Jennifer Garner: The harder you work on food, the less likely your kids will eat it

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These quotes from Jennifer Garner in the title are from a panel she did in September, but I keep up with the news about her and they’re new to me. People Magazine used them as filler for one of Jen’s “relatable mom!” moments on Instagram, a photo she posted of herself in wet hair, her robe and slippers while waiting for her daughter’s school bus. That’s below. She bugs, but this is her brand and she’s done a lot toward building that with Instagram so I get it. I also sometimes do find her relatable, like this story she told about making homemade stuff for your kids and having them reject it.

“I can’t really complain about my kids,” she said in September, speaking at an INBOUND panel in Boston, Massachusetts. “They’re pretty awesome. They humor me.”

“But I have chilled out and stopped trying to be my mom,” she added at the panel, explaining that growing up, her mom cooked everything from scratch and she used to try to do the same.

“Here I am making homemade wheat thins like a nerd and my kids don’t want them,” she said. “The harder you work on whatever you’re making for your kids, the less apt they are to eat it.”

But Garner’s new laid back approach to parenting hasn’t affected her need to protect her kids’ privacy.

“It’s so gnarly to be a kid now,” Garner told InStyle in August. “I guard my kids’ privacy as much as I possibly can, and I’ve never posted pictures of them on Instagram. I used to refuse to say their names during interviews — but everyone knows their names! I would just say ‘my eldest,’ which I still do out of habit a lot.”

“I’m sure there are times my kids would really love to see themselves reflected on my social media in a fun way and to have the attention they would get from that. But I’ve fought too hard against it. It would feel hypocritical,” she continued. “There’s no implied judgment of people who do put their kids up there; I just don’t think most kids have been hounded in the way that mine were when they were little.”

[From People]

We did report on that second filler quote People Magazine is using, the one about not posting her kids photos on Instagram and guarding their privacy. That’s a mixed bag with Garner and Affleck in that we always see them out with their kids when they have a PR crisis. I suspect there’s no escaping that cycle unless they move. I wanted to talk about cooking though. I do cook him meals, but when my son was smaller I stopped bothering because he never seemed to really like what I cooked. I swear I could cook the exact same thing as my mom and grandma’s was always better. Now that he’s a teenager though he appreciates the dinners I make and so I cook for him more. He once told me he knew when we were having company because I would make dinner and that cut me deep. After that I made it a goal to cook for him about twice a week, no matter how busy I am. I know that’s not much and I make quicker meals on the off days, like black bean or turkey burgers, baked potatoes with ham and cheese and things like that.

Here’s Jen’s post, which gave us yet another reason to talk about her. She knows her audience.

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photos credit: Avalon.red, Backgrid and via Instagram

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49 Responses to “Jennifer Garner: The harder you work on food, the less likely your kids will eat it”

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  1. Anners says:

    Her schtick isn’t for me (not a parent), but I do kind of admire her honesty about parenting. It’s done in a cutesy way, but she’s still saying that with all her time and resources it still never works out ‘perfectly’ and I think that’s an important message for parents to hear.

    • Wilady says:

      I’m not convinced it’s a schtick. I think this is just her. She doesn’t pretend to be poor or anything, she’s just relatable. I get what she’s saying about trying too hard making things from scratch, because I do too, and I spend SO much time in the kitchen trying to get things done and clean up after myself my kids joke about it, and honestly? they would be happy with a tube of cookie dough from the store and frozen veggies burgers. But that’s who I am, and I can’t imagine doing this crap to just look like a certain type of way.

      I don’t think anyone could keep up a crazy detailed facade like that unless they’re a total psychopath lol. I mean most people edit themselves a little, but I think to buy a wardrobe of costumes, have a home full of kitschy props, and do things that just don’t speak to you for a whole lifetime… It would crack at some point.

      • Wilady says:

        Dang it didn’t read your full comment again. One of these days I’ll stop replying within a minute of waking up. Sigh. I’m an idiot.

  2. Ali says:

    That headline is truth.

    • escondista says:

      Truth. I will make a full thanksgiving dinner and my toddler will probably want a bite of the potatoes and the apple pie. If I make a grilled cheese and microwave some frozen green beans she’ll laud the chef and tell others of my skill.

      • Lilly (with the double-L) says:

        My son’s kindergarten teacher was putting together a cook book and we had to write out their favorite dish. When I asked my son it was macaroni and cheese with hot dogs cut up in it. So copy the box directions and my trick (very exclusive, I’m sure) of cutting up the hot dogs into the water you’re boiling for the macaroni and voila! As for Jen, I’m neutral and don’t really seek out her projects or movies, but if she’s in something I’m interested in, I watch.
        p.s. no fancy handmade mac and cheese, just from the box, otherwise it’s “icky.”

      • escondista says:

        my two year old would approve of this recipe.

      • Pineapple says:

        My nine-year-old could survive on store bought chicken fingers. He is the worst. XO

      • Nicole76705 says:

        Same here. My 5 year old just discovered peanut butter, not for my lack of trying though. He told me the other day “Peanut butter is the BEST, Mom!” I replied, “yeah, I know, I’ve been trying to tell you that for 5 flippin’ years.”

        On all the daycare mother’s day fill in the blank things they do, he always said his favorite food that I cook are chicken nuggets. 😀 Yeah, buddy, microwave and done.

      • Amy Too says:

        Lilly with the double L, I am so glad my son is now in middle school and all of his homework is stuff that he can do on his own. I always hated the “homework” and projects from preschool through about third grade that were basically just asking the parents to do work. Stuff like the recipe book for your kids school. Why? Why is that a thing? You’re just making the parents of toddlers and very young kids do a bunch of random extra work at home when they’re already raising kids through the most hands-on, labor intensive part of the kid’s life. Recently, one of my friends had to have her 4 year old count all her Halloween candy, sort it into different categories, use tally marks to count each pile, and then glue an example of each candy to the paper. Why? Why can’t have them count something and teach the tally marks at school? A 4 year old is not going to have the attention span or the fine motor skills to sit and make 50 tally marks, all of the same size, all fitting in the little box on the worksheet. They just start scribbling after awhile and don’t really get that you have to use only one tally mark for each piece of candy. You’d have to spread this kind of assignment out over multiple different sittings, maybe counting only 5-10 pieces at a time, over 10 different sittings. Also not a fan of “everyone dress up in clothes from a certain country that we’re learning about,” because now I have to buy a complete “traditional German” outfit for a kid who will complain about how it fits and feels and will only wear it once. One time, my first grader had to make a family tree at home, complete with photos of each family member, how everyone was related, birthdays, etc. So I have to locate and print/make copies of a bunch of different pictures, figure out everyone’s birthday, and help him write out 20 different people’s full names and birthdays onto a poster board. And if he makes a mistake with his letters or numbers, we have to either start over again or I have to get the white-out out and then wait for it to dry so he can write over it. And you can’t send your 5-6 year old kid on the bus with a great big poster board so he had to be driven to school that day. I could rant about this kind of stuff all day long (also not a fan of “make valentines for the 30 kids in your class and write their name and your name on them!” for 3 year olds) and maybe everyone else is fine with these kind of assignments and projects that get sent home with their very young kids. I just think it’s kind of weird and annoying to send home “homework” that basically just asks the parents to do a bunch of random and additional work. Like what is the point of collecting a bunch of preschoolers favorite food recipes and putting them into a cookbook? What is a preschooler going to do with that?

    • Ravensdaughter says:

      OMG, I remember when I started trying to introduce my boys-then 5 and 6-to decent food, and all they wanted was pizza and burgers. Something broke inside me then, and I haven’t been able to cook like did pre-kids ever since.
      Fortunately, my ex skipped all that frustration and he is now a good cook. So, over the years-they are 18 and 19 now-they have had good food.

    • moco says:

      Yep. When my husband is out of town we eat refried bean and cheese burritos for dinner and I wonder why I ever bother to make anything else. Costs $3, takes 3 minutes, and the kids snarf it down. Sigh.

  3. zee says:

    I used to work in a kindergarten and from personal experience I can tell you it’s true. Just throw some mashed potatos on a plate and make a smiley face with peas and the kids will be happy.

  4. Cidy says:

    I think shes a pretty sincere person, I think a lot of pap strolls she does is for Ben’s sake, think of all the strolls they’ve done for him with the kids tagging along and I think about my own alcoholic father and my mom bandaging it. We usually see them like going to a soccer game or church or whatever, and I remember after a particularly rough night my mom would always take us to do something “fun” or “normal” with our dad to try and like, take away the bad memories and I think a lot of that is what Jen is doing here. She knows her kids are old enough to read the horrible gossip about their dad and she wants them not to see that day as “the night daddy stumbled in drunk and mom had to fix him again.” But more, Dad fell off the wagon, mom wants us to be a family we can be normal. If that makes sense?

  5. Becks1 says:

    It is known.

    (in response to the headline.)

    She used to bug me, but I started following her on facebook and her kitchen videos are really cute and fun. There’s something self-deprecating about them without seeming like she’s trying too hard, you know?

    The only things my kids seem to prefer over something homecooked is something I cant make at home – like a McDonald’s hamburger or something (no judgement, they have a few a year and live to tell the tale, lol.) But they don’t really care if I make homemade mac and cheese or a restaurant has the same mac and cheese.

    I cant think of anything I specifically make though that they request just as I make it.

  6. Murphy says:

    There’s a difference between making home-made wheat thins and making home-made chicken casserole for dinner though.

  7. Cupcake says:

    God it’s so true! I love to cook but feel so uninspired lately as my 2 and 6-year old refuse to eat so much food.

  8. Isabelle says:

    Truth but as someone who has raised a kid, part of growing up a healthy kid is they eat what you fix. They don’t they don’t get rewarded with our so called pleasure foods. I sat in a conversation with some moms the other day who talked about their picky eaters and they resorted to chicken nuggets, P&B sandwich’s & quesadillas and basically junk food. this is why so many Americans are unhealthy, parents feeding them very different food than they would eat and it often unhealthy.

    • aang says:

      Idk. I have a now 19 year old that went through a phase of only PB&J and steamed green beans for 3 months solid when she was 2. I didn’t sweat it. I figured that I don’t eat food I don’t like so why should I make my kids. For a few months my son lived on whole wheat bread smeared with mashed yams and covered in cheese, then heated in the toaster oven. They both eat ridiculously healthy and varied now as young adults. My son still loves sweet potatoes but my daughter wouldn’t touch white bread or homogenized peanut butter for anything. Kids have phases and they grow up.

    • Vauvert says:

      I solved this with three simple rules (not my credit, but my kid for not fighting, throwing tantrums, etc.).
      The 1st rule is that 90% of food we eat is home made. Of course I try to make things we all like, but i love cooking and trying new recipes, and until you make a new recipe how do you know if everyone enjoys it? You don’t. So the 2nd rule is take three bites to make sure it’s a yes or no, then no one is forced to eat something they don’t like, picky husband included (he’s tougher than the kid who actually has a pretty developed palate – he was eating grilled squid at 3 and loving it. Proud parenting moment!)
      3rd rule – we don’t do jink if dinner is a disappointment. There’s always stuff like veggies, cheese, yogurt, peanut butter, eggs, ham, in the house so in five minutes even the teen can make himself an alternate meal. I’ve done this since he was a toddler, and he could eat carrots, crackers and toast with jam if dinner was too spicy / saucy whatever. It worked for us but I also know that some kids are super picky no matter how hard you try to feed them. As long as they end up having a balanced diet throughout the day, it’s all fine. You can’t win all the battles. And if none of the parents like cooking, then I can see mealtimes being a struggle in multiple ways.

    • kgeo says:

      I don’t know. My mom was pretty busy, so I ate a lot of hamburger helper that I had prepared as a kid. It was very rare to have an actual homemade meal. I also ate a whole tube of oreos out of the package as a snack on a regular basis. I don’t really remember eating fruits or vegetables on a regular basis. I now appreciate a very wide variety of foods and eat really well, and am pretty fit. My kids are pretty picky, so they get fruits of a texture they can tolerate, but the rest is not too far off of what you described. They’re going to be fine. I should add though, that we don’t have a history of heart disease or obesity in my family, so… I don’t know. Good for everyone that can get their kids to eat vegetables.

    • Nicole76705 says:

      What a load of crap…..maybe true for a few, but for the rest of us, our taste buds change as we grow older and we adapt. Things we didn’t like as a child start to taste good after several years of maturity. Signed a childhood picky eater.

    • Kosmos says:

      Giving your kids nutritious healthy food will start them off in the right direction. But healthy doesn’t have to mean complicated. I mean, kids don’t need sophisticated recipes or food. They’re happy with simple, aren’t they? I’m very much against sodas and unhealthy sweets, and some kids were brought up eating way too much of this. When they get older, they can eat what they want, and hopefully, the healthy eating will have made an impact on them by that time. I’m always hearing how kids don’t like vegetables, but I always loved them as a kid. What isn’t good is that some schools do not serve healthy lunches ugh.

  9. Sarah says:

    The favorite thing my kid’s ask for me to make is chicken noodle casserole. They love it!

  10. Alexis says:

    I like her and find her relatable. Maybe that makes me basic but it is what it is

    • Soupie says:

      Me too. I think shes charming, relatable and sweet. She is onto something. And really cute.

      My 2 kids were terrors about eating but as 30-somethings they’re healthy now, 1 vegetarian and 1 vegan… I’m definitely not. (Definitely a carnivore.) They spent years eating only about 4-5 things aside from McDonald’s and Halloween candy. Crazy making.

  11. carmen says:

    The school bus reference has me confused. There are numerous pap photos of her doing pick up and drop offs with her kids and she has indicated in interviews that it’s part of her routine. Up until now, I thought she was pretty authentic and doubted the manufactured mom image…

    • Wilady says:

      Some days I do pickup, some days I do bus. The little is always dropoff, the big is always morning bus. I don’t see why she might be any different.

    • Jenfan says:

      Violet graduated and started a new school last year. Apparently an exclusive all girls middle / high school in LA. She is not seen on a daily basis at the drop off / pick up. It was probably her bus.

      • Becks1 says:

        Violet is in middle school? Yikes I feel old lol.

      • Amy Too says:

        Why is Jen at the bus stop for her middle schooler though? It looks like the “bus stop” is their driveway or really close to their home since she’s got wet hair and is holding her coffee mug. Why would you need to accompany your kid to the end of their own driveway when they’re middle school age?

  12. Kate says:

    I learned this lesson the first time I made my own baby food. Just steaming and pureeing some peas somehow took me like an hour (everything takes me like an hour in the kitchen) and even though they were the prettiest shade of green my daughter didn’t like it as much as the peas in a jar. I might have tried a couple more times after that but time is precious as a mom and I’d rather be efficient with it if no one is enjoying the fruits of my labor ya know?

    • Becks1 says:

      Yeah I made homemade baby food a few times with my first. He preferred the store bought kind (or maybe I did, since it was so much easier lol) and that was that. I didn’t even do babyfood with my second haha.

  13. JB says:

    So her photog just happened to capture her “authentic” moment that morning? Zzzz so fake.

    • Jenfan says:

      I think it’s the assistant/ former nanny we see her with all the time. Who knows maybe she lives at the house. Jen has said that she does all her instagram stuff.

      Or maybe it happened or it did not and decided to stage a photo later to post

    • Lady D says:

      I felt sorry for her in that picture. She can’t step out of the house into her own yard, without carrying her phone. It would seriously suck to be so dependent on a phone that you couldn’t put it down to go outside.

  14. Seraphina says:

    I once made Alton Brown’s Mac and cheese from scratch. My kids ate it. It said the Kraft powdered stuff is better. I’ve made red velvet brownies with cream cheese frosting but they like boxed. I have never made homemade cheese it’s. And they like the processed stuff. . So I tend to agree with her.

    • Lena says:

      Same with me. I grew up on homemade Mac and cheese and loved it but once my kids told me they preferred the kraft powdered stuff I said fine and that’s what they get.

  15. Nancypants says:

    Alton Brown taught me to brine a turkey and he’s smart, funny and kind of hot!

    Martha S. taught me to place cheesecloth over the turkey and pour melted butter mixed with Pinot Grigio over it and then leave it alone except to remove the brown cheesecloth near the end.

    I’ve started making lobster bisque. I just took a couple of recipes and chose the parts I liked best AND I ordered a 6 pack of lobster stock from Amazon. It’s certified from Maine. Bar Harbor brand and Kroger’s has frozen lobster meat (no shell) from Canada now. No fuss. It makes a difference.

    My kids love duck. Duck? I made one for the first time one year ago and again just looked at several recipes and combined.
    Truss it, prick the skin not the meat, shove a bunch of little orange slices – peel on -and some garlic cloves and parsley in the cavity, and squirt some orange juice over the whole thing. Faster and easier than a turkey IF YOU LIKE DUCK.

    It really depends on the kid. My son was a major pain in the ass.
    I tried and tried and finally threw in the towel and bought him what he’d eat which was pretty much Hot Pockets, frozen burritos, mashed potatoes, hot dogs, hamburgers, instant oatmeal and PBJ.
    He’s a grown-ass man now and still rarely eats fruits or vegetables.

    Last time I went to visit, everything was fried or grilled outside. His whole family eats like that.
    They aren’t super healthy.

    My girls have much better taste and always have had and I think it’s because I’d learned to cook well -and had more money- by the time they came along.
    Okay, they’re spoiled.

  16. Carina says:

    While I find her annoying & she talks almost always in a semi-babyvoice I DO think it comes from a genuine place

  17. Jo says:

    It makes me wonder who took the (bath robe) photo? Was it her child and if so, did she ask them to? I dunno, I guess for me, relatable Mum moment doesn’t include a photographer. Relatable mum moment to me is, get the kids off to school and get to work without being late… not contriving a cute story around it.

    • Marigold says:

      It could have been any number of people, and it doesn’t have to be contrived. /shrug

      It’s part of this woman’s job–part of her ability to put food on the table in the long-term, to keep an image and project it.

      I don’t shade her for any of this stuff. The picture could’ve been taken by a nanny, her boyfriend, the neighbor she has morning coffee with, a yoga partner, her cook, another one of her kids…anyone.

      She’s doing her job by trying to maintain name recognition and relevance. She’s built her relevance around being a girl-next-door mom. This is pretty consistent with that. So she DID put her kid on the bus and go to work.

  18. Ramona Q. says:

    This is a real question, I am not trying to be judgmental. I don’t have kids. Why do you above parents feed your kids such crap? McDonalds and mac and cheese and hot dogs? Why don’t you feed them real food from day one? Somebody tried to introduce decent food at age 5 … why not from the start? Aren’t you developing terrible eating habits in your kids?

  19. virginfangirls says:

    Maybe my kid’s an anomaly, but even as a toddler she always loved home cooked over the frozen or boxed stuff. For example, she disliked boxed mac & cheese or those frozen chicken nuggets. I remember at age 7, at a restaurant with all our family, she insisted on ordering the duck while all the other kids ordered their chicken tenders and fries. Home cooked meals were never wasted on her. I would get up every morning and make her a home cooked lunch. She loved quinoa with black beans, home made fried rice, this Mexican bake with sweet potatoes, beans and peppers. It actually made me eat healthier as I would eat the same. Now that she’s gone to college I find myself taking the easy way out.

  20. Carolnr says:

    We always say you have to at least try it before you say you don’t like it. If you try it & don’t like it, …you don’t have to eat it.
    Alot of times they actually do like it.
    ( This works for husbands, too, lol!)

  21. Marigold says:

    I thank my 16 year-old on a regular basis for not ever doing that to me. I come from a family where we were what I call “American poor.” We never had enough money, but we had clothes and a roof and food to eat. Make sense? Not “real world poor” but “American poor.”

    Some things were a struggle. My parents never could’ve afforded to offer the processed crap picky kids like to eat. What they cooked is what we got, and there were some over-the-top things done around our dinner table that led to a weird relationship with food. Cleaning the plate is the worst rule, in my opinion. Forcing a child to stuff herself because of an arbitrary amount placed on the plate is…not good. Anyway, I digress.

    I worried about how I would parent if I had a picky eater child of my own, but our kid was just never picky. She doesn’t like potatoes. That’s it. That’s the only food. She ate literally anything else I put in front of her, and that made us so grateful.

    I feel for you moms out there dealing with picky eaters, doing your best, trying everything. I didn’t have that struggle at my own table, but I have watched my friends struggle with it. It’s not an easy thing to parent, and it’s so easy to mess it up/beat yourself up over it.