A Tale of Two Skiddies
I swear, if we don't spend every other weekend/every Friday night engaging in some kind of food battle or another with the skids, it's just not a weekend with them. It is always one battle or the other, depending on which skid we're talking about. SS12 is a human garbage disposal. I swear I wouldn't be surprised to find he has high cholesterol and is pre-diabetic. Everything he eats, he has to add extra salt/sugar/cheese/seasoning/sour cream/butter/mayonnaise, etc. to, and not only that, he eats until he is basically forced to stop. His breakfast this morning consisted of macaroni and cheese, with added salt, cheese, and pepper, as well as about 3 different kinds of snack mix, and two bowls of sweetened cereal. He's now having cheese with mayonnaise on it for a snack, and I'm sure he'll finish off the Costco-sized bag of chips when he's done with that. When he was little, everyone (except me) just kept saying, "Oh, with his metabolism, he can eat ANYTHING and not get fat." This was repeated over and over again, and now, he IS starting to get chunky. Now, I know most people will say he's a growing boy, he needs tons of food, etc., which I'm fine with if the food is at least mildly healthy, but it's not. Beside, frankly, he doesn't do much in the way of growing upwards, because in addition to the metabolism he inherited, he also inherited short genes from both sides of his family. BM is short, too, as is her mom, and DH and his whole family are a bunch of shorties. Plus, once both families hit a certain age, that metabolism comes to a screeching halt, and it will happen to him, too.
On the other side, we have SS14, who constantly insists he's not hungry because he knows when he refuses to eat (or when everyone else wants to eat something he doesn't want to eat and he goes on hunger strike), it gets a major rise out of everyone (except me). Seeing as he feeds off of attention and power battles, I'm not surprised he's never hungry. A few weeks ago, there was a battle royale between he and DH for two hours because he kept insisting he wasn't hungry (he didn't feel like going to where everyone else wanted to go to eat)...except that when DH relented and we wound up going to where SS14 wanted to go, he ate a huge meal. I told DH under no circumstances would two hours of my life ever be dictated by a 14 year old again, and that next time, I was either just going to eat when and where I felt like it without them, or else SS14 would have to stay home and forage for himself. So far it hasn't happened...but he'll do it again for sure.
I just don't understand why it has to be an issue every other damn week, it's so ridiculous. All I want is a mealtime where one or both of them won't have to be an issue.
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Comments
I suppose if one were to
I suppose if one were to actually TRY to control SS12's eating (and by "one," I mean either of his actual parents and not just me butting my head against a brick wall), sure, it would probably do some good. My suggestion for SS14 has always been to call his bluffs and just leave him to his own devices, because it really is about control for him, so if no one overreacts to him, his little game doesn't work, and he relents. Unfortunately, DH's whole family is a bunch of over-reactors, and again, it's like butting my head against a brick wall. The only reason this really affects me is because it's very irritating when DH has to fight with them at every meal, but that's pretty much it. I don't actually care if SS12 ends up morbidly obese, or if SS14 starves, it's just annoying.
Oh, I agree with all of the
Oh, I agree with all of the above...but I'm the only one. Please believe me, if I had kids, they'd eat what I give them, and it's also what I do with my dogs.
Who lets him have all that crap? His dad. When I say anything about it, I'm the wicked stepmother, and he STILL eats it. Mostly what happens is DH agrees with me, but still does nothing about it because it has become apparent to me over time that he is, and I hate to say this, a weak parent. (This is one of the reasons I will never have kids...I would ALWAYS be the bad guy because I'd follow through with my own kids and give consequences, rules, and boundaries, whereas DH only threatens, and his kids know this by now.) With SS14, I've definitely pointed out that it's nothing but a power game for him, but DH truly just doesn't know how to walk away and ignore him, so when I point out that by giving in, SS14 wins, he comes up with some lame excuse as to why. So I just figure what's the point of adding to the already existing argument when I'm going to lose anyway? I think my new approach will be to put on my iPod or something like that when mealtimes come around, or I'll just ignore all of them and make myself a sandwich while they argue about what's going to happen next.