How come I no longer hear "Eat your food because children are hungry in China"?

Question

Do they say "Eat your food because children are hungry in the USA"?

Answer 1

Maybe cause the kid thinks

'if children are so hungry in china then instead of trying to force feed food to me when I'm not hungry, your money would be better spent buying food for those starving children in china you care'

..or maybe not :)

Answer 2

Maybe you're not a kid anymore!

Actually, I have 2 kids and I have never used this.  I remember one time telling my mom to send what I had on the plate to them.  Never said that again!  But Mom never told me about the starving kids around the world again either.

Answer 3

My grandmother was raised in China and they used to tell her to eat all her rice because there were starving children in the USA.  (Of course, that was the 1930s, so there really were lots of starving children in the USA.)

I think parents have stopped saying that to their kids for two reasons.  One, they got sick of hearing it themselves and two, kids these days have the internet and can send an instant message to their chat buddies in China to see if it's true or not.

My mom had a friend with an interesting childhood story regarding this foolish (and rather arrogant) saying.  My mom's friend (I'll call her Lisa) went to a Catholic school as a child.  One day, one of the nuns contacted Lisa's mother and informed her that her child was not eating her peas!  Lisa's mother said, "So?  Lisa hates peas."  The nun, exasperated, said, "Did you know that there are children starving over in China who would love to have those peas?"  Lisa's mother said, "So box up the peas and send them over to China.  Lisa's not eating them."  Solved that argument:)

Answer 4

My mom would say that hungry children in Vietnam would love to have what was on my plate.  I never told her to send it to them, but she did eventually stop saying it.  I agree that it is absofreekinglutely rediculous to say something like that to your children.

Are we trying to generate a complex in so fragile a mind?

Answer 5

My generation got so sick of hearing it, that we vowed never to say it! It's meaningless anyway, even as a child it made me angry to be talked down to like that. It was a silly, meaningless example. Now if my parents had given me an allowance and encouraged me to donate part of it to an organization that actually gave humanitarian aid to specific project so I could see the results and say "I had a part in that" it would have been different.

No child can relate to someone half a world away with just words!

Answer 6

No now they say study real hard becuse that kid in India don't care about that cup of rice any more they are now compeating for your job.