L is a picky eater — no doubt about it. Certainly she has some odd tastes, odd by the average American girl standards, I think. Still she can throw us a curve ball, protesting something that seems so logical for her to life. Soup is always a hit with her, but K’s tomato soup from yesterday wasn’t a hit. Not sure why: it used to be a big hit. But it wasn’t. And it wasn’t any better tonight when we finished up the leftovers. She basically ate next to nothing, leaving almost a whole bowl of soup. Granted, she got nothing else for the evening with the understanding that she would have to finish the soup before she could have anything else. Nothing.
Tonight, during prayers, we reached “Give us this day our daily bread,” and I pointed out to L that she would get that soup back at breakfast. “We’re not going to waste food, especially when it’s something that you used to like and eat willingly. She fussed, predictably, but then, thinking about reading the news and the horrors occurring in Syria and Iraq as ISIS sweeps through and imposes strict Islamic law, committing their own brand of ethnic cleansing, I decided to give the Girl a little perspective.
“L, there are children in a country called Iraq now who are literally dying because they don’t get food or water.”
“Why?”
Brief overview appropriate for a seven-year-old, includes terms like “bad people” and oversimplification.
“So these children are so hungry, L, that you could spill that soup on the floor, and they would willingly lap it up like they were animals.”
Silence. Wide eyes.
“You’re lucky: you fuss about being given something you don’t want to eat. These children, if they had the energy to fuss, would fuss about not having anything to eat. At all.”
We’ll see tomorrow what happens. I’m hopeful, but I know how stubborn L is. Besides, that “kids starving in [insert country]” argument seems rarely to work.