When I have a “treat”, so to speak, I parcel it out and have a little bit each day, so it will last longer and I can savor it. I also try to save the best for last. For example, with a Cookie Parade bag, I will eat the vanillas first, then the chocolate chips, then the frosted animals, then, finally, my favorites: the chocolate sandwiches.
I developed this habit as a child. Things were pretty tight around my house for a while, and since I didn’t get a treat very often, I tried to make it last for a while. Friend, who has a similar background, is the same way. Mr. Rilch, OTOH, grew up fairly well-off, and is one of those people who will plow through the frosted animals and chocolate sandwiches, leaving a dividend of vanillas and crumbs.
It’s my theory that people who grew up disadvantaged don’t take good things for granted. But I’ve also heard the theory that it’s rich people who eat slow, because they’ve never known hunger. I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Even with regular meals, my mom always nagged me not to eat fast, otherwise I’d be hungry again a lot sooner. People who supposedly know that there’s more where that came from ought to be more inclined to scarf stuff down, then push it aside when they’ve taken the edge off.
This is a interesting question, Rilch. We weren’t disadvantaged, but things were very tight. Sweets were always strictly regulated; only 2 cookies, that sort of thing.
I grew up to be a gobbler. So my experience is the opposite, I guess.
Gobbler here, and I grew up quite poor. In fact, I’ve been trying to analyze if my gobbling and my tendency to not like to share food stems from my childhood, even though I never remember being so poor that I actually went hungry. I’m quite inclined to hog food for myself and then gobble it. I absolutely hate sharing treats with anyone, even my husband, and have to remind myself time and again that just because it’s gone now doesn’t mean I can’t get more later.
I grew up reasonably well-to-do (although my mother didn’t allow us free reign with sweets), and I’m more of a hoarder. I still have Girl Scout Thin Mints in my freezer for special occasions. Every night I have a glass of milk and three Oreos before bed. However, if I eat Skittles I throw away the greens and yellows so I don’t make myself eat the things I don’t like.
The OP came up in a philosophy class, and we were considerably surprised when two people agreed with the “poor kid’s” attitude as expressed in some sociological experiment of the time.
The experiment ran like this: Offer a kid one candy bar now, or two candy bars next week. One group – apparently not trusting to the future, adult promises or whatever – took the candy bar immediately.
What amazed us in this seminar, upper-division class was that a couple people opted for the candy bar now, and could not be dissuaded. (Note that no candy bars were forthcoming at all, as opposed to my Computer Science “Systems and Simulations” class, where the teacher handed out real money to run our experiments. Given this philosophical dilemma, I became a Computer Scientist.)
As a child, I never saved, because my parents were largely ignorant about how handle money. I don’t regret spending my money at all. In fact, it was the right decision for me. As an adult, perhaps because I could control my own finances, I was able to change my spending habits.
I think the study was ill-framed. If you really want a candy bar now, and could easily buy a couple next week, you take it now. If adults are looking down at children and saying “wise children save money” then they’re basically projecting a simplistic view about money management – namely that saving is always better than spending. Which it isn’t, if there’s something worthwhile to invest in.
All I can say is that mr. genie grew up pretty poor, and eats really fast–because he has 4 brothers, and whoever ate fastest got seconds. Slower eating = not so much food. He’s a good sharer of treats, though.
Well, if we’re gonna stick to the literal, I’d point out a friend of mine, who gobbles his food and doesn’t speak at table. He grew up with something like 9 or 10 brothers or sisters, and he/she who didn’t eat up didn’t get to eat.
But why stick to the literal–that’s boring!
The more people I meet, the more I feel like I fall into the “growing up disadvantaged” category, although I surely didn’t know it at the time. I do think that I appreciate the “good things” in life more, because it continually amazes me that I can have them! For example, people who take their yearly family summer vacation for granted make me sick, because for us, going somewhere ‘far away’ for vacation was a real treat and didn’t happen all that often. I think I appreciate getting to go on trips more than a lot of people I’ve met.
And FYI, I’m usually among the last to finish at dinner table, although I’ve found I’m rather incapable of making sweets last.
As a kid in a financially-challenged family I was a gobbler as were my siblings. It used to drive us crazy that my dad could make a Caramac last for weeks and weeks.
Now I am quite well off, I am the horder and it drives my wife and kids wild. They are all gobblers.
Ha ! Revenge is sweet !
I regularly have to chide my wife for putting like 8 skittles in her mouth at a time. Clearly they are meant to be eaten one at a time or you don’t get the benefit of the different colors.
My father grew up with shortages (postwar Europe) but never actually went hungry. Today, if he sees somthing non-perishable on sale at the supermarket, he stocks up on it “just in case”. In my parents’ garage right now there is about 50lbs. of coffee, 20 boxes of dry cereal, dozens of cans of soups and chili, and at least 10 cases of canned and bottled drinks, not to mention enough toilet paper to wipe an army’s ass and enough batteries to keep a Wellsley dormitory happy for a week. Odd, but at least we got to sit back and laugh at the news reports of people panicking every time a blizzard was approaching.
In that sense, he’s a hoarder, but in his personal consumption habits, he was a gobbler until he had to start watching his diet for health reasons.
The father of my wife’s friend, however, is definitely a gobbler. He grew up in wartime and postwar Japan, where he experienced not just shortages, but real hunger, not having any food and not knowing when or where the next meal would be. Even though he’s a wealthy doctor today, he’s never forgotten that feeling and at each meal will eat until he’s overstuffed unless his wife makes him stop.
Interestingly, there was an American missionary in his village who would give food to the kids that came to study English. He became fluent by the time he was twelve.
All I gotta say, is rich or poor, you all need to learn a few things about skittles.
St. Germain - wasting skittles, especially the green ones, makes the baby Jesus cry.
kevlaw - If you eat them one at a time, you miss out on the subtle melange of mixing flavors, as as for your wife [parent]You’ll choke yourself![/parent]
I eat skittles almost exclusively 2 at a time. That way there are several different combinations. Red and Green is the best, followed by Purple and Green.
I grew up pretty comfortably. Not Rich (or Rilch) but with more than lots of people. I really don’t have a constant pattern with regards to sweets. Sometimes a Cote d’Or chocolate bar (rich Belgian, but inexpensive) will last the wife and I for several weeks, and other times, it’s gone in 3 days. With typical meals, I usually eat more slowly than most, although I end up stuffing myself sometimes.
Abe Babe - Send me your address - you can have all my yellow and green skittles (starbursts, too). It’s funny - I had a co-worker who was the recipient of all my yellow and green skittles. One year for Christmas she gave me a big tin filled with orange (my favorite!), red and purple skittles. She died a few years ago of melanoma related cancer. I wonder if there’s any correlation…
