I give up…
August 25th, 2007Of the thousand things that may seem hard to explain to another person (and parenthood being the role by which you are required to teach, explain, and define another person’s world), I may have just hit upon one of the hardest.
How exactly do you explain to a 4 year old, who has never encountered a bone in his chicken, how you eat a drumstick? I might mention that I seriously doubt that in his 4 years of life he has ever seen meat on a bone. (Am I a bad mommy for that?)
Why did it make more sense for him to hold the fat end and try to eat the skinny end?
What part of “we don’t eat the bone” was so hard to follow?
Why exactly was I trying to explain to my son that we don’t eat chicken bones? I mean we all figured out how to eat a drumstick somehow in our lives right? I don’t recall having to have the “this is how we eat fried chicken” talk.
For what it is worth, drumsticks are “heavy”, require “help” to eat them, and ultimately were consumed when the bright parent (me) stood up and removed the meat from the bone (and a biscuit was promised for his hard work).
Regardless of all of this, I turned my back on the table as I was loading the dishes into the dishwasher long enough for the youngest cat to steal the bone. It was almost as large as the kitten.
Sarah HB:
August 25, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Hmm…my kids fight over the drumstick and I buy extras to roast when I make a whole chicken.
However, your post is funny none the less.
BTW, if all goes well, I move in THURSDAY! ;)))
Niki:
August 25, 2007 at 5:48 pm
If you figure out how to explain it to him, come explain to my almost 17 YO and just turned 12 YO. They won’t eat ANYTHING on a bone. I blame Tyson for making boneless skinless breasts so darned easy. Oh, and McDonald’s. When I was a kid, the only place you could get chicken was at KFC, and there were most definitely bones included. And chickens had neither fingers nor nuggets.
AlisonH:
August 26, 2007 at 12:30 am
And I thought kids not being able to tell time on a round clock face was a tragedy! Truly, it’s a good thing my kids grew up earlier. Just in time! Phew!
Okay, I’m yanking your chain, but this post is funny! Because I can just see it happening, had the chicken tenders and the like been as freely available back in the day (whoa. ten years, maybe?) as they are now.
maxine:
August 26, 2007 at 11:32 am
When I had to explain any such things to my boys, now 22 and 16, the stock answer was always “because”. If they dared to question that, it was never within their father’s hearing. He let them question something he told them at length, but he was firm that you NEVER question anything yo momma is telling you, ever.
As to fried chicken, well that was my wasband’s specialty, and you could eat it any way you please as long as you sucked the bones totally clean. Same is true for ribs.