On Being A Kid

There is an issue which has been long weighing on my mind. Why is it that adults pick the one vegetable that a child does not like and then force them to eat it? Perhaps because I am not myself a parent, it is simply impossible for me to grasp the deep underpinnings of the parental psyche. But, really, why. Growing up I was more inclined towards vegetables than most of my peers. I happily devoured caesar salads, ate carrots, was one of the few individuals on earth to actually enjoy brussel sprouts (preferably raw), along with a slew of other little regarded veggies such as turnips. Indeed turnips were a staple snack which appeared consistently in lunches packed by my mother, that is, until I entered third grade when our lovely principal suggested that we should all be packing our own lunches ( I believe my mother may have been the only one to take her up on that suggestion, and quite gleefully). But no matter. There are quite a lot of advantages to packing your own lunch as a child. I never pulled from the depths of my pale any edible which I had not pre-approved. 

But I digress. Vegetables. I would have, and did, eat almost any vegetable delivered to my plate my the parental units, just thankful that I lived in a post frozen vegetable age when fresh produce had come back into vogue. Yet, despite my willingness to eat almost anything green, orange, or squash, my parents repeatedly pronged asparagus onto my unwilling plate. Again and again I would remind them that I not only did not like asparagus, but found that it motivated what was inside me, to come out. I even suggested that while they savored their green spears of death, I might dine upon a miniature tree, or perhaps some of those brussel sprouts. But to no avail. They seemed serenely, pathologically devoted to me eating those asparagus (or asparagi, I am a little hazy on the plural). 

Dutifully, for at that age I was obligingly dutiful, still holding the belief that though I might not understand the acts or motivations of my parents they must be right, privileged to some knowledge that I had not yet acquired, I would eat the asparagus, gulping a gallon of milk after each treacherous bite. Then, fatefully one night I was dining at a friend's house. My friend's parents seemed, like mine, to have the pathological desire to have their children eat asparagus. And so the little green spikes of grossness appeared on my plate. Now, I had been raised properly, in the fashion where it is rude to not eat something proffered to you by those who have willingly watered and fed you. And so I realized that not only would I have to consume that which was staring up at me, but I would have to do it gracefully. And then the revelation occurred. I watched as each member of the family spooned, from a pretty little dish on the table, a doblette of mayonnaise onto their plate. They then proceeded, in the case of the adults only lightly, and in the case of the kids with a clear desire to drown, to put the asparagus into the mayonnaise and only then lift it to their lips. Brilliant. Why had I not thought of this earlier? In my house we ate mayo with artichoke, but it had never occurred to me to transfer that practice to the deadly asparagus. Needless to sat I ate two times the weight of the asparagus before me in mayo. Quite happily in fact. In retrospect the amount of fat conveyed to my sleek intestinal system from the mayo far outweighed the benefits of the vegetable. But no matter. My upchuck reflex had been thwarted. From then on I masked every unsavory bite of asparagus with tubs of mayo, regardless of the fact that if a vegetable more to my taste had been proffered I would have had a much healthier meal. And so I reveled in my small victory in the endless skirmish between kids and parents. A small victory for kid world.