You Have to F*cking Eat by Adam Mansbach - illustrated by Owen Brozman

5 Stars

 

I realize I’m super late to this party, but after spending Thanksgiving in a house occupied by a three year old, I realize there may be no better gift for parents of a toddler than You Have to F*cking Eat. It had been a long time since I’d dined with a three year old. You know what they eat? Frosting. Blue frosting. Not the cupcake, not the turkey that has cleverly been called “chicken” all day in a futile attempt to foil their little genius brain. Certainly they would never eat sweet potatoes or stuffing. But they’ll eat frosting. You know what good parents do? They let the kid eat the f*&^%#g frosting in order to save all the other guests from witnessing the morphing of a perfect towheaded angel into a poster child for Histrionic Personality Disorder.

Watching our friends’ kid reminded me of one of my favorite quotes:

"My kid brother hadn't voluntarily eaten in over three years."

If you have kids, are planning on having kids, or will be babysitting a kid you will eventually experience the non-eating phase. You will be convinced that the child has Scurvy due to his/her refusal to eat a fruit or vegetable or that you are slowly murdering your child via Goldfish cracker since that is the only thing the little bastard will eat without having a total meltdown. You’ll call friends and relatives – seek out “expert advice” from various child behaviorists – you’ll get really close to using extreme measures in order to get some sustenance into this tiny little creature . . .



You’ll hit rock bottom on the day you can’t even go to super shitty chain restaurants any longer because THE. ONLY. G-D. FOOD. THE. KID. USED. TO. EAT. IS. NO. LONGER. PALATABLE. TO. THEM.



Seriously – who DOESN’T like pancakes????



They even work as an agent to help get your kid to Go the F*ck to Sleep . . .



And then, guess what? One day you wake up and the phase is over and eating with gusto begins again. That’s the day you get the bright idea that maybe you should have ANOTHER baby.



I’m sure plenty of people will argue that this book is too short and way overpriced, but really? It’s pretty much perfect.

Although I’m a paper kind of person, it’s hard to resist this story as narrated by “Uncle Walter.”



Give it a listen here for free : )