Food is a cultural thing. Everyone knows that. Second night I was in San Diego, my Mom fried up a bunch offside okra (she's originally from Alabama) and couldn't understand why I would eat only half a cup. I wasn't hungry. What? Not hungry?
My mother-in-law, L, is very much the same way. She's not from Alabama, but she starts off planning a meal by figuring out what meat to serve. Soy milk? Why drink that when you can have good ole cows milk? It's a cultural thing and I have learned to accept that it's engrained in most humans to adapt a certain culture and live by it. I'm fine with this.
So when my mother-in-law is serving meat that is cooked 'rare' and calls 'medium rare' cooked, I have learned to look the other way. It's only a meal or two since we don't live in the same state. If it happens too often, I speak up...but for the most part, I don't. If it makes my mom and mother-in-law so happy that they are jumping in their rain boots that they got a chance to stuff meat down my kids...and it's only a meal or two...I'm okay.
Until they forget and decide to be mean.
Ah, the meany. I don't think it's intentional, but let's see it my way. I am biting my tongue. I am being polite. Why doesn't this work both ways?
The next morning, after my son ate some of the oozing red pig butt (roast beef), he got up for breakfast. L was busy making him pancakes with an unfortunate batter that I had bought and lugged into her house. It was a whole wheat blueberry pancake mix, but because I had not bothered to read the ingredients like I usually do, I was not aware that the blueberries were artificial.
Yuck.
This made the pancakes taste yuck. I wasn't going to eat them so I pulled out my waffles, made my special sauce, and began to chow down. First E saw them. Then G. They both wanted some and G wanted it with the special sauce which is hot peanut butter and syrup. L sees this happening and I apologize for it because she had, indeed, been making pancakes for the kids. Oops! Granted, this was not intential at all to waste her time as I didn't know the kids were going to want what I was eating!
While I was sitting over this issue of upstaging L's preparation of breakfast, L approaches G and asks him what the sauce was. He tells her. And then she said the word.
"Yuck."
What?
My own ears fell on my plate. Peanut butter and syrup mixed together is yuck? Sure, the syrup had high fructose corn syrup in it, but it's the only thing I could find in the cupboard.
I didn't say anything.
Just to make sure that G and I heard L, she said the same comment two more times in the next five minutes about the "special sauce".
I wasn't mad. I was in shock.
So quickly, speaking directly to G, I said that it was okay if his grandmother didn't like the sauce because everyone has their own likes and dislikes...like, oh, for example, some people don't like meat.
There. I said it. G agreed with me and said it was okay if his Nani didn't like the sauce because it meant more for him. There's my boy! Just like his mom, sticking a little humor into an otherwise sticky situation.
Sure, "special sauce" is my recipe...just like I had explained to L and although I could be offended that she called my personal recipe "yuck" I was more shocked than anything. Um, protein, anyone? Doesn't peanut butter have a large fat content and high cholesterol? It's just like...meat!! Except, it never frolicked in the green meadows (but neither did that roast beef).
Shocked that I had kept my mouth shut when I could very well have said "yuck", yet someone older than me couldn't resist. Then I remembered.
Old school.
The younger generation, at least years ago, kept their mouth shut and respected their elders. Oops! Forgot that one so many times! Old school: eat your meat.
Pink Floyd has some favorite lyrics: eat your meat or you can't have any pudding. I say, skip the meat, sprinkle granola and nuts on your pudding, and chow down! It's healthier for you.
So meat isn't good for me, Mommi. How come I have to eat it?
Shut up and eat your meat or you can't have any pudding...or at least at your grandparents house. When I get back home to Bogota, you can guarantee that the only time you will be biting into a once living animal is at school or if Daddy cooks.
I know, I know. The next question is,why do I have the word "spanking" in my title?
Well, I certainly didn't want to pick out one little incident in a two week period and pick on one person for one little thing, so I thought it would be informative if I added that my mother is also old school.
She believes in spankings.
It's never too early.
How early, Mom? 1 year? 6 months? She didn't answer. I am assuming it's either because she couldn't hear me over Emma's screaming or she was just too angry that I wouldn't spanking my 20 month old when she didn't want to get in her car seat for the 4th day in a row.
I have spanked my son a dozen times in his life and have hated it every time. Every spanking is the same. One swat on the butt. I was spanked repeatedly as a child, and it had always hurt me that my parents thought it was okay to hurt me. I don't see the link between spanking and 'learning a leaaon'. In extreme situations where my son was completely disobedient I have used it as a threat (oops) and found I had to follow through. I know spanking is controversial, but I am definitely against it.
Especially for a 20 month old. But my mother is old school.
She's convinced that the Bible verse, "spare the rod spoil the child" means, "(if you) spare the rod (you will) spoil the child.
If I was to let a series of books that tell me to cover my adornments, not accept blood, and war with my neighbors if they don't follow my God, then I guess my translation of that verse would be, "spare the rod (and) spoil the child (with love and time).
So for several days, while Emma had her regular issues, my mother was convinced that the cure would be a good spanking.
Finally, we were in the car yesterday and Emma had another meltdown about the car seattle and the thought came to me...if this was L saying this, you would probably give in just to make peace and not rock the boat. Why are you arguing with your mother? Sure, you don't agree with it, but you also don't want your kids eating medium rare meat and they do at your MIL's house...so why not try one spanking one time.
So while Emma had her back arched fussing about how she didn't want to sit in her car seat, I gave a small slap on her butt. With the cloth diaper and then pants over it, I think it might have been just enough for her to look down and wonder what was going on. Then she decided she didn't like that and began to howl louder than before. She cried all the way home while Mom tried to say, above her crying, "hush" in firm tones.
That was the last discussion that Mom has had with me in regards to spanking.
Of course, being who I am, I had to point out that if we had just ignored E and stuck her in the car seat, she would have stopped complaining within a minute. Instead, we had to listen to her complain all the way home.
Old school. It's not all a bed of roses. Old school is old for a reason. Most of it was left behind, an ancestor to today's thought.
Sometimes that's why old school of thoughts are left in yesterday. Mustard yellow (baby poop) colored couches covered in plastic? Old school. Children out of car seats, left to roam a moving vehicle while the window is completely rolled down? Old school. Liver for breakfast? Eat 3 big meals a day? Go for a drive on Sunday? Children must remain seen and not heard? Old school.
Meat? Hello? Old school. Spankings? Ditto. So why do our Moms cling so tightly to old school. I think it's because they don't realize it is old school and really, am I the one to educate them, to change their mind?
Yes and no.
It's a hard job, so I don't want to. But sometimes I have to, at least for the sake of my kids. If L wants to feed a cow to her other grandchildren, then that's what she can do. And if my sister is wholeheartedly spanking her kids because she believes in it, fantastic-o.
But for me, I have seen the results of speaking up. My MIL now is on the recycling committee. For the last 15 years, I have been digging cans, bottles, and cardboard out of her trash cans, gently reminding her that those items are recyclable. My mother now calls the doctor when she has pain. For years it was me having to badger and beg her to call when she was sick. See, it works when you gently encourage someone to change for the better.
It's also painful. But, not as painful as...
Eating meat (your poor heart cries every time)!
Spankings!
(to be cont'd)
No comments:
Post a Comment