I Don’t Care If My Daughters Are Hungry (or my sons for that matter)

If you’re a mama who has managed to keep your kitchen from becoming a revolving snack shop, when your home with the kids, I take my dish towel off to you . I feel pretty silly that it’s taken me this long to figure it out, but my kids are never really hungry.  WAIT, before you offer a rebuttal, hear me out.

I grew up with a single mom who worked her butt off to support me and my brothers, and even with all the hours she put in it she still struggled and there were times when there wasn’t a whole lot to eat; I developed some pretty serious insecurities when it comes to food. Even though I’ve worked on myself and my food baggage, I didn’t realize how much of it carried over into how I feed my kids. In not wanting them to experience one single hunger pain I was giving in to every single “I’m Hungry!” (Somehow I had it in my head that I wasn’t being a good mom unless I made sure that they were always satisfied, silly I know.)

All tucked in and ready for bed? Nope, “But Mom, I’m hungry”. Questionable behavior, off to time out? Hardly, “Mom, I’m hungry”. Fresh from the breakfast table, headed to run errands? Almost, “I’m sooooo hungry!” I started carrying snacks in the car, in my pocket, from time to time you could even find leftover crumbs in my cleavage; absolutely nothing short of ridiculous! Time to get it together? Probably.

My kids are not hungry. My oldest daughter, 7, will eat 2 full servings of dinner and still be looking for more; kinda feels like I’m raising mammoths. That’s fine though, I started offering her “all you can eat” salad until she’s full. My youngest daughter follows every unsure anxious moment with “I’m hungry”, and believe you me there are and endless amount of those in a day. I now keep a fruit bowl on the table, “you’re welcome to a piece of fruit”. At one point my kids would snack just about every hour and I’ve got to take full responsibility because I never really paid a whole lot of attention to it, “If they’re hungry, I’ve got to feed them right?” Wrong, I was all wrong. They are not hungry, bored maybe, but not hungry. Hungry is when you haven’t eaten breakfast, lunch rolls around and you missed that too and now it’s 6 o’clock and your belly is completely empty and growling. Hungry is the many children who literally go without on regular basis. I’ve struggled, at times, to feed them and I’ve actually gone hungry a few times myself to make sure that they ate, but my kids are not hungry. So yeah, if they say that they are, I really don’t care! Nope, sure don’t! I actually prefer my kids with a little hunger to em, they eat their meals much better. They get a mid morning and and afternoon snack but other than that, “Sorry kiddos, kitchen’s closed!”