It runs in the family...

In my home growing up, we were never forced to eat anything we didn't like. In fact it seems that my mother would go to great lengths sometimes to make sure there was always something everyone liked, which is a tall order when you have 7 kids. I remember many times having 2 main courses to chooses from at dinner. Usually one with and one without onions, because not everyone liked onions. This is why for Thanksgiving, we not only had a turkey, but also a ham, or a roast, because not everyone (Pam) liked turkey. We also had several kinds of pies. Now some of you might be wondering why my mother didn't just tell us to eat it or starve, or force it in until we learned to like it. The reason is because when she was a child her mother would make her eat peas. She HATED peas. She told us all about how she would sneak them into her napkin and then hide them behind her dresser. They disgusted her so much that she vowed that she would never make her kids eat anything they didn't want to. As best as I can remember, I don't recall ever being forced to eat anything, and we were never served peas. I couldn't help but think of this when we were having dinner the other night. I had made a chicken, rice and veggie casserole for dinner. A recipe that I had never tried before, and to be honest it wasn't spectacular. Christian didn't care for it in the least, and after eating only two bites, I looked over and saw him carefully scooping it up one fork-full at a time and placing it under his plate. Unfortunately for him his hiding place was a bit more obvious than my mothers, and he was caught right away, and forced to eat at least some of it. This of course caused him to come out in open rebellion against it. He gleefully grinned as he began obviously dropping it on the floor. So I made him get down, pick it all up off the floor by himself, and then I put him back in his chair with the plate and told him to eat it. He picked up the plate and turned it over and smeared it all over the table. So now with the ridiculous mess I have to clean up, and all the stress I went through trying to get him to eat it, only to have to feed him again later, I'm wondering if my mom's way of just making 2 different meals to begin with would actually be the easier route?