It Comes Back And I Take It Personally

You scraped it into the bin while still standing at the table.

That is the detail. Not the bin. That you did it there, in front of everybody, quickly, in a way that was almost but not quite a statement, and then you turned round and said something bright about pudding.

And what you felt in the two seconds before the scraping was completely out of proportion to a plate of food, and you know that, which is why you have not mentioned it to anybody.

I want to look at why it lands where it lands, because it is not really about the eating.

You did not put food on that table.

You put down about forty minutes, a decision made at half past four, a judgment about what everybody could tolerate tonight, the effort of standing up when you were tired, and a small quiet hope that this would be the one they liked.

They saw a plate.

That is the whole mismatch. They are declining an object. You are watching something come back that had a great deal of you in it, and there is no available way to explain the difference without sounding as though you are making a fuss about carrots.

So you scrape it in and say something bright, and it goes nowhere, and it happens again on Thursday.

And I am going to say one thing about what this article will not do, because you may be braced for it.

I am not going to tell you how to get them to eat it.

There is no technique here, no advice about exposure or portion size or presenting things differently, and nothing about not making it a battle. That is somebody else's subject and it would turn this into a parenting article, and it would also miss you entirely, which is who this is for.

We remember the fish

There is a passage in Numbers where people complain about food, and what makes it useful is who was cooking.

We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: (Numbers 11:5, King James Version)

We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely.

Sit with the situation for a second, because it is remarkable.

They are eating manna. Bread from heaven, arriving every morning, requiring nothing of anybody, provided directly by God without a shop or a field or a fire.

And they are bored of it, and they say so out loud, and they list what they would rather have, in detail, including onions.

Now the point is not that they were ungrateful, though they were. The point is who provided that meal.

If food coming directly from God can be received like that, then the quality of what is on a plate has no reliable relationship to how it is received.

That should land somewhere for you. You have been reading a refusal as feedback, as though the plate coming back were data about your cooking or your effort or your standing in that house.

The best provided meal in the history of the world was refused by an entire nation with a list of alternatives.

And notice what is not in that chapter: God does not stop feeding them. The manna keeps arriving the next morning, and the morning after, without comment, unaffected by the review.

What comes back has never once been reliable information about what was given, and the best provided meal in history was refused by a whole nation. Numbers 11:5 records the complaint and the manna keeps arriving regardless, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with somebody standing at a table with a scraper.

The commenting is what costs you

Here is the practical part, and it is the thing you can change tonight.

You have started to comment.

Not much, and not unkindly. But there is a sentence that comes out now, most evenings, in one form or another: you have not touched that. Or: is that not all right? Or: I did that specially. Or the silent version, which is a look, and which everybody at that table can read as clearly as a sentence.

And here is what the commenting does, which is the opposite of what it intends.

It tells everybody that the plate is being watched, and the moment eating is watched it becomes a transaction between the two of you rather than a thing a person does with food.

Then the child is no longer deciding whether they want it. They are deciding whether to comply with you, in front of the others, which is a completely different question and one they will get more stubborn about, not less.

And it costs you as well, and this is the part I actually mind about. It makes the meal into a stage where you can fail publicly, every evening, in your own kitchen.

So the commenting does not get anybody to eat, and it converts your dinner into an assessment you are attending.

Stopping it is not a technique for getting them to eat. It may change nothing about what goes in the bin. What it changes is whether you are standing there being judged.

What the commenting does is put you on a stage, and it has never once been what got anybody to eat anything. The written word lets the provision keep arriving without a word about the reception, and the Spirit of God is the one present at a table where nobody is watching a plate.

One thing, and say nothing

So here is the assignment.

Put one thing on the table tonight and do not comment on who eats it.

One meal. Cook whatever you were going to cook, exactly as you would have. Nothing about the food changes.

And then say nothing about the eating. Not one word, in any direction.

That means no you have not touched that. It also means no encouragement, no just try one, no it is nice actually, and no thank you for eating that. Praise is also commentary, and it also tells the table that the plates are being watched, and a child who is praised for eating knows immediately that eating was being monitored.

Say nothing. Talk about something else entirely. Ask somebody about their day, tell them a thing that happened to you, argue about football.

And clear the plates without looking at them.

That is the whole exercise and it will be much harder than it sounds, because your eyes go to the plates automatically and have done for years, and because the silence will feel like letting something go unaddressed.

You are not letting anything go. You are removing yourself as the audience, which is the only part of this you were ever in control of.

And if half of it comes back, scrape it in without a face, and do not do it standing at the table.

You are able to remove yourself as the audience, and praise has never once been anything other than commentary in a different tone. Numbers 11:5 has the provision continue without one word about the review, and the Holy Spirit is the one present in a kitchen where nobody says anything about a plate.