Conditional hummus

Once your children learn they can say no to things, they do, all the time. Something that was perfectly acceptable yesterday is inexplicably not acceptable today. A child has expectations, and if the expectations are not met to an exacting standard, catastrophe can result.

December 19, 2014; 7:23 AM • by Sam Davies

Last Sunday, I was in charge of lunch and “made” a meal of leftovers. I removed all the Pyrex containers from the refrigerator, leaving a cornucopia of leftovers from the previous week on display before my daughters and me. The eldest, my seven-year-old, had her old staple: rice and beans and cheese. The four-year-old asked for hummus and carrots, which she received, and a grilled cheese sandwich, which I started to prepare.

The four-year-old often asks for more food than she eats. So I took one piece of giant bread and started to cut it in half to make the sandwich. This was unacceptable. She wanted TWO pieces of bread. I told her that once I cut the bread in half there would be two pieces, but she saw through my attempt at math-magic.

She declared, “If I don’t get two pieces of bread, I’m not eating my hummus!”

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Once your children learn they can say no to things, they do, all the time. Something that was perfectly acceptable yesterday is inexplicably not acceptable today. A child has expectations, and if the expectations are not met to an exacting standard, catastrophe can result.

I often ask my children to do things they find to be beneath them, like eating dinner or wearing pants. They express this through a sigh, a grunt, or a groan, then present a counter-offer, usually in the form of an ultimatum. If I don’t provide a brand new sandwich, identical to the first, but cut perpendicularly instead of diagonally, my daughters make it known that there will be CONSEQUENCES.

Fortunately, my girls are really bad at ultimatums, making hyperbolic threats that they could never, ever carry out.¹ “I’m never eating dinner again”, while being an effective display of dislike of how one of your foods abuts another one of your foods, is clearly an empty threat–you love not being hungry. Similarly, “I’m never talking to you ever again” is a heavy burden to carry when you’re seven, love sharing things, and will get over it in 20 minutes.

My children frequently “leave the family forever.” Most of the time they seek asylum from the harsh dictatorship of Familystan in the free, but messy Constitutional Princessapality of Bedroom. After a very brief time abroad, they return to get their passport stamped with a hug.

We mostly meet the empty threats with an “OK.”  “I’m not leaving the car!” means we leave them in the car in the driveway for a couple minutes until they decide to come inside. “I’m not eating dinner if I don’t get a snack!” is not met with a snack, but with a dinner they can choose not to eat.

But, the empty threats still hurt my heart. I know my seven-year-old is not leaving the family, but it makes me imagine a scenario where my eighteen-year-old might. I don’t ever want that to happen. And it probably won’t, but I imagine it.

It’s also super-annoying and frustrating to feel like everything is a fight. My wife, Kat, mostly makes the dinners, and she makes great dinners. It hurts me to listen the girls hyperbolically reject those dinners most nights. Even if they’ve liked that dinner in the past, or end up trying a new thing and liking it, the rejection is constant and I don’t know how to make it better. They never actually get the thing they are demanding At this point, I just hope they grow out of it.

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In the end, I did not budge on the sandwich (“If you’re still hungry after you finish the first one, I’ll make you a second”), the four-year-old accepted it, and then started dipping her carrots in hummus while I melted a stick of butter for her cheesy bread to absorb.

Photo by: whitneyinchicago

December 19, 2014 7:23 AM 1