Before Ezzo (and boy, does that date ME!) I remember my year-old son and I
visiting with a neighbour and watching her feed her two-year old daughter.

The little girl was wrapped in a huge bib, the kind with sleeves, and sat in
her highchair. Mom held a jar of pureed commercial baby food and fed her
daughter tiny spoonfuls, wiping her mouth after each mouthful. After she had
finished, she put a couple of pieces of fruit on her daughter's tray. The
little girl immediately swiped the food off the tray and beamed up at her
mommy, as if to say, "Aren't I a good girl?"

My neighbour turned to me with an exasperated look on her face.
"If only I could get her to feed herself!" she said, looking at my son, who
was sitting on my lap at the table, stuffing his face with food from my
plate.

So we talked about it....and it turned out that she was:
* Fearful of her daughter choking on lumps of food - hence the purees
* Obsessed with keeping mess to a minimum - hence her daughter's swiping
food off the tray, in imitation of her mother's constant wiping of it with a
sponge
* Concerned about proper table manners - she would not allow her daughter to
feed herself until she had learned how to use a spoon and fork, but never
gave her the opportunity to do so.

This same little girl was pronounced toilet-trained shortly after her
two-year birthday, despite the fact that she wet her bed every single night
for over a year after that - but don't all children have accidents?

When she turned four, she was given three special new toys marked
"educational." Every day, her mother would sit down on the floor next to her
and demonstrate which key went in which lock...

sighingggggg in Big Flats, Upstate New York
Norma Ritter, IBCLC

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