Baby Food

All four of our kids have been different in many ways. One of those is not one that I had anticipated. It has to do with raising children. I expected them to use different techniques, practices, and rules in discipling their children. After all, the way we raise our children has a lot to do with the way that we were raised. But, if we treated our children the same in discipling them, then would it not be sensible to think that they would all discipline in the same manner as their parents. Not so, or at least that is what I believe.

I contend that our children raise their children more like they would like to have been disciplined themselves while growing up. Over the years as I have watched our children dealing with their children, there have been many times when I would have liked to say something in the way of a suggestion, but I tried to keep quiet and let my children raise their children the very best that they could. I slipped up sometimes, and for the most part my kids would let me know that I had spoken out of turn. Rightly so!

There are things other than discipline where our kids have differed in their approach to various things—for example, daily chores, teenage dating, allowances, buying “things”, drinking sodas, etc.

One thing that I have noticed big differences in has been what and when to feed their babies. I am thinking more about solid food rather than milk. Our kids had different opinions about when to feed solid food. I was ready to feed them smushed up purple hull peas when they were six months old, but the parents did not agree with that. I slipped them a little sweet tea every now and then. They all ate baby food at one time or another as did our kids—when it was available i.e. none in West Africa.

When I fed our babies baby food, I wanted to just feed them and get it over with-- at my pace which is always fast. I would shovel it all in and you know what happened? Sometimes the baby would spit it all out on me, and I deserved it.

What I did not understand was that our babies needed time to process this new sensation. I was about finishing the task without concern for how to get there. Those babies needed more time to enjoy the texture, the movement in the mouth, and the blast of tastes. I was in too big of a hurry to get the food down so I could move on to something else.

A lesson I learned from these experiences—later in life—was this: when you are delivering a message to someone, your audience may not hear your message as quickly as you deliver it. They may be listening, but understanding takes more time. Sometimes we talk our message to death and the other person or persons cannot absorb what we need to say to them. Let them savor your words and understand you. It takes a few minutes to process the meaning of words. All words have meaning, and we want others to understand the intent of our words.