When I was a kid, there was a particular frozen tuna pot pie that my mom would buy and heat up. She and everyone else in the family seemed to be able to eat it okay. However, it made me nauseous for some reason. I believe I was allergic to an ingredient in it. I told my mom about this, and she thought I was just being a fussy eater. She stopped cooking it for a while, though.

One day, when I was being punished for something [which was probably very minor], she decided that we would all have tuna pot pie for lunch. She knew it made me sick. But that was too bad, because I was being punished. And, she always viciously resented whenever she may have to accommodate me in the least bit.

When I was young, my mom would cook dinner for the family. This always seemed like a massive undertaking for her, and she'd often complain that it took longer for her to cook the meal than for us all to eat it.

Obviously, there was nothing I could do as a kid to help out with cooking. But I did feel guilty that she had to go through what seemed like so much trouble just to feed us. I don't think the problem was a lack of time, since she wasn't working. And when us kids were old enough to do chores, I don't think we were actually a big burden. I think she just hated cooking.

But when we were eating dinner, I usually made sure to tell her, "Thank you for cooking. This is delicious." And she'd reply with a sad smile, as if to say, "Thank you for appreciating it, but I deserve better than to cook for the family." Maybe it wasn't quite that.

Anyway, I believe she thought I always hated her cooking. I certainly didn't. I was just a very skinny kid, and I didn't eat very much usually. And all of us kids would drink at least one glass of milk at every meal. So of course we would fill up quickly. But regardless, my mom interpreted this as me hating her cooking. And I could do nothing to convince her otherwise, because I was the family scapegoat. As such, she interpreted everything I did as being a passive-aggressive statement against her.

Years later, my wife and I invited my mom and her husband up to visit our house. My wife cooked a good selection of different things. My mom and her husband seemed to like my wife's cooking since they ate a lot. They didn't really say much about it, except my mom said, "Bobby must be happy", in her passive-aggressive, almost whiny, voice.

So, I just realized what she meant by saying that. The real meaning of her statement was, "You didn't like my cooking, and I had to deal with that. So you should be happy with you wife's cooking. Poor me, aren't I a victim?".

During one of our usual silent and miserable family dinners, my mom explained how her dog was just happy if he was fed and that my brothers and I should be more like that. I don't think we were really expecting much at all besides the basics of living at that age But apparently even those were too much. Anyway, we all turned and looked at her little hairy dog relaxing on the floor chewing on a toy. Food for thought.

My mom posted on Facebook some infographic of reasons why dogs are better than sons. It included "Dogs never ask for money". Eh, well dogs can't ask for money. But they can ask for food, which is something I learned to never ever do. Anyway, I'm sure your dogs will take care of you when you're old.