Mel - I so agree with you. I was carted around from wriggling infant stage (in a carrycot - really just a little snuggly bed with carrying handles, bunged on the floor or a spare seat on the Tube, none of that 4 x 4 size buggy nonsense) and once I turned 7, I ate as an adult, with admittedly smaller portions! My parents made lunch and dinner for all of us, although occasionally I'd be given a supper of, say, cheese or tomatoes on toast if I didn't want the trencherman's meal my father would sink. Otherwise, we went to my parents' family and friends and I was treated like one of the group until I fell asleep.
I could ALWAYS amuse myself by going outside, playing with any available pets, reading books, and playing with any toys I'd taken. I never expected to be entertained BECAUSE I was a kid, and no-one expected to do so. Of course, we did play games like hide-and-seek, snowballing and toboganning in winter, etc., but I was never made into some over-indulged pet, and certainly never called 'a little princess'. (Ugh!)
I never once threw a strop, although I tested my will against the resolve of adults' several times. I once refused to say 'may I please be excused?' from the dining table when my parents left me for a day with some friends. They'd been advised that I'd recently started to act a little bolshie about niceties, and they had full permission to not release me unless I asked. Which I declined to do. Nearly five hours later, I begrudgingly capitulated and was permitted to play outside! It just takes the WILL of adults vs kids, that's all!
