I saw a commercial on TV this morning and it really showed how times have changed since I was a kid.
It was a commercial for Fibre 1 cereal. It starts with the parents sitting in the kitchen eating breakfast when the mom suddenly realizes she forgot to buy their son’s favourite cereal during her grocery trip. OMG!!!! She’s really stressed over it.
Then the son (who’s like 8-9) enters the kitchen and asks what’s for breakfast. The dad picks up the box of Fibre 1 cereal, hides the “Fi” on the box and tells him to try the new “Number 1″ cereal, trying to make it sound cool.
The mom is cringing in fear in case the son doesn’t like it.
Turns out, the kids says it’s pretty good.
Mom looks surprised yet relieved. Crisis averted!!
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
Jeez – that kid is running that house. In my day, we were told “This is what we’re having for breakfast.” And if we didn’t like it, too bad – we could wait til lunch and take our chances that it was something we liked. And if it wasn’t, well, there was always dinner. 
I don’t get it – yet it seems like a growing trend. Why are parents afraid to run their household? What’s the worst that can happen? The child eats something that he doesn’t particularly love? Suffers a twinge of discomfort?
There are starving people all over the world but little Tommy can’t eat *that* cereal because it’s not his favourite? Wow. So that’s where the sense of entitlement comes from with kids today…
Don’t even get me started on parents making a different meal for every child in the house.
Ok, venting over.
Haha! I’ve seen this commercial- very true! As I kid I used to hate boiled kielbasa and baked beans. Guess what we used to have for dinner all the time? Kielbasa and beans…. and did I eat it? You bet! At least I was allowed to peel off the skin!
LOL – we used to call that dish “beans and weans” (weans is short for weiners.
I still call it that to this day!