When I first met the grandmother of two of the children I fostered and ultimately adopted, she wouldn’t make the children, 2 and 3 years old, sit down to eat their dinner and would fix them toast or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before bed when she had them. She was a wonderful old woman and was really trying so hard. We talked about her letting them get up without eating and then getting what they wanted before bed. I was dealing with the aftermath of her bad habits.
She told me she had a 13 year old son who was going to ride his bike to the company store to pick up a Lilt Perm for a neighbor in the coal camp where they lived. He came in the kitchen while she was preparing dinner and told her the neighbor had asked him to do her the favor. My children’s grandmother said she told her son to hurry home because supper was nearly ready. He tried to pinch a piece of chicken as he walked by the stove and she swatted his hand away and told him no food until supper.
He was hit by a drunk driver on the way to the store and was thrown, bicycle and all, into a dry creek bed off a bridge and died instantly. She cried and asked me what one bite of chicken would have hurt? She said she’d feel guilty about that until the day she died and could never tell her grandchildren no when they said they were hungry.
When God let me be their Mommy, I never forgot that story and never made eating an issue of punishment. I don’t know if it was right or wrong, I tried to teach them to eat healthy and they are healthy now, but that damn story has always stuck with me and I say if you are hungry; eat.