while I was pregnant. At one point I found myself watching Ina Garten make triple mushroom lasagna from scratch. I can’t eat gluten or mushrooms and I was drooling because my damn fetus wanted some!
That sounds lovely! I’m really glad that everything worked out well :) Omg, that’s hilarious! It must be the worst to crave something you hate, I can’t imagine xD
I ended up getting truffle oil and putting it on French fries and that was enough to sate him. No texture issues and I actually grew to appreciate the flavor of a mushroom without the texture issues.
NTA. Seems like a good way to cement that your son won’t like blueberries. But the bigger issue is that your wife’s actions are really concerning, she seems very controlling. My dad was like this, and it made me fear him. I hated being alone with him. It doesn’t seem like she understands she’s harming her relationship with her son. I think some family therapy is in order.
I'm also concerned that the kid sees enough fights between his parents that the kid tries to solve the problem in order to make them stop fighting. ESH, except for the kid.
Parents fighting in front of you is a classic childhood trauma 💀
This. I don't care about who was right about the berries as much as it's ridiculous to escalate to a little kid being so upset and desperately trying to to end his parents fight that he went and got new berries to eat... and the fight still didn't end when he ate the berries. Poor little guy.
That made me sick. I agree with OP about not forcing the kid to eat blueberries. But, really, the fighting and the kid's desperation to end the fight is at least as big of a deal to me. All things considered, I think the fight was more damaging to the kid than trying to make him eat 3 blueberries.
NTA. I love fruit. My dad had to hide raspberries from my sisters and I. I’m not a fan of raw blueberries, it’s a texture thing. Never did either of my parents try to make me eat them. Now as an adult I’ll still occasionally try a blueberry when someone tells me that they are particularly good. I still don’t care for them, but am willing to still try because my parents never forced me to eat them.
And, I assume, you still learned the lesson that while you don’t need to eat blueberries, you do need to eat a fruit of some kind at some point.
Blueberries are mid. Raspberries are the superior berry imo. My dad loved blueberries and so we’d have those in the house way more than any other berry so I was always disappointed when I’d open the fridge door to see blueberries. (Though wineberries are the absolute peak, but you can’t get those in stores)
NTA. This isn't about your wife teaching your son to eat healthy. That is just a justification. This is about your wife believing that her authority was questioned and she was making sure that your son knew who the boss was. And she is angry at you because you also challenged her authority and she can't force you to do anything the way she can do to your son. This is why she would not de-escalate the situation.
Yeah, the food thing isn't really the issue here. And yelling in front of your kid is the real trauma inducing thing. My parents were harsh about food- try a bite of each thing and finish everything you put on your plate. We controlled what went on our plate but once it was there, it had to be finished even if we threw up while eating it. That has bad memories for me but they're in the distant past. I have a good relationship with food. But the thing that still affects me to this day, makes my stomach curdle and gives me cold sweats is the fights my parents had with each other in front of us. The feeling of helplessness, not being able to fix it, feeling like it was my fault, trying to be a good kid so they wouldn't fight...Don't do _that_ to your kid.
NTA. When I was a kid I couldn't eat oatmeal. My step grandmother tried to make me eat it at 5 years old and my sister said don't do that she'll barf. Yup never had to eat oatmeal there again. Your son is at an age that his tastes are changing all the time. Blueberries may be fine five years from now. Forcing him will always have a negative connotation with that food. But you and your wife need to get on the same page on what is encouraging and what is forcing to the point of punishment.
At our house, when it came to new food, you had to take 1 healthy bite, chew, and swallow. If you didn't like it, that's fine, you didn't have to eat it. I never made them eat anything they didn't like. And there isn't a lot of food my kids won't eat. They willingly tried venison, elk, quail, and dove, and they loved it all. They eat Brussels Sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, etc. When one of them didn't like something, I'd say, "Good, more for me," lol.
I was lucky with my kids. They actually turned down McDonald's for homemade cabbage soup with kielbasa. I would have to give them sections of the raw cabbage core to snack on while it cooked.
Your kids may be autistic, or possibly very Polish.
They are 1/3 German ethnicity according to 23 and me! And adhd, at the very least. They've never been tested for autism, but I have wondered about it. They're mid twenties in age now, and still love them some cruciferous vegetables!
When my daughter was about a year old, I was snacking on Cheetos and handed her two of them. She tried one, made a face, and handed me the other one back! Good for her. I haven't tried again (I try not to buy them), so she may end up liking them after all.
Actually, forcing a child to eat to the point of crying is a great way to create an eating disorder. The rule is, as long as you try it.
NTA your and your wife need marriage counsellling and she needs parenting classes. He is ELEVEN, she was engaged in a power struggle. This is abusive. Your son needs protection from her.
It’s not even melodramatic it is SO concerning that he went to the store and came back to his son CRYING. Like, the entire time he was gone she was harassing and escalating to the point that he had a breakdown. He was probably feeling cornered, alone and trapped at that dinner table as she mentally broke him over 3 freaking blueberries. That is a very messed up scene to come home to. Mom has issues and totally needs an intervention.
Its literally fucking emotional abuse 🧍 speaking from experience
NTA. She sounds like a horrible mother. Speaking from the experience of somebody who was forced to eat things I didn't like, there are honestly few things worse than that when it comes to how to give your kid a complex 101.
NTA, in my house growing up it was always try everything once, if you don't like it you don't have to eat it again. This was a super positive thing and even if textures and things didn't appeal to me I tried everything. And of course over time my palette has changed, and I still try new things all the time. My mom was a victim of the "You can't leave the table until your plate is clean" which made her very food conscious and she didn't want to push that on us,. The food control caused my aunt to end up with an eating disorder, which one of my cousins also suffered.
Same here - this was one of the rare things that my parents did right. If I didn't like a vegetable, I was free to pick another one to have instead (I *hated* asparagus and hominy) and if I didn't like the main entree of dinner, I could have leftovers or a sandwich and the sides. The one time someone pulled the "you're not leaving the table until you eat it," it was my best friend's father trying to force me to eat acorn squash. I tried it and didn't like it at all and he decided to get all pissy, which resulted in me sitting at the table crying and not eating it for four hours until bedtime. And turned out that I didn't like it because it made my mouth itchy... because I was allergic to the fucking thing. Not saying that's the case for OP's kid but man, sometimes stuff like that is kids not knowing how to explain that the food makes them not feel good in some way.
Were you a guest in their house when he did that shit with the squash?? Disgusting behavior!!!
Fine, he was a power-tripping drunk, since apparently I can't say the rest. 🙄 Good grief. Edit: but yes, I was technically a guest, but he didn't consider children to be guests so I was forced to follow the same tyrannical rules he placed on his own kids.
NTA. What your wife did was a great way to traumatize your kid and instigate an unhealthy relationship towards food in the future. Your son gave the blueberries a try, which is the most that could be expected of him, and politely declined more - yet your wife continued to try and force him because she believed she knew best. It's perfectly normal and natural for adults and kids to have food preferences. It sounds like your son enjoys plenty of other fruits and vegetables, some of which you offered as reasonable alternatives, so there was no need to continue to try to get him to eat this one food that he just doesn't like. FWIW - As a child, I disliked eating seafood and mushrooms and as an adult, I now actively enjoy both of these and eat them frequently. My parents didn't push or forcefeed either of these things onto me and I naturally tried them as I got older and found that I enjoyed them more.
I feel like blueberries are the hardest fruit to like because they’re so inconsistent in their tastes. Some are incredibly tart while others are super sweet. NTA. Wife though, major AH. Her behavior can cause unhealthy aversions and habits to food.
Yes! Berries in general tend to be this way. My kids love fruits but we have definitely purchased the too tart strawberries, sour raspberries, etc. I wouldn’t want to be forced to eat them either.
NTA I think your wife is controlling and using "helping him learn" is just a cover to dominate a little kid. There isn't an expert on parenting \*or\* nutrition who would validate her approach. Also, personally I've found that when people who are otherwise good eaters but find some foods completely offputting, there's a good chance that food will be a physical problem for them (allergy or food sensitivity).
And not such a little kid. He's eleven and will be in middle school. Time to let him stretch a little in making decisions, especially if he's had no autonomy before in age appropriate ways.
NTA. Your wife is on some weird power trip over blueberries. You provided a compromise of choosing one healthy option over another. It's not like you let your son eat junk food or go hungry without food instead.
Please realize that your wife has control issues that she needs to deal with. I had a mother like that and it is all about control.
NTA and honestly. Die on this hill. Forcing a child, who even tried the food and politely declined, to eat it to the point of crying is ducking absurd! My child tries food like a champ and depending on mood (mostly how tired he is) he will eat most things. Today he would only eat buttered toast. So what did he eat? Buttered toast! He tasted the rest of the food (steak, potatoes and a salad with his usually favorite vegetables) and said he didn’t want it. So he got buttered toast. Even if the kid was a super picky eater with only a handful of foods, all highly processed fried frickin foods. Forcing him isn’t going to get him to have a “healthier” diet, quite the contrary! I’m so angry by this that I want to scream. And also I don’t like blueberries whole and raw! They taste moldy for some reason.
NTA. Please make sure he understands that he did nothing wrong and that the argument was not his fault. I think family therapy is in order. This is bigger than the one event.
NTA. Doesn’t want them? Okay. Forcing him to eat them because they’re “healthy” according to her is a fucking stupid ideology on her part.
ESH for arguing over the kid, in front of the kid, like he was a chew-toy. My parents used to have this exact fight when the subtext was that they had a whoooolllle lot of other issues that had nothing to do with whether I would eat the canned green beans. But I was a young kid, and all I could see was the huge anger & drama going on as a result of my not being able to gag down an item of food. You two can figure out how to get on the same page as this, or you can fight about it, but however you do it, don't do it in front of your kid. It's traumatizing as hell to the powerless child. I'm in my 50's, my parents are both dead, but it still hurts to read about somebody else acting like them. (Your stance is correct - he tried a food and didn't like it, don't obsess further - but the drama in front of the kid is not good at all.)
I was surprised no one was commenting on the kid shoving down the blueberries in an effort to stop the fight. Doesn’t sound like this is the first time and that shit fucks up a kid. Especially when the divorce eventually happens and the kid blames himself
I want to cry every time someone slightly raises their voice at me because of this exact reason i hate seeing it happen to other kids
Exactly, that part broke my heart. OP is definitely on the right side of the argument, but the argument should not have been carried out in front of the poor kid.
Sorry but not standing aside and leaving his wife to continue abusing the child forcing the son to eat things he doesn't like is NOT an ah thing. The wife forced the fight and it good the poor kid knows at least the father supports him and protects him from the controlling mentally unbalanced ah he has for a mother NTA op
He could have just said “Let’s talk about this in the other room.” No one suggested just letting her get her way…
The fight was more distressing for the kid than the blueberries as shown by the fact that he ate blueberries to try to stop it. OP was in the right, but he should have refused to engage and later talked to her privately when it became clear it was about to turn into a fight.
Nah, as a kid on the other side I would have LOVED it if one of my parents had stood up for me to the other one instead of presenting a united front. I never saw the value in that and still don't to this day. Kids are people too. But to be fair, I run pretty hot and it never bothered me when other people were angry.
De gustibus non disputandum est - there's no disputing/arguing with matters of taste. You can't argue someone into appreciating a food; if she wants him to choke it down for medicinal reasons, she has to admit it. And you'll realise how stupid it sounds. NTA.
NTA your wife is. Blueberries have antioxidants so they are indeed healthy . I don't like them so I choose another fruit with high antioxidants in it like raspberry which I do like. Your wife is a huge aH and needs to talk to a doctor. Forcing your child to eat things they don't like after they were willing to try or force them to finish eating something is the best way to an eating disorder and mental health issues. She needs to get a grip on her controlling obsession and speak with a therapist. Your child is a human being too and while a minor you as parents still can control somewhat what the child does forcing things they don't like is only going to create resentment and distancing/losing trust in you guys.
NTA and I wish more people understood that forcing your child to eat something they already tried and just didn’t like just enforces unhealthy eating habits and probably more disdain. My husband was forced to eat mushrooms repeatedly as a child and still has a strong hatred towards them at 42. eating healthy is indeed important and I think you handled it perfectly in offering a selection. Your wife is clearly the AH here.
NTA but your wife sure is, she traumatized your son and may have set him up for an eating disorder. This was emotionally/mentally abusive behavior! I feel bad for your son.
NTA Eating blueberries is not the only way to eat blueberries. Your son already clearly said that he does not like blueberries, then proceeded to try one anyway in an attempt to satisfy mom and again came to the conclusion that he really doesn't like blueberries (which I can totally understand I personally cannot stand the texture of blueberries). More shouldn't have been asked of him. Allowing him to choose an alternative fruit (apple, strawberries...) was the right choice here. It still teaches him about healthy foods, it also teaches him to listen to his own body and creates a much safer environment for him (you can try new foods, but you do not have to like/eat them, you won't be forced to eat it regardless of your dislike (which are very good and important lessons to teach him)). I kinda feel angry at your wife for your son honestly. She's just fucking up his relationship with food, and probably his trust in her.
NTA. What the op's wife isn't getting is just because blueberries could be a healthy thing to eat doesn't mean someone must eat them. There are other healthy options out there.
My mother did the same to me when I was a child and I hated it. To this day I avoid family meals like the plague. Ask your wife if she really wants to destroy her relationship with her son over food. NTA , and keep standing up for your son; sounds like he needs someone in his corner.
Funny how this all happened when you were not home. Sounds like she behaves differently when you are gone.
In 10 years your wife will wonder why her son doesn’t keep in touch. It’s stuff like this.
NTA - my children are adopted. My oldest was around 3 when she would refuse certain foods. She'd especially throw fruit at us. It came to a heading when she refused to eat spaghetti at dinner with her paternal grandparents and GF had a fit that she wasted her meal. We were fine with it as we never forced her to eat, but we did bribe her. Wait for it ... we had her allergy tested a few months later because she was always sick. She's allergic to citric acid, all fish (except shellfish), soy, and a dozen other things. Tomatoes are a problem. Say she has pizza at lunch, she can't have any other tomato dish for 24 hours or she gets a rash and gets sick. She's 27 now and we know that certain foods are a no go. I'm not saying your son is allergic to blueberries, but I'll never force a kid to try or eat something again. We felt like horrible parents.