OMG, I had no idea people still did that:
On Sunday, after church, Julie and I had a Full And Frank Discussion with our boys over inattention at the liturgy. We tried to impress on them that there are places in this world where Christians are risking their lives simply to do what we can easily do on Sunday morning. I told them about Father George Calciu, and what he and the other Romanian Christians endured in Ceaucescu’s prisons — and how they celebrated that same liturgy inside prison walls.
In my childhood, the starving children of Africa were the preferred trick to try to make me eat. The result was, of course, a life-long eating disorder.
Do people still think that this heavy-handed and dumb manipulation provokes anything but eventual contempt for them?
Clarissa's Blog 
Yes, they do.
Guilt tripping is one of the preferred methods of discipline in my extended family.
This is mild.
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Yes. There are people who are even worse off. Oh, the stories I could tell.
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[mumbled something about being sorry that I can’t finish eating a starving child in one sitting] 🙂
OH GOD THAT’S HORRIBLE JONES, DO YOU HAVE NO SHAME?
[points out that I was ashamed that I couldn’t finish eating a starving child in one sitting, but that I didn’t enter into competitive eating contests as a form of penance …]
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I was usually a little food vacuum but got the starving children a little bit on those rare occasions when I protested what was put in front of me (usually involving okra, baloney, fish or weird things my dad might make*). But even as a kid it just made no sense to me.
*not bad, probably pretty tasty for an adult but not things that kids are prone to like
One of the worst forms of this has to be the old “Don’t worry, someday I’ll be dead and then you can do whatever you want!”
I never got that one and was amazed when I found out that some people think that’s an appropriate thing to say to children.
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My mother also loves the “Don’t worry, I’ll be dead soon” accompanied by a tragic sigh thing. She’s been doing it for 40 years and never gets tired of it.
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