PenPenWrites

What is it about table manners? A lot of grandparents flip out over the way small children eat their food. I'm not talking about food fights, but about eating food with fingers or whining about the food they're served or just messing with the food on their plate. Or, even more annoying, having to prepare special meals for each little person.

A friend whose daughter, son-in-law and three small children came to live with her for a year (the daughter was awarded a special internship in her parent's hometown; the son-in-law telecommuted), says the biggest tension was at the dinner table:

"My husband was very impatient with the kids at meal time. He just couldn’t deal with the noise, the picky eating. He didn't like that the kids were not doing what their parents told them to. He would lose his temper. He should have had more sense than to do that. The parents are right there. When parents are there, they are in charge. He didn’t need to be stepping in. My daughter would say, "Dad, I’m handling this." But it made her mad.

"I had my issues, too. Our generation did not cater to our kids' eating preferences the way this generation does. When my daughter's family was living with us, I would go in to prepare a meal and feel like a short-order cook. I didn’t like it, but I did what I had to do. And I didn’t say anything about it. But it was annoying."

It's one thing to watch how meal times play out when we're visiting our children's families in their homes. If there's a mess, it's their mess. If there are special requests, they're used to it. It seems to be quite another matter when it's our house. Maybe it's the feeling that aliens have invaded our space. Or we feel like we ought to be in charge–but we're not.