Sunday, April 15, 2018

Starving Children in Africa

I found myself dissecting a rotisserie chicken  to the Nth degree like I was an apocalypse survivor or perhaps a contestant on Naked and Afraid.  After I caught myself and had a good laugh I went back to blissfully wasting food, telling myself it isn't like there were starving children from Africa around.

That got me thinking the first time that line got used on me. It came from my paternal grandfather. You have to know that he was the head of his household and he served. Everyone sat down, said grace, and then he picked up a platter and filled it. You got the plate he filled for you.

You can bet that as a giant of a man used to a lifetime of manual labor, he put much more food on the plate than your average suburban kid needed. I remember my mom trying to curb his enthusiasm for piling our plates full. I also remember the withering slit eyed stare he gave her in return.

Anyway, there I was not cleaning my plate, which may be attributed to the massive quantities of food on it or it may be attributed to the fact that my grandmother insisted on making some mystery "relish salad" every meal. It was pink and lumpy and not something I would associate with food. My grandfather admonished me to clear my plate because there were starving children in Africa.

That stopped me in my tracks. I had to ponder that one. It did not compute. It went against all the other kid admonishments that I heard every day. You know, the ones about share your toys, help the less fortunate, blah, blah, blah...  But this... Now you're saying I have food and some kid doesn't, so I should eat mine up real fast????  It didn't seem real Christian.
Anyway, that's childhood for ya, filled with contradictory messages. And just so you know, I did clear my plate today. Twice. I did not share with any starving African children, but I did give some to a Siamese cat that was almost on death's door from hunger (or so she says).

The Fine Print: Stamp by Stampin' Up.

8 comments:

Carol L said...

Hah hah, I was raised with the same story about starving children in China, so I guess it was a world-wide thing. I too was forced to clean the plate that was given to me and many evenings I was in the kitchen at the table in the dark trying to choke down foods I couldn't swallow. LOL Fun card with that cute pup in the wagon - pets are awesome and I'm so glad you finally caved and fed your starving (yeah, right!) cat! lol

kiwimeskreations said...

Glad you pictured healthy children on your card Princess J - not starving ones from where ever in the world. I was not told that story (or any variants) but did have to clean my plate, apart from lemon sago or tripe, neither of which I could swallow!!
Blessings
Maxine

Bonnie said...

I heard that when I was a kid too and we had to clean our plate! It would probably have been more Christian to send the food to the starving African children! But I didn't have their addresses and I knew better than to come back with a smart answer after the first couple of times.

Your card is delightful, PJ! Love that image and it's beautifully watercolored!

Susan Itell said...

I think we're related.....all the way across the country! Great post!

Karen Dunbrook said...

love this vintage feeling image...sweet card.
Yup, I heard it too!
xx Karen

Fikreta said...

When I was kid we clean out plate like in a second because we didnt have plenty food.
When m kid dosent want eat all on her plate I jsut told her how many times I was hungry when I was kid and taht she must be happy that she have every day food to eat.
your card is so very nice!
hugs

stampingbowd said...

I love your card! It's darling!! Such a sweet image. Love the colors you used and the gorgeous background. My mom would often say that she would never use that phrase on us! She said it didn't make sense to her! We just knew if we didn't finish our plates we were going hungry because there wasn't anything else to eat in the house!!! LOL

Words and Pictures said...

So glad you dropped in - I've been a useless blog visitor lately and it takes a nudge to get me going!!

You're so right about the lack of logic in the "starving children" persuasion - doesn't work at all... and I definitely don't fancy the "relish salad".

I do love your sweet card though, and I'm happy to hear you are staving off starvation for your poor neglected Siamese!
Alison x