Romare Bearden, "Mother and Child," 1977
Romare Bearden, Mother and Child (1977)
Can a Game Be Literature?

Mark's Pages

April 29, 2004:

This is the complete list of all the foods I was given as a child.

The explanation is simple: fear. My parental unit was so alarmed by my thinness that she lived in terror that the child welfare authorities, whoever they were, would take me away. So she pushed every calorie she could scrounge toward my face in hopes it would metabolize enough body fat to prove her fitness. If I walked away from the table after picking at my peas she'd bring me cookies and whipped cream for a snack. She literally spiked the milk with half and half; I caught her at it.

The real explanation of course was that she made me so nervous I couldn't stand being near her and food at the same time. Her eyes would follow the carrots from plate to fork to mouth in a sort of permanent dote which I found both repelling and alarming. I couldn't wait to get away.

That and the fact that she couldn't cook to save her life. Arkansas cuisine: broil it 'till it's black; boil it till it clings to the spoon.

When I was in high school she added chicken to the menu. After sixteen years or so of doting she'd figured out that I loved turkey, and would stuff myself to the eyeballs at every holiday meal. Chicken being cheaper she bought some and, it's about time, bought a cookbook, too. Now we're talkin'.

In college through the grace of sociability I was introduced to Chinese food, Mexican food, pizza, salad, whole wheat bread, and water. Imagine what it was to learn that vegetables crunch. Amazing.

It took a lot longer to get to fruits (still workin' on it), fish (gettin' there), and the many world cuisines I'm still able to discover with delight now in middle adulthood. So that I suppose it turns out to be a sort of mixed blessing. It's kind of cool that there are still happy surprises ahead.

I don't know if there's a lesson to learn here. She might say it's that children need fathers to enforce discipline. I'm inclined to suggest that fear is life's biggest enemy and you should provide your kids with the tools they need, good food in this case, and let them learn at their own pace without pestering or intimidating them. But I can't really say.