More Ruminations On Parenting the Pathologically Picky Eater

I made the mistake of checking out some of the reader comments on the Times article. What nastiness. Parents patting themselves on the back because their kids eat what they eat. I just hate this 'blame' thing -It's NOT my fault that my kid hates 99% of what I eat. I put table food in front of him from the get go, and he never liked most of it. All this stuff about "developing a palate" is bullshit. Either your kid likes and is willing to try a bunch of different foods, or they're don't. And it pisses me off to no end that Random Internet People insist that it's my fault.

He comes by it honestly. You only have to sit and watch my darling husband systematically pick the beans and chunks of tomatoes out of a bowl of chili, or the minuscule slices of mushrooms out of a lasagna, or the avocado and cucumbers out of a salad to see that perhaps this is genetic, not a result of bad parenting.

My daughter at 13 months has eaten a wider variety of foods than he's eaten in his nearly 4 years. My neighbor's boys love pretty much all food, and LOTS of it. (This is funny because their parents are very slender and height/weight proportionate --unlike Rich and I who have a tendency to carry a little extra junk in our trunks). She said her boys 'came that way' and she never had to push them to try things. They just like all kinds of food.

I've introduced Kaylee to a lot of new foods over the last couple of months and she really likes to try new things in a way that Eric never did.

So, Random Internet Judgmental Fucktardards: IT'S NOT MY FAULT. HE CAME THAT WAY!

Really...

I swear.