Women in a Cornell University study were more likely to perceive mothers who served a vegetable at dinner as thoughtful compared to those who didn’t. Those who didn’t serve a veggie were viewed as “boring” or “self-absorbed.”

Why, when I was a kid I would have given anything for my mother to quit making veggies which she then forced me to eat. When you’re a kid you love eating at the friends’ house with the coolest mom whose idea of a veggie is ketchup. You love her because she serves cake for dinner and ice cream for dessert.

It wasn’t until my kids were older that I started serving salad as a staple at dinner. When my kids saw the bowl on the table they naturally assumed we were having soup as until then that’s all I used it for. My kids didn’t know you could eat salads outside restaurants.

I’m curious if these same women would judge a single father who serves his kids McDonalds for dinner (sans the veggies) the same way.

When my husband elects to cook dinner he is hailed as a hero. Even though there maybe no carrots or peas on the plate, the man is loved for the effort. Yet, because he is a man who made effort women would judge him to be a loving father, the same way a woman should judge another mother who works to feed her kids; veggies or no veggies.

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