I have to say though, there’s another element to that. At almost every BBQ and potluck I’ve ever been to, there’s a group of adults who sit at the far end of the table and ignore every call to come make a plate. They sit and yak away, waving off the invitations for 30 or 40 minutes, and then are horrified to discover that the food is mostly gone. Get the frack up and make yourself a frakkin’ plate if you’re hungry!
I’m certain these boys weren’t elbowing their elders away from the serving area. And they had no way of knowing there wasn’t another four pounds of burger in the kitchen.
I would have had a problem with that, too. And even though the boys SHOULD have known better than to scarf up all the burgers at that age, their parents should have said something too, because kids don’t always remember their manners. Something on the order of “You’ve each had a burger, let everyone else have one before you eat another one.”
My husband and I just got back from lunch, and I was talking about this thread. Bill fondly remembers my dad’s habit of grilling a porterhouse steak for each person. Daddy always wanted to make sure that no guest of his was hungry after eating at Daddy’s table. For those who are not big beef eaters, porterhouse steaks usually weigh more than a pound each. What usually happened was that none of the girls or women could finish the whole steak, and we’d label and refrigerate the leftovers for the next day. Nobody could convince Daddy that maybe some of us would be happy to share a steak with another person! And again, the guys were able to finish a whole steak each, and the women were just as happy to eat half the steak. When my parents were younger, yeah, we had hot dogs on the grill, and everyone was happy about that, because there were always plenty of hot dogs.
This is taking this whole thing terribly off topic, but this was sort of “one straw among many.” The mother of these teens is one of my mother’s best friends, but she’s always been the “fun” friend, not the “responsible” friend. Her husband is one of those guys that when you meet them for dinner, always left his wallet in his other jacket. Always. So this was the last time we tried to feed the kids, and shortly thereafter my father stopped meeting them for dinner. My mother and her friend still - its now been 30 years since this incident - meet for coffee or go shopping, but my dad can’t stand her husband.
Someplace out here there is a really old thread about bridezillas where I ranted about a bride who was upset that no one bought her the $100+ a setting place settings she registered for. Guess whose family?
They always were a LOT of fun - one of those teenage boys was my first kiss - but raised by wolves.
I’ll echo the sentiments of others on here- it’s an energy-intensive process to grow from say… 5’6" and 150 lbs to about 6’1" and 240 in the span of about 4 years.
Combine that with usually pretty intense athletic activity, and you have a recipe for boys who eat a LOT of food.
I can remember one year’s 2-a-day football practices when I’d eat some cereal before practice, eat something when I got home, eat lunch, eat a snack before the 2nd pracctice, and then eat a snack afterward, and then eat dinner. I was constantly hungry despite seemingly eating constantly.
Growing up with two football playing brothers, raising a stepson and having several nephews (most of whom are now adults), I thought I was used to how teenaged boys and young men ate. But alas, I’ve lived alone for a few years.
The Fella has three sons, aged 15, 18 and 21. When we take them out to eat, we generally go to buffets so our check won’t approach the national debt. The last time we took all three to Ryan’s, our table looked like an army had encamped there for days without cleaning up the mess hall. It was amazing to watch them lay waste to plates piled high with chicken, pork chops, potatoes, mac and cheese, nachos and dessert! When they come to my house, I make sure that I have plenty of bread, the economy sized jar of peanut butter and a minimum of a gallon of milk each on hand. And that’s just for between meal snacks.
That really is unacceptable behaviour. On the other side of the scale, my sister had a halloween party last year, and she had way too much food. There was a teenaged boy who came a bit later - his parents didn’t let him eat everything that was left, but we would have liked it if he had (we’re all overweight and working on it - none of us need leftover cupcakes and party food). Of course, his parents might not have wanted him to eat 10 pounds of fat and sugar, either.
Laughing… my son was 6’3" by age 13 if allowed he would eat like a shrew (constantly). I swear, I could cook a Sunday roast dinner with the works and watch him eat a heaping plate, only to have him declare “I’m STARVING” a half an hour later.
I recently had a check-up and the way the nurse described how one should eat was “as many times as children and teenagers do, but nowhere near as much. About this >< much to their THIS >xxxxxxxxxxx< much.”
You’d have loved it at my house in my teen age years.
I was 5’10" and 167 pounds on the nose. That’s about five pounds under the weight limit for my class, and I was in heavy training five days a week and tournaments on the weekends. My sensei wanted me to gain weight so I wasn’t the smallest one in my division all the time.
My grandmother, who lived with us, used to remark that when she put food on the table, she would have to snatch her hand back quick for fear of losing a finger.
I can remember coming home once after practice one night. A bitter cold night, and the dojo wasn’t heated. I ate a pound and a half of beef, six dinner rolls, three quarters of a green bean casserole, and half the lyonnaise potato dish she made. Washed down with three glasses of milk, and topped off with six gingerbread cookies.
It was really good, but the word “leftovers” didn’t get much use around our house.
