A Majority of One Still Needs to Win

With Thanksgiving being less than a week away it’s no wonder our thoughts gravitate toward sitting ]around the table with our family and/or friends eating more than we should, and enjoying those obscure foods we save for this time of year. You know which ones I’m talking about—those Jell-O salads with their weird combinations of ingredients, stuffing, sickeningly-sweet sweet potatoes, and cranberry something or other. Or do we really look forward to them? How many of you actually eat these "it-wouldn’t-be-Thanksgiving-without-them dishes"?

Personally I like several of those weird ingredient Jell-O recipes. Hey, don’t knock ‘em unless you’ve tried ‘em. As for the stuffing, sugary potatoes, and cranberry ‘whatever’, I’ll pass. But just because I don’t like these things doesn’t mean no one else does. Case in point: the cranberry ‘whatever’. 

My grandpa loved the cranberry salad my mom always made. I think a couple of other people may have taken a bite or two of it, but that was it. So why did she bother? She made it because there was someone at the table who looked forward to it being part of our Thanksgiving meal, and to the leftovers he’d have in the days following. 

Now I know you’re probably thinking the story of my grandpa and the cranberry salad are leading up to a lesson in being thankful or something along those lines. But that’s not it at all. It’s about your responsibility as a parent to make sure your kids know the number one is NOT the loneliest number and that being a majority of one does NOT cancel out their need or right to be heard. 

Let me explain it a little further...

A ‘majority of one’ means there’s only one person in your family who likes, needs, or wants a particular thing. But just because they are the only one, doesn’t release you from your responsibility to make sure they get it. For example, if only one of my four children had a food allergy, would I make them eat the foods they were allergic to because everyone else could? No way! But on the other hand, I wouldn’t keep the non-allergic kids from eating it.

What I’m saying is that your children need to know that not only is it okay to be their special, unique self, but that you will help and encourage them in the process. I’m not talking about fixing three different meals because you have picky eaters. I’m talking about life; academic strengths and weaknesses, natural talents and abilities, personality traits, and preferences in music, clothes, and things like that. 

So remember, a majority of one is still a majority when it comes to your kids, and majority always ‘rules’. 

                             HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM OUR FAMILY TO YOURS

Love,

Momma D

                    Copyright 2018 Darla Noble. No part of this can be used or copied without permission from the author.