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Dear Care and Feeding,
I have two kids, a daughter, 8, and a son, 5. My son is a picky eater and has very intense likes and dislikes. He likes enough foods and gets enough calories that our pediatrician is not concerned, but trying to introduce new foods has always been a dramatic struggle. My daughter is a much better eater, and generally does not complain about what is being served or trying new tastes and textures.
My daughter’s birthday was last week, and she requested a strawberry cheesecake. She said it’s her new “favorite” after recently trying it when visiting a friend. I have always baked a chocolate cake from scratch for all my kids’ birthdays. Both my kids like chocolate cake and it is an easy, fun tradition. I know my son would not like cheesecake and would throw a fit if we served a dessert that he didn’t want to eat. So I explained this to my daughter, and she was sad, but understood. I made the chocolate cake like normal, everyone enjoyed it and her birthday dinner went off without a hitch.
I mentioned this to a couple of friends, and they think I handled it wrong. They said that by not giving my daughter the cake she asked for, especially for her birthday, I was teaching her that her needs will only ever come second to her brother’s. They also mentioned that they think this is evidence of a larger pattern in which I rely too much on my daughter’s easy, go-with-the-flow nature to mitigate her brother’s tantrums. I was shocked to hear this. It’s only a birthday cake! And yes, my daughter is the easier child and can be reasoned with at a level my son can’t yet, so I do ask her to be a good role model for her brother and to be the one to compromise when their wants are at odds with one another. But these are good skills for her to have in life and will build a strong foundation for her to be a good person as she grows up. My son will get these lessons too, but I’m not going to make him suffer in the meantime for the principle of it when his sister is happy to go along with what I tell her. I’m just not sure if my friends have a point and I’m actually doing something wrong here. Any advice?
—At Odds Over Cake
Dear At Odds Over Cake,
I agree with your friends. Unfortunately, you did handle this incorrectly. Your son’s dietary preferences may be different from your daughter’s, and there’s nothing wrong with making some exceptions for him when meal planning if that’s the path of least resistance in your household. But this was your daughter’s birthday, not your son’s. She requested a different cake on a special occasion—a day meant to celebrate her. You should’ve gotten her the cheesecake. If your son didn’t want to eat it, I’m guessing you wouldn’t have forced him.
You say that your daughter is naturally easygoing. That may be true, and if it is, it’s all the more reason to reward her now and again for being your more reasonable, compromise-oriented child. It’s also possible that she’s already realized that her needs and wants will come second. Since she was 3, she’s had to adjust to being the big sister and the bigger person. Your son is 5, and it’s not too early to start teaching him the same consideration of his sibling’s wishes that your daughter has already mastered. That wouldn’t be a case of him “suffering for the principle.” It would be about you, the parent, setting the family precedent that it sounds like you’ve been relying on your daughter to model.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/11/scars-divorce-parenting-advice-care-feeding.html
I have two kids, a daughter, 8, and a son, 5. My son is a picky eater and has very intense likes and dislikes. He likes enough foods and gets enough calories that our pediatrician is not concerned, but trying to introduce new foods has always been a dramatic struggle. My daughter is a much better eater, and generally does not complain about what is being served or trying new tastes and textures.
My daughter’s birthday was last week, and she requested a strawberry cheesecake. She said it’s her new “favorite” after recently trying it when visiting a friend. I have always baked a chocolate cake from scratch for all my kids’ birthdays. Both my kids like chocolate cake and it is an easy, fun tradition. I know my son would not like cheesecake and would throw a fit if we served a dessert that he didn’t want to eat. So I explained this to my daughter, and she was sad, but understood. I made the chocolate cake like normal, everyone enjoyed it and her birthday dinner went off without a hitch.
I mentioned this to a couple of friends, and they think I handled it wrong. They said that by not giving my daughter the cake she asked for, especially for her birthday, I was teaching her that her needs will only ever come second to her brother’s. They also mentioned that they think this is evidence of a larger pattern in which I rely too much on my daughter’s easy, go-with-the-flow nature to mitigate her brother’s tantrums. I was shocked to hear this. It’s only a birthday cake! And yes, my daughter is the easier child and can be reasoned with at a level my son can’t yet, so I do ask her to be a good role model for her brother and to be the one to compromise when their wants are at odds with one another. But these are good skills for her to have in life and will build a strong foundation for her to be a good person as she grows up. My son will get these lessons too, but I’m not going to make him suffer in the meantime for the principle of it when his sister is happy to go along with what I tell her. I’m just not sure if my friends have a point and I’m actually doing something wrong here. Any advice?
—At Odds Over Cake
Dear At Odds Over Cake,
I agree with your friends. Unfortunately, you did handle this incorrectly. Your son’s dietary preferences may be different from your daughter’s, and there’s nothing wrong with making some exceptions for him when meal planning if that’s the path of least resistance in your household. But this was your daughter’s birthday, not your son’s. She requested a different cake on a special occasion—a day meant to celebrate her. You should’ve gotten her the cheesecake. If your son didn’t want to eat it, I’m guessing you wouldn’t have forced him.
You say that your daughter is naturally easygoing. That may be true, and if it is, it’s all the more reason to reward her now and again for being your more reasonable, compromise-oriented child. It’s also possible that she’s already realized that her needs and wants will come second. Since she was 3, she’s had to adjust to being the big sister and the bigger person. Your son is 5, and it’s not too early to start teaching him the same consideration of his sibling’s wishes that your daughter has already mastered. That wouldn’t be a case of him “suffering for the principle.” It would be about you, the parent, setting the family precedent that it sounds like you’ve been relying on your daughter to model.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/11/scars-divorce-parenting-advice-care-feeding.html
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Or he's five, he has a lot of big emotions, many of them centered around food, and being expected to eat something unfamiliar on the fly when everybody else gets to eat something they enjoy is enough to send him into a meltdown, which LW calls "throwing a fit" because they don't have better vocabulary or understanding.
Could really go either way.
I also think that the LW just didn't really want to make the cheesecake.
Yeah, I got a hint of that too, in which case LW's weaponizing one child's problems to use against the other, which is a level of parenting so bad it falls off the scale.
Though really, it's not that hard to buy cheesecake at the bakery.
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I don't think the solution is to force the older, calmer kid to celebrate her birthday with something that the younger kid prefers and she doesn't. I think I would have handled this by giving clear explanations to the younger kid, well in advance of the actual birthday, of what was going to happen. That his sister is getting the cake of her choice because it's her birthday, and he doesn't have to eat it if he doesn't want to, and he can have another treat (not necessarily a whole other cake, but something he likes) to make up for it. And yes, there may be emotions in response to hearing that, but dealing with your child's emotions is part of parenting; hopefully if it was covered in advance, it wouldn't spoil the birthday.