Two letters from the same column on a very similar topic to each other

[conuly]

1. Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and I are currently planning a trip to Taiwan, where I emigrated from as a young adult, to visit my parents and extended family. We have two children, 16-year-old “Ada” and 13-year-old “Megan.”

Since Ada was little, she has always been an incredibly picky eater. She is quite sensitive to the different textures of food, and there are some foods she refuses to try at all. When she was little, we thought she may have autism or a related condition, but ruled that out with her doctor. She is much more open to trying new foods than she used to be, and we are no longer overly concerned. However, she still dislikes most Chinese food.

Obviously, in Taiwan, the vast majority of our meals would consist of Chinese food. Yesterday over dinner, I mentioned this to her, and she joked that it would be a waste of money to take her to Taiwan, given that she wouldn’t enjoy it and would refuse to try most of the food there. I got mad, and told her that I would have to explain her “strange” eating habits to all of our relatives, and that I had no idea why she had to be so stubborn about the foods that she doesn’t want to eat.

After the blowup (which involved fighting about some other things), Ada won’t speak to me. According to my husband, she claims that I don’t “understand” her aversion to certain tastes and textures, and that she isn’t doing this to be intentionally rude to anybody.

What should I do?

— Frustrated About Food

Dear Frustrated About Food,

I am not a doctor, but your description of your daughter’s food issues immediately made me think of ARFID, or Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, a fairly new diagnosis that is often mistaken for “picky eating.” I wonder if you might want to take Ava to a behavioral pediatrician, nutritionist, dietitian, or food therapist who specializes in eating disorders, so that they can test your daughter for this condition. To seek out local resources, try contacting the helpline for the National Eating Disorders Association or any local eating disorder clinic.

I asked my friend Wayne Scott, who is a psychotherapist as well as the father of a son with ARFID, about parenting a child with this disorder and he added, “Many parents attribute these food particularities to temperament and personality, which leads to needless power struggles—and so much yelling!—when something is in fact an organic disorder.” For foreign travel, which he says can be very difficult, Wayne suggests loading up a suitcase with enough of your daughter’s “safe foods” to last your trip as a backup. For them, doing so actually decreased their son’s anxiety, and he was willing to try more things as a result.

Whether or not your daughter has a disorder, given that she’s struggled with her food sensitivities her whole life, I think it’s best to believe her when she says it’s not something she can help. Things like travel, social occasions, and holidays can be extremely stressful for kids with any kind of eating issues, since they often revolve around food and they may feel pressured or shamed into participating. If family members inquire, I’d just say explain her eating habits are nothing personal and shut it down as a continued topic of discussion. As long as she’s not underweight and she’s getting the nutrients she needs, her eating, while perhaps inconvenient, really isn’t hurting anyone.

********************

2. Dear Care and Feeding,

I have a strange problem with my teenage daughter. This may sound gross, but for years now, she has had this bad habit of picking at the skin around her fingernails. She started doing this when she was around four years old and over a decade later she still hasn’t stopped. As a result, her fingers have horrible-looking cuts on them that are often bleeding. When she was younger, her father and I would try to scare her by telling her no one would want to be her friend if her fingers looked like that or how open wounds could lead to serious infections but nothing has stopped her. She claims that picking at her fingers makes her “feel better,” which is such a crazy thing to say. It makes me so angry that she keeps making excuses. Our daughter claims that she has been trying to stop, but she has been saying that for years and there have been no changes. If she can’t even stop this simple bad habit, how will she do more difficult things in life in the future? What should we do about our daughter’s problem?

— At My Wit’s End

Dear At My Wit’s End,

Rather than getting angry about your daughter’s “bad habit,” consider the fact that it may have an underlying psychological cause. Behaviors like skin-picking, hair-pulling, cheek-biting, etc., when taken to the extreme, are called body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) and may be related to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Feeling a sense of pleasure or relief after picking is absolutely normal for people struggling with this issue, not “crazy.” I suggest you first educate yourself on these behaviors—you can find more information from the TLC Foundation for BFRBs and the International OCD Foundation. Then I suggest using one of their resource directories to find her a therapist, before finding yourself one to also help you to understand mental health issues, cope with your daughter’s problem, and figure out how to be a source of support to her, which she so desperately needs.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/04/when-in-laws-cross-boundaries-parenting-advice-from-care-and-feeding.html

Comments

[conuly]

Some people shouldn't be parents, honestly. My advice to these two LWs is broadly the same, so let's do that: Your child is not deliberately doing these things at you. Don't you think that first child would rather be able to just casually go out to get food with her friends afterschool without first having to worry about whether or not she could eat the food? That, perhaps, it's even a little embarrassing for her to be the only one at school who can't eat what everybody else eats, even if what everybody else eats is cafeteria food? Don't you think that second child would rather have some other way to feel better that isn't objectively painful? And for crying out loud, how dare that LW get mad at this child for trying to feel better. It's been a decade, and in the past decade it hasn't occurred to the parents that a child shouldn't need to feel better so often, and that this might be a sign of a medical and/or psychological problem?

I haven't checked the comments at slate. I can guess what they're like all too well. For some reason, people are really obsessive about gatekeeping who "really" has an eating disorder or food aversion and who's just "picky like a baby". I don't get it, I really don't.

[jadelennox]

My reaction to LW1 was "your first doctor was wrong" (not to say the kid is neuroatypical, but ruling it out was still wrong). And McCombs is right that whether it's a medical issue or not, food is an incredibly ridiculous thing to have a power struggle about. (Although I suspect there's an immigrant parent thing happening there, too. Aargh my parents are going to see what a picky American I have raised, I will be so humiliated.)

My reaction to LW2 was that they should yeet themselves into the sun. "Nobody would want to be her friend"? What is this, the 70s?

[cereta]

Every time I see something about picky eaters, I think, so what if they are just picky? It's still an unpleasant sensory experience. Yes, it can be a problem when a person's list of acceptable foods is extremely small, and yes, it can be a problem when they can't find anything out of the available menu to eat, but it's not the world's worst problem.

Also, I was seven when I realized that if my father or mother didn't like something (say, liver or brussel sprouts), we never had it, whereas I was routinely forced to eat food that made me gag. My mother did, by the time my younger sibs were old enough for it to matter, accept that there was no point in making someone eat food they hate, but it was a journey.

[ysobel]

I had no idea why she had to be so stubborn about the foods that she doesn’t want to eat. [...] she claims that I don’t “understand” her aversion to certain tastes and textures

I mean, you literally don't???

*stares hard at LW*

[shanaqui]

When she was younger, her father and I would try to scare her by telling her no one would want to be her friend if her fingers looked like that or how open wounds could lead to serious infections but nothing has stopped her.

You absolute fucking assholes. Get in the bin.

Struggled with skin-picking my entire life. One of the last times I travelled to an event pre-pandemic involved multiple people coming up and either asking me if I had chicken pox (or another infectious disease) or strongly intimating that I should leave or cover myself since I was making them uncomfortable by existing with scars and scabs. Kid really doesn't need their parents getting in on the act.

[redbird]

Meanwhile, "Ada" probably has no idea why LW1 is so stubborn about trying to get Ada to eat foods that she already knows she hates, instead of giving her things she likes.

[lilysea]

As someone with

a) genuine food allergies; AND

b) genuine food intolerance; AND

c) foods that are migraine triggers; AND

d) sensory aversions to some foods/textures

I would really like it if the way that people talked about what foods people can/do eat changed to be non-judgemental and non-shaming.

Also, sensory aversions are ***involuntary***.

I can eat omelettes (and I actually quite enjoy omlettes if they are thin/firm/hard enough)

but I really struggle with scrambled eggs and can usually only cope with scrambled eggs if I have chewy toast and also distract myself.

I can eat hardboiled eggs, but soft poached eggs are out of the question.

[minoanmiss]

*bangs LW1 & LW2's heads together*

[kiezh]

It's so depressing to read the POVs of parents who literally cannot see their children as *people*. Both of these LWs are determined to resist the idea that their kid has their very own set of sensory experiences, which are not LW's, and that a kid who habitually does something (that their parent finds inconvenient) is VASTLY more likely to be reacting to their own actual lived experience than plotting against their parent's supposed authority.

Making sure there are safe foods to fall back on and establishing standard "plain" restaurant orders (like the rice-and-egg viggorlijah mentioned) will help Ada a lot, especially if LW1 can get her head out of her ass about maliciously misinterpreting Ada's sensory issues as "stubbornness."

Also, LW2, you fucking asshole, get your poor kid some fidget toys. It might not stop the picking entirely! But *something* to redirect the twitchiness to might help minimize open wounds. There are definitely toys out there that are meant to be picked at, stretched, etc. (And hey, consider that if the pain and inconvenience of having constantly injured hands is NOT ENOUGH to stop the picking, there must be some kind of distress that's WORSE if she doesn't? Or possibly an impulse that's so strong it bypasses choice entirely. In any case, shame and pressure are the worst choices and the opposite of helpful.)

[raven]

If I had immigrated to [the US? she doesn't say, but probably] from a non-white culture as a young adult and was taking my children to my homeland for the first time, and was then told by my child that it wasn't worth taking her there because she wouldn't enjoy it, I would blow the hell up too. The food stuff seems to be where everyone's rage is centred, but it feels to me that both parent and child are fighting over that because it's easier to fight over it, rather than a bigger thing.

[feast_of_regrets]

What were the "other things," LW #1?

Anyway. The only time I got to go to a different country, I spent six weeks in Brazil with a host family. Was I horrified and embarrassed that much of the local cuisine made me gag (huge textural issues/different flavor combinations)? Yes. Would I love to be able to change my food hang ups so I can enjoy more things? Of course. Did I eat a lot of bread and bananas and McDonalds while I was there? Yes. Did I have fun otherwise? Also very much yes. If LW #1 hadn't scared her daughter with the prospect of meals where no accommodation would be granted for her eating issues, her daughter would not have written off the whole idea of a trip to Taiwan with a joke. It does sound like mom and daughter have some pretty huge cultural issues going on, but also mom is being hugely controlling over food. She may not be an abuser, but she's doing an abusive thing. (Also, fist bump of solidarity to daughter, who probably won't get her ADHD or whatever it is diagnosis until she's in her 30s or 40s since one blasted doctor wrote it off.)

Just yeet LW #2 into the sun.