Consistency of Parents With Children at the Dining Table
Our work now is a very solemn, earnest work. We cannot evade it. There is the greatest necessity of education in more lines than one. The one great need with you both is to feel that you must be under supervision to God. You are his property. Your children are his property to be trained as younger members of the Lord’s family, not to consider themselves to be especially indulged in any whim and denied nothing. Were you an observer of the same plan of discipline you see others pursuing in managing their children, you would criticize them severely.
(3SM 293.1)
And again, do not indulge yourselves in sitting at the table spread with a large variety of food, and because you enjoy these things, eat them before your children and say, “No, you cannot have this. You cannot have that, it will hurt you”, while you eat largely of the very things you forbid them to touch. Your discipline in this line needs the reformation and the principle of practice.
(3SM 293.2)
It is cruelty to sit down yourself to the third meal, and take satisfaction in talking and enjoying yourselves while you have your children sit by and eat nothing, representing the excellent discipline your children are under to let them watch your eating and not rebel against your authority. They do rebel. They are young now, but to continue this kind of discipline will spoil your authority.
(3SM 293.3)
Urging Children to Overeat
Then again you seem to fear when your children are at the table that they will not eat enough and urge them to eat and to drink. You need not have the slightest concern and show the anxiety you have manifested lest they shall not eat sufficiently. Their little stomachs are small and cannot hold a large amount. Better far let them have three meals than two for this reason. You let them have a large amount of food at one meal. The foundation is being laid for distention of the stomach, which results in dyspepsia.
(3SM 294.1)
To eat and to drink that which is not agreeable to them is not wisdom. And again, be sure and set before them the very food you desire they shall eat. That which is of a healthful quality of food for them is healthful for you. But the quantity of even healthful food should be carefully studied, so as not to introduce into the stomach too large a quantity at one meal. We must ourselves be temperate in all things, if we would give the proper lessons to our children. When they are older any inconsideration on your part is marked.—Letter 12, 1884.
(3SM 294.2)
Establish No One Rule
No eating should be allowed between our meals. I have eaten two meals each day for the last twenty-five years. I do not use butter myself, but some of my workers who sit at my table eat butter. They cannot take care of milk; it sours on the stomach, while they can take care of a small quantity of butter.
(3SM 294.3)
We cannot regulate the diet question by making any rule. Some can eat beans and dried peas, but to me this diet is painful. It is like poison. Some have appetites and taste for certain things, and assimilate them well. Others have no appetite for these articles. So one rule cannot be made for everyone.—Manuscript 15, 1889.
(3SM 294.4)