But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.” - Numbers 11:6 (ESV) 

My goal in this article is to state the obvious: parents must feed their children. I am stating the very obvious on purpose. Parents can become so focused on the minutiae of parenting that they overlook or overcomplicate the most basic things. That is why I wrote about helping them to sleep. However, in the case of eating, there are some complicating factors that parents will face, and about which they must make some decisions. This article treats those. To begin to address the issue of eating, it is good to consider the Israelites’ response to the manna after decades of eating manna almost exclusively. What do we learn about helping children eat from this passage? 

 Variety Is Good

First, we can observe that children, and adults with them, typically enjoy a variety of foods. Of course, some children will restrict their diets to the same few foods if left to themselves. Other children will pursue a large variety and quantity of foods naturally. I have met some children, and even a few adults, whose diets are extremely restrictive by choice. I am not referring to people who have health issues that require the elimination of certain types of foods. I am referring to people, especially children, who by choice eat only a small selection of bland and often processed foods. And yet, when God presented the Garden of Eden to Adam, He told him that every tree’s fruit was available to him for food. Wouldn’t it be strange and unnatural for Adam to restrict his diet to just one or two trees’ fruit? Yet some children will do this, if left to themselves. 

 Uninterested is not the Same as Unable

Second, we can observe that people can complain about food, but can still eat it. The Israelites had eaten mostly manna for forty years. It is understandable that they would wish for something else. However, there are no reports of people choosing to eat nothing and die rather than to continue to eat manna. When faced with sustenance from an unpreferred source and no sustenance, the people chose sustenance. I believe there is a lesson to be learned here for parents. I have fairly frequently heard parents say something to the effect that their kid only eats this or that food, or that they can’t get their kid to eat foods outside a small range. The mistake is in the absolute categories that parents use about their children. When they say that their children will not eat, or they can’t get them to eat, or the kid is unable to eat, they are almost always incorrect. Of course, there are exceptions. Some kids have allergies, so that if they eat certain foods, they might even die. Some kids find certain foods so repulsive that they become nauseous and may even vomit when they try to eat them. These cases should be taken seriously by parents, and parents should have appropriate care and compassion for their children in these cases. However, this is not what I am talking about. I advocate for parents considering their children’s allergies and even their taste to a point, but when parents describe themselves as bound to their children’s wishes and taste regarding food, I get off the bus. We have gone a step too far. 

Parents should have a reasonable expectation that children will eat food that is reasonable for them to eat. It is silly and short-sighted for parents to serve a child fresh and healthy food, only to allow the child to reject it and then bring out the chips or crackers that the child requests (or demands?). Some parents seem to be bound by some sort of guilt or obligation only to serve their child what the child prefers, and then the parents complain about the child’s dietary preferences. In general, it appears quite clear that picky eaters are made, not born. A poor child destitute of resources may have the potential palate of a three-Michelin Star chef, but if rice and beans are the only way the child can subsist, should the poverty-stricken parents believe that they are morally in the wrong because they cannot accommodate their child’s preferences? Of course not. But we have just used the key word in the whole discussion: accommodate. When parents choose to bow to their child’s wishes regarding their diet, they are not generally recognizing a need for their child which, if they do not meet it, their child will die or suffer irreparable harm. They are rather accommodating their child’s preferences, and they should recognize it as such. No child in the world has a need to receive just what they want for every meal. No child in the world has a need for every preference to be accommodated. Parents may choose to accommodate their child’s wishes, but they should not frame it as though their child can somehow only subsist on their favorite foods or they will die. The parents are allowing their child to dictate the terms of their diet, plain and simple. If parents do this, they do not have a right to complain about their child’s dietary preferences, because they are enabling them.  

Surviving is not the Same as Thriving

Third, we can observe that people can survive, and even be healthy, despite not eating all of the food they prefer. The Israelites famously did not enjoy eating the manna every day, even if there were multiple ways to use it. People generally crave variety, probably because a varied diet is generally healthy. Although the Israelites craved different foods, they could survive just fine off the bread from Heaven. This was a way that Israel, who is called Yahweh’s firstborn son in Exodus, provided for His people in the wilderness.[1] What do parents make of this? It is surely not that they should only ever serve their children the same foods and discipline them if they complain. Eating only manna clearly wasn’t ideal. As soon as the people crossed the Jordan and ate off the land, the manna ceased.[2] Ideally, then, a person’s diet is varied and natural, not monotonous (even if the food is from heaven!).

Conclusion

Eating is sometimes an issue fraught with difficulties and conflict between parents and children. A text like Numbers 11:6 helps to maintain important distinctions. What a child wants to eat and what a child needs to eat may be two different things. What a child doesn’t prefer and what a child truly cannot digest are also two different things. Parents need to keep these kinds of distinctions in mind so that their thinking and understanding can be clear. Parents are not required to give a child everything they prefer, but parents should be aware when the choices they make are due to the preferences of the child and when they are due to the needs of the child. Keeping those two separate can go a long way to helping parents make wise decisions about what to feed their children and how to help them eat.

[1] Exodus 4:22: “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son…” 

[2] Joshua 5:12: “And the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.”