Civil Disobedience

Yesterday, I was watching my mother try to feed my two-and-a-half year old his dinner, and I realized something. Without knowing it, my son has mastered the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. In fact, I bet if you want to understand Civil Disobedience, you need look no further than a toddler. My son ate for a little while and then decided he was done. Normally, I allow that because he should be able to recognize and respond to his own hunger cues. But since he’s been sick, he has not been eating nearly enough food and has gotten out of the habit of eating enough.

So we tried to encourage him. We tried to reason with him, we tried to force him to stay seated, we tried to play games (reverse psychology usually works well – “Don’t take this bite” usually makes my kids rush to take bites). My mom would finally manage to get some food in his mouth, only to watch him open his mouth and let it fall out onto the table (sometimes, he’ll actually get it into a plate; that I appreciate).

But he won’t eat unless he wants to. He doesn’t get mad; he doesn’t yell, scream, hit, or behave violently toward you or the food (unless you consider being spit out a violent act). He will push the food away from himself, which may cause the food to spill if it’s on a spoon, and cause the feeder to yell in frustration, but he doesn’t get mad. He simply doesn’t eat. That is civil disobedience in a nutshell.