There are things our parents teach us that are good rules for living that carry over into our adult lives and make us responsible and good. And then there are those rules that, while they seem to be the “right thing to do” is their purest sense, become hinderances when clung to with rigid fervor.
My examples:
The Clean Plate Club: If you put it on your dinner plate, you must eat it. This is a good rule for teaching children to be moderate in their actions. Little kids love to pile stuff on their plate when they are allowed to serve themselves, and then not eat half of it. So we teach our children to take smaller, more realistic portions from the common serving dish and go back for seconds if they are still hungry. Good, common-sense rule and polite, too. Where it backfires is when a child is forced to sit at the table forever, finishing up a too-large serving of something, be it disgusting or delicious. When you get into the mindset that emptying the plate is the goal, rather than just eating until satisfied, you set the conditions for overeating. When you train children to “finish that last bite” you set them up for a lifetime of overeating, and overweight.
Don’t Waste Food. This is a companion to the Clean Plate rule, and makes some sense coming from children of the Depression, who knew to value every scrap of food, every penny they earned. To throw out perfectly good food during those hard times was criminal and immoral. But for me, at least, it has become a hesitancy to experiment with a new recipe, a different ingredient, an unknown dish at a restaurant. I have such a fear that the recipe won’t turn out right or taste good (and I will still have to eat it) that I tend not to play around, adding a pinch of this, a handful of that. I only order things I know I will like, because wasting precious money on food you don’t eat (especially if you don’t have enough money to order something else to eat if the exotic is unpalatable) is sinful.
As an adult, every time I throw away Perfectly Good Food I feel such a horrible guilty feeling. Last year at church, I helped serve a meal to a college choir that was performing in a concert. The organizers opted for a rather unusual dish featuring bird’s nest pasta and lemon and fennel and chicken. The kids hated it. The vegetarians couldn’t eat it, and the rest didn’t like it. I was not the only person on cleanup who was in agony, seeing all that food go right from the plates to the trashcan. Even though it really didn’t taste good, the thought of the waste was painful. And the poor kids were so hungry! They tanked up on bread and butter, only to discover all the butter had been blended with herbs, and they didn’t like that either!
So what other Rules For Living did your parents teach you that, while on the surface practical and wise, have turned out to be not so wonderful after all?
“You gotta be careful with girls. They will use you to make other guys jealous.”
I’m in my early 20’s and still hear that from my mother from time to time. Whenever I get to know someone who is actually interested in me and begin to have some fun, that saying from my mother enters my mind and I just think, :wally .
“Don’t ever hit a girl.”
Hey, if a girl ever starts whaling on me, I’m gonna defend myself.
“Wipe your feet before entering the house.”
If it’s been a dry day out, nothing’s gonna get tracked into the house. If it’s a wet day and you’ve been walking through mud, I just say take the shoes off. Bang the shoes together outside for two minutes and you’ll still, without fail, have clumps of dirt coming off on the floor everywhere.
Stupid Parental Rule #824: You must always eat all of what is offered to you at someone else’s home, and you must never, under any circumstances, tell them you don’t like it.
I once sat through and ate and entire meal I hated, then quietly went to the bathroom and threw it all up because it disagreed with me. When I returned to the table, there was another helping of the same grossness waiting for me, because my friend’s mom had noticed how well I’d cleaned my plate and assumed I wanted more. :smack:
That same one got me, too. I was at a friends house for dinner for the first time, and I’d heard his dad was really strict about finishing everything on your plate. Part of dinner consisted of artichokes, which (as everyone knows) are properly eaten with a side of mayo for dipping. I finished the meal, finished the artichokes, but I still had a big ol’ glob of mayonaise left on my plate. A really big glob. So I picked up my spoon and started eating the mayonaise, one spoonfull at a time, interspersed with heavy chugging from my water glass.
That son of a bitch let me refil my water glass twice before he told me I didn’t have to eat the mayonaise.
Ah, yes, eating rules that can cause eating disorders later.
When I was about four or five, Rice-a-Roni was the only rice I knew about. All rice, to me, was Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat. One night my mom asked if she made some rice, would I eat it? Assuming she could only mean Rice-a-Roni, I readily agreed. Come dinnertime, there was only plain white rice on the table – something she never served us (no wonder she asked me first if I’d eat it). My dad heard about how much I wanted the rice, but then was disturbed I didn’t want any once it hit the table. So… he declared, “eat it or wear it.”
I refused to eat any. Note I had not taken any and there was none on my plate. I believe they put some in a little bowl next to the plate for some reason. And I don’t remember where my sister was through all of this. After several eat-it-or-wear-it threats, and several more refusals on my part (nobody said ANY thing about eating plain white rice), my dad dumped the entire bowl of rice over my head.
Now, as a grown up, after spending a boatload of money on detanglers and conditioners, my hair still looks like a giant tangled dreadlock on the best of days. As a four year-old (maybe five), hair care was not a top priority for me… It took my mom hours to get all the little bits of rice combed back out of my tangles.
Surely, eat-it-or-wear-it is considered a backfired rule. Come to think of it, they never said that to me again, that I can recall. It’s also why I’m a vegetarian with no compunctions whatsoever about wearing leather. Daddy said, if I’m not going to eat it… I’m going to have to wear it.
Wasn’t going to mention it myself, but now that you’ve done it for me, I HATE that line. I have it mentally filed under ‘Biggest lie you can tell your kids’. Certainly never helped me any, if anything it made me feel worse.
Thanks Mom.
And since there’s a vein about eating what’s on your plate, I always hated the old ‘There’s starving kids in Africa line’. Make them eat it.
Ooh, I hate the “Just ignore them” phrase! I partly blame that for lacking any sense of assertiveness in High School. I was conditioned to just quietly endure whatever abuse I was subjected to, under the belief that it was always perpetuated by my own actions.
When you get into the working world, “Ignoring” people or aspects of work that are bothering you does not make them go away!!! :mad:
“Wear clean underwear in case you’re in an accident. I don’t want the hospital people to see dirty underwear”
Uh, Mom? If I’m in an accident bad enough to warrant hospitalization, I can pretty much guarantee my draws’ ain’t going to be clean.
(Yes, I do change my draws daily. Not to do so is icky)
With regards to the “ignore them and they will go away” comments- sometimes it does work. LilMiss was on a tear tonight as I somehow lost her music book. It was my fault, if I had just left it where she left it (the middle of the kitchen floor) she would have been able to find it, her room is a mess because of me ( I rarely go INTO her room, I prefer NOT to know what is in there), I’m ruining her future music career…on and on. Finally I told her I was done with her for the night, would not listen to her anymore. Completely ignored her. After an hour of her loudly whining in her room, she came out and apologized for her behavior. We then went into her room where her music book was found between her desk and the wall. Any comment I would have made while she was throwing her tizzy fit would’ve just egged her on.
I rarely go INTO her room, I prefer NOT to know what is in there), I’m ruining her future music career…on and on. Finally I told her I was done with her for the night, would not listen to her anymore. Completely ignored her. After an hour of her loudly whining in her room, she came out and apologized for her behavior. We then went into her room where her music book was found between her desk and the wall. Any comment I would have made while she was throwing her tizzy fit would’ve just egged her on.