He Does Not Like Pizza or Ham, You Can Bite Me Sam I Am.

For decades "Green Eggs & Ham" has been lauded as a hilarious story whose moral is "try it, you might like it."

Apparently I, and I alone, see it for what it really is...a horrific tale of relentless peer pressure.

This "Sam I Am" might as well be hanging around that fuzzy little "Whatsit's" playground, after all, that's what substance pushers often do.

I hear your gasps of horror. Speaking ill of Dr. Suess. Blasphemy!

But ask yourself this, what if you substituted "Green Eggs & Ham" for "Crack and Pot?"

See, pretty persuasive, right?

I'm willing to concede that I may be a bit touchy on the subject of pushing a child to try new foods. But stay with me and I think my theory will bear out.

This is what my son will eat:

Bacon (turkey and regular)
Pepperoni
McDonald’s Hamburgers and Fries (no bun)
Wagon wheel pasta, light on the butter, heavy on the salt
A jelly sandwich on Challah Bread
2 apple wedges (no skin)
Fruit leathers
A few cereals, cereal bars, frozen waffles and a wide variety of chips
All junk foods--candy, cookies, etc.

This is what my son will not eat:

Everything else

Upon hearing this most people usually launch a two-phase attack.

Phase 1:

“What about chicken nuggets?”
“No”
“Pizza? Hot Dogs? Fish Sticks?
“No, nope, forget it”
“Yogurt? Cheese?”

As if they will ultimately name a food that, in his seven and a half years on this planet, I somehow overlooked.

Phase 2:

“Have you tried letting him dip stuff in different condiments?
Or, what about just putting a new food on his plate everyday for a month?
Or not letting him eat anything else?”

That’s it! You’re a genius! You have solved my child’s picky eating issues in five minutes. I don’t know why I didn’t think of those things. Silly, incompetent me.

But here’s the thing, I don’t have a problem with the way he eats.

Would I prefer that he eat grilled salmon, a side of broccoli and some Portabello risotto?
Sure.
Do I think he’s going to eat this way for the rest of his life, not really.

The thing people who try to “solve” his eating issues don’t realize is that I know where they come from. I understand them in a way other people can't.

I have mentioned before that my son had significant physical delays when he was younger. For any of you with kids in the same boat the term “low muscle tone” is probably a familiar one. For my son, it described him from head to toe, including the muscles in his mouth.

By three-years-old, his chipmunk cheeks would be filled with whatever he was eating and eventually he'd gagged upon it. Because he couldn’t sense it properly, he couldn’t gage how much food he had in his mouth.

We worked with a great team of therapists and realized that certain textures; smells and consistencies were completely revolting to him. So banana which he loved the day before disappeared from the list. Nuggets, gone. Peas, carrots, even asparagus, which he had eaten without a problem, went out the window, all in rapid succession.

Crunchy, spicy and relatively dry foods are the things that he will eat.
To try to talk him into eating other foods is like trying to talk someone out of having allergies.

When people, especially my father-in-law, shove foods in his face and say, “Why don’t you try this?”
He replies, “No thanks.”
He's totally cool. I’m the one that gets aggravated.

My in-laws were over for dinner last night and it happened again or the millionth time. So, after my son left the room we had a little chat.

“Imagine that there were a plate of worms in front of you. Would you eat them?” I said.
“No,” they replied.

“What if I told you that they were good for you, high in nutrients and packed with protein?”
“No”

“What if I put them on your plate every day for a month? Would you eventually get curious and try one?”

“What if I offered you a wide range of condiments to dip them in, what about that?”
“No," they conceded.

“To him, offering a bite of chicken Parmesan or spinach tortellini is as preposterous and disgusting to him as the above scenario would be to you.
So, please stop.”

I don’t know if they heard me.

At one time or another we've all blamed the parents for things like poor manners, clinginess or wild behavior. When we see those behaviors in other people’s kids many of us feel like we could “fix” them if we could just get our hands on them for one day.
"After all," we think, "look at our perfect progeny!" (Pay no attention to my daughter's incessant nose-picking habit nose-picking.)

So the next time a friend of yours says, “You’re soooo lucky. Your child is such a great eater. Mine’s terrible.” Just nod sympathetically and remember--no one likes a pusher.