Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Coming out of the pantry...

Thanks you lovely people for your comments on my last post. It was good to have some different perspectives on the issue. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it since the weekend, and at this point I think some of you have identified the correct cause.

As a kid my mum was pretty strict with what we were allowed to eat, she portioned out our afternoon tea after school each day, poured out our breakfast cereal, made our lunches and our tea, all of it in the serving sizes she thought we should have. A lot of the time I still felt unsatisfied afterwards, so when she wasn't around I would sneak into the pantry and because I only had a limited window of opportunity I would scoff as much as I could of whatever I could reach.

To be honest I don't know if I ever thought of talking to her about it, or asking if I could have some more. In our house mum was the "boss", what she said was law, so asking for food other than at proper meal times just didn't happen. I was a really active teenager, I played, coached or umpired netball seven days a week, so everyday I was on the go, so maybe I wasn't getting enough food for the amount of activity I was doing. Basically I think I turned to scoffing in the pantry to avoid dealing with my mother about breaking one of her house rules.

I've always been a bit scared of confrontation (that is a whole nother post of its own lol) and I probably shirked it by hiding while I ate what I perceived was stuff I wasn't supposed to have.

I have to keep reminding myself that I am a grown up now, and if I am hungry, I am allowed to eat. I don't have to wait till everyone is gone and sneak the food in. I also need to look at how I feed my children in an effort to avoid this being a problem for them too.

Anyway must fly, thanks for reading. I'll be back with more later in the week when life is a bit quieter xxx

2 comments:

wine makes mummy clever said...

My six year old 'grazes' all day, and then usually can't finish her dinner. I'm starting to give into the notion that she might just have a small stomach, and/or a lot of energy, and need to eat that way. I deny her food quite often, and then realise that she's sneak-snacking from the pantry (the cookies are within reach). If she keeps asking I'll let her have some yoghurt or some fruit - we don't have junk food in the house, unless you count plain but sweet biscuits as junk - but I just fundamentally have a problem with her grazing all day. Maybe I should just let her, maybe this is what she needs to do right now. I'll just have to get organised in the kitchen and make sure there are healthy options, so if snacks replace half of her dinner, at least she'll have been snacking on carrot sticks or something similarly healthy.

Thanks, I think I've had an epiphany.

PersistentGirl said...

Great to see you posting more lately, as Brooke pointed out in her recent posts, delving into the emotional stuff really can help us get to the root of things. Look forward to reading more from you :)