Willard wrote:
Why do you feel the need for him to approve (or at least silently allow) your choices?
Willard, I hope you read this even though the thread is old. I want to thank you, though I cannot possibly find words to truly describe how important such an innocent-looking question has been for me.
You happened to ask just the right question at just the right time, and I started to think, really think, why disagreeing about food has such an emotional impact on me. To make a long story short, I fairly quickly uncovered a number of not-quite-forgotten childhood memories, all dealing with abuse or neglect connected with food. They include, for example, being kept constantly hungry, being overfed, being purposely fed things that made me sick, being put on an experimental diet for several years without my parents ever consulting anyone outside the family, and my younger siblings and I usually coming home from school to a fairly empty refrigerator and getting berated if we had eaten "too much" or "the wrong things".
My husband is very likely the first close person since my paternal grandmother and grand-aunt died to seem genuinely happy that I like their cooking and enjoy my eating. He may well be the first person with whom I have lived under the same roof who does not have huge own issues about food, bodily functions, physical enjoyment of mostly everything, etc. My mother especially still uses comments "I [don't] like that" to indicate that everybody else should feel the same. Our kids don't want to visit her because among other things she keeps feeding them things she likes, most of which the kids hate (she has been told what they like and dislike, in a civilized manner, 6-12 times, but she always "forgets").
One of my most successful acts of teenage rebellion was to genuinely grow to love strong cheeses (e.g. Camembert, Roquefort, really old Gouda). It irks mom to no end, as it is "fine" and "cultivated", so she cannot openly disapprove, and has to even taste them herself, but one can tell that she detests most of them. But she would rather die than admit she is not continental enough to enjoy such cheeses <evil snigger>
I am now in therapy dealing with this and other childhood abuse and neglect stuff. I am really glad I took that step, and your question was an important part of the path that lead to therapy.
Thank you, Willard, and all others who had the patience to rationally discuss this seemingly small issue!
Athena
19 Dec 2009, 5:55 am
