I Might As Well Blame My Mother -- It's Her Fault

I might as well blame my mother for my poor health. My closer friends often encourage me to blame her for things because they know the stories, they know my history with her. It's not functional and it certainly isn't brief so I won't jump into it here. But in addition to all the unhealthy things that I endured growing up, both emotionally and psychologically, there was also a lot of negative things going on when I was learning how to eat.

My mother was a nurse from the World War II era who was and is always concerned what people think of her. Dr. Phil could write a book on her. I wish he would.

I was born a few weeks premature and underweight. The nurses let my mother take me home just shy of five pounds because she was a nurse who should know how to take care of me. Well, that was an error in their judgement. She fed me Pablum the night she got me home so she could fatten me up.

Doctors and scientists know that eating solid food early in life can lead to obesity but even back then it was not something you did the first night home from the hospital. Nor was I breast fed, more common back then but now we know bottle feeding is another factor in your chances of becoming obese. I'm no expert but I read the occasional newspaper.

Needless to say, my mother wanted me fat, anything else was a sign of her personal failure. Even now she criticizes me for having skinny children. I'm thankful my children are of a normal weight. I consider it a minor miracle considering the bad habits that endure with me. And my kids are in no way skin and bones, they're perfectly healthy.

My mother, the nurse, even poo-pooed my wife's breast feeding of our kids every now and again. Our kids were breast fed beyond the two years they now recommend (it's not exclusive, obviously, after they start eating solid foods.)  I hope my kids get a good start in life.

My mother is now 86 and she isn't involved much with my kids, partly because I'm the black sheep of the family and partly because she's getting too old. But she revels--I mean really revels--in feeding them. She takes delight with every spoonful she can get into them. She erroneously thinks I never feed them junk food or meat and as a result she's convinced they're starving.

I was reminded of all this yesterday when I brought my three-year old daughter to my mother's home at lunch time. My mother made scrambled eggs and toast for both me and my daughter. I buttered my own toast and I was criticized for the 'small' amount I put on it. I'm a man who likes far more margarine on his toast than any reasonable individual yet it wasn't good enough for her. "That's all you're putting on? This is good margarine, one of the best there is..."

Don't worry, she'll be dead any day now. She eats a lot of bacon.

You learn early how to eat and you acquire your lifelong tastes for food before the age of five, some say before the age of three. My toast habits have lived with me for 45 years and it's a hard habit to change but if I can piss off  my mother, I must have made some progress.