why are we so mean to our mothers?

I'll be the first one to admit it. I'm mean to my mom. Not purposely, mind you, just incapable (i hope?) of taking her feelings into consideration when I open my mouth (just wide enough for my foot). I don't think it's just me, though. I know my daughter does it, too.

Almost weekly (usually a bit more often), she'll comment on how much food I eat. Ever since staying a year at her dad's, she is very conscientious about what she eats, how much she eats, and the eating habits of those around her. She didn't grow at all last year. It's not exactly hurtful to make the observation that I eat a lot. All the time. At every meal. But it also doesn't make me feel especially good about myself. At the beginning of the year, when asked about her teacher, Scooter said that her teacher was almost as old as me, "but MUCH prettier." Seriously? I've seen Scooter's teacher. She's not all that.

As my mother once wished upon me, my daughter DID end up just like me. As in, she doesn't realize that her mom has a feeling. I even do it when my mom isn't listening. At work last week, I was eating some home-made squash soup. I LOVE this recipe, and Ben and I have been making it every week, with the squash variety that we get from our CSA. I made mention to a coworker, who's about my mom's age, that my mom used to force us to eat squash, and I HATED it. I wondered aloud what my childhood would have been like if my mom had just made us something delicious with that dreaded squash.

Well...don't you worry, mom. My coworker put me in my place. Things were different even 15 years ago. You couldn't just google an ingredient and have a bunch of user-tested recipes pop up. You relied on friends and family for recipes. And many of those were unchanged for generations - when your food was seasonal and local, and you didn't have access to fancy spices and cooking show techniques. I concluded that if my mom had the resources we have now, she also would have made us delicious food every night. As it was, she "hit" about 85-90% of the time. Not too shabby.

But now that I reflect on this, I'm guessing Scooter doesn't like 85% of what we cook, and I'm sure, since Bubba only eats about 50% of the time, that I'm only batting about .475. Hmm...what's wrong with us in this age of instant good recipes, that I'm still unable to please 100% of the people 100% of the time? Maybe it's not our mothers who are failing us. Maybe we're failing our mothers.