The Hawk

There are always people who know nothing more than to be in other people's business. They always want to know what other people are doing and need to be a nuisance. The description of this person fits my mom pretty well. Now, I love my mom, I really do. However, there are things that she does that make my kettle boil tremendously. One of those things is how she insists that my daughter eat at all hours of the day.

My mom grew up during the Second World War. Food was scarce to the point where she and her brothers often had to split one meal or one glass of milk between the four of them. Babies in her time were scrawny and often did not live very long after birth. When I was growing up, I was constantly reminded of how the children in Africa didn't have any food or how she barely had food growing up. I was supposed to be thankful for all the food I had and eat it all off my plate. This logic was faulty in many ways.

It led me to have a strange relationship with food. I did not always see food as fuel but as either a way to gain praise from my mom or to avoid being on one of those commercials on tv where the kids had extended stomachs and flies circling all over them. I often ate more than I really wanted and never understood when I was satisfied. The feeling of not knowing when my stomach had enough was not something I wanted to pass down to my children. So I didn't.

My daughter knows when she's hungry. She tells me when she's hungry or goes and gets something to eat herself. She nibbles (not devours, like her mom) as much as she needs and no more. She has a better idea of portion control than I do. I do not force her to eat because I did not like being forced myself. I see her grazing through the day - a banana here, a yogurt there etc. She's healthy and active and eats to keep herself satisfied.

But don't show my mom this picture of independent grazing or tell her that her granddaughter noshes when necessary. She thinks my daughter is thin. She should be a super fat child like I was. One of my mom's main tactics in getting my daughter to 'mangia' (eat) is to consistently poke food or a cup of milk towards her face. One thing my mom does not lack is persistence. At any given moment if the crew from 'Wild Kingdom' were to eavesdrop on a room with my mom and daughter, they would hear the word 'mangia' at least 70 times.

Regardless of how many times my sister or I tell my mom 'stop it' with the food, it never really settles in. Even my daughter's insistence and repetition of  'no Nonna' doesn't seem to make a dent in my mom's fortitude of food forcing. In spite of my mom's ceaselessness, my daughter often will refuse to eat in front of her. We can sit at the table together and if my mom is watching her, my daughter will show the food on her plate no attention whatsoever. This just raises the stakes. My mother will insist even more and my daughter will walk away from her plate (Score one baby). My mom will attempt to win her over to the food in any way possible and my daughter will ignore her (score two baby).

It's so bad that on two separate occasions my daughter showed her defiant nature. We were eating spaghetti with clams one night and my mom was not in her line of vision. A few weeks later the meal was the same but the seating arrangements has changed.  My mom stared at my daughter like she was going in for the kill, my daughter refused to eat a single piece of spaghetti in front of her. Once my mom left though, she ate a nice portion of the meal.

What this entry is trying subtly to express is that I get a supreme thrill when my daughter sticks it to my mom. I'm pretty proud of her for being able to know what she wants at such a young age. I'm also happy she knows how to do it in her own special way.