I'm in the New York Times!
“It fits me to a T,” moaned Mike Vrobel, father of three in Copley, Ohio, and the author of DadCooksDinner, a blog chronicling his nightly efforts cooking things like T-bone steak with olive oil, garlic and rosemary marinade; foil-pouch green beans; and footlong hot dogs.
And he makes carbs, lots and lots of carbs. Not that he likes it that way, but his three children love them, especially his oldest, Ben, 11.
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Read the rest at: Drop the Pasta, Dad, and No One Gets Hurt [Matt Ritchel, nytimes.com]
Birgitte Rasine says
I actually think you're doing it right. I think your approach of having your kids compose their own meals is great.
Given all that I've said, it's not 100% up to us the parents, the kids do have their own minds. That's what makes life so interesting. 🙂
I look forward to your blog post!
Birgitte
Mike V @ DadCooksDinner says
Birgitte,
Every time I mention my kids are picky eaters, I get comments about how I'm "doing it wrong". My response is a blog post, coming next Tuesday.
Birgitte Rasine says
Hi Mike,
I have to confess, it's strange to me to hear of children actually choosing to not eat till the next day only because they didn't like something. Did you try to give them the same thing they didn't like, the next day? Of course, this doesn't always work because people (including children) do have their personal tastes and those need to be respected. It's a fine and often very blurry line between personal taste and pickiness, with kids.
I was born and raised in the Czech Republic where we had a fraction of the cornucopia that the US provides. I remember my grandmother cried when she first visited us here in the US -- she had walked into a "Stop & Shop" and saw the rows of vegetables and fruits (we're talking the simple basic produce, not dragon- or passionfruit or tangelos). On top of that they were all clean, with no large clumps of dirt still sticking to them. For us, America was the promised land.
I suppose that could be what has given me an innate respect for food and how precious and vital it is. Aside from taking your kids on a Peace Corps trip, there have to be other ways of changing their relationship with food. It sounds like you're doing the right thing. Mix respect with fun, have them learn where all the different foods come from, why certain foods are seasonal, maybe even have them create their own recipes... I'll keep thinking!
A friend of mine (we're both authors, you can check out my site at http://birgitte.lucita.net) is about to publish a book on how to bring family values back to America and she's a certified nutritionist, so I'll ask her too if you like and see what she recommends. I would really like to see our children live long and healthy lives, in ALL senses of the word.
Blessings,
Birgitte
Mike V @ DadCooksDinner says
Birgitte,
I'm glad that approach is working for you, and your daughter. Unfortunately, it never worked for me. I'm jealous when I hear about kids who "realize how hungry they are," then eat dinner.
Like you, I fed my kids healthy, homemade meals - they got some of our food, pureed, as infants. Then, starting at about age two, they all became extraordinarily picky eaters. They would not eat something they consider "yucky" - and "yucky" covered a lot of ground - and they could (and would) choose to skip a meal to avoid it. As in, not eat anything at all until the next day.
This drives me insane - I'm a voracious omnivore, and love to eat everything. We expose them to a wide range of foods, and luckily their tastes are expanding. My approach is to serve a range of foods as part of a meal, like taco night with everything on separate serving plates, so they can build their taco out of what they want. Every now and again the kids surprise me and eat something new.
Birgitte Rasine says
Discovered this blog from the NY Times article. I think it's great you're writing this blog Mike. Now about the article in general (since they didn't allow comments there): I have to say as a mom, I was shocked to read the article mention several times how parents are cooking to "please" their children. Since when do children dictate the menus at home?? I have a toddler whom we have been feeding healthy and balanced food ever since she started solids. I ate lots of organic, healthy food while pregnant (well, long before then, too) to help establish my baby's natural predisposition toward healthy food. Sure enough, today she loves fruit, veggies, rice combos, soups. And yes she also loves dark (I mean DARK) chocolate and ginger cookies, but we limit that to a treat or two per day, not entire boxes or baggies of the stuff. And we simply don't allow her to eat things like processed sugar, corn syrup-infused products, and certainly not "Lite" anything. ( I have a feeling she'd probably turn that stuff away anyway). We skip entire aisles in the grocery store and take the time to cook most of our meals from scratch.
A few times, my daughter turns away a meal we prepare for her -- she may not feel like eating, or she's having a moment. OK no problem, we let her play for an hour until she realizes how hungry she is and she then gobbles it without protest. She wants chocolate instead of dinner? Sorry! No can do. We are her guides, her protectors, her parents; she's not our master.
I'm not writing this to prove what a great parent I am. I just think parents have, and should have, the right to determine the family menu, assuming the family's health is the ultimate goal. I also realize children's tastes change as they grow older, and that they go through "taste" phases as they explore the world, but there is such a vast variety of healthy options that such explorations can certainly be accommodated. And I think a little "junkfood" is nothing criminal as long as it's the rare exception and not the rule.
So to all the guys reading this, I say, YOU set the menu in your house! And have fun exploring all the different combinations you can make with excellent, healthy produce and grains. (I'll be all too happy to share recipes...!)
B. RasineMother, entrepreneur, author
Mike V @ DadCooksDinner says
Thank you, everyone!
Mike says
Mike, that is completely awesome! Congratulations...on all fronts!
fletch says
This is a great article. I've put on about 35 lbs that I have been trying to loose since my son was born 3 years ago.