For those who dared to read this post, in spite of the scary title, let me first thank you 😀
A few days ago, we went out for dinner with a friend's family, this was the first time we were dining together, and this is what happened ... One of the kids of my friend refused to touch the dosa he had ordered, because the chutney was placed on top of it. His mother promptly took the plate for herself, and asked the server to give dosa without chutney on top of it. But it seems the chutney had already been placed on the dosa in the second plate too, so it was removed before serving it to the boy. The traces were however visible and the boy refused to touch the plate, and it was passed on to his sister. After another request, the third plate came along looking agreeable, with dosa on one side, and chutney at a safe distance away from it. Finally, the boy decided to start eating.
In spite of all my emphasis on being non-judgemental, I could not but refrain from judging my friend for her parenting skills. I wondered how she could allow this kind of picky eating, especially when outside at a restaurant. And he was not a toddler anymore, he is 11 years old now, isn't time for the kids to be trained by now? Thankfully, i kept all these thoughts to myself, and just asked if they never ate out. She replied saying that they had either pizza or Thali meals when they went out. And in Thali meals, they have all the food items given in separate small bowls.
As usual, after a few hours, I felt bad about my initial judgemental reaction, and I tried to find more about this picky eating habit of his. And I came to know about Brumotactillophobia, which means a fear of different food items touching each other. It is a mild form of OCD and it just means that these people are comfortable to have some kind of control over how things, including their food, should be arranged. And most likely it had no relation to my friends' parenting skills, whose elder kid was always happy to adjust to any kind of situation.
So, there you go, if there was anything wrong about anyone, it was me and my fault-finding tendencies. A quote by Aldous Huxley would be good to remember :
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
A few days ago, we went out for dinner with a friend's family, this was the first time we were dining together, and this is what happened ... One of the kids of my friend refused to touch the dosa he had ordered, because the chutney was placed on top of it. His mother promptly took the plate for herself, and asked the server to give dosa without chutney on top of it. But it seems the chutney had already been placed on the dosa in the second plate too, so it was removed before serving it to the boy. The traces were however visible and the boy refused to touch the plate, and it was passed on to his sister. After another request, the third plate came along looking agreeable, with dosa on one side, and chutney at a safe distance away from it. Finally, the boy decided to start eating.
In spite of all my emphasis on being non-judgemental, I could not but refrain from judging my friend for her parenting skills. I wondered how she could allow this kind of picky eating, especially when outside at a restaurant. And he was not a toddler anymore, he is 11 years old now, isn't time for the kids to be trained by now? Thankfully, i kept all these thoughts to myself, and just asked if they never ate out. She replied saying that they had either pizza or Thali meals when they went out. And in Thali meals, they have all the food items given in separate small bowls.
As usual, after a few hours, I felt bad about my initial judgemental reaction, and I tried to find more about this picky eating habit of his. And I came to know about Brumotactillophobia, which means a fear of different food items touching each other. It is a mild form of OCD and it just means that these people are comfortable to have some kind of control over how things, including their food, should be arranged. And most likely it had no relation to my friends' parenting skills, whose elder kid was always happy to adjust to any kind of situation.
So, there you go, if there was anything wrong about anyone, it was me and my fault-finding tendencies. A quote by Aldous Huxley would be good to remember :
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
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