Do you make your kids drink unsweetened white grapefruit juice?

My stepmother's constant statement to us whenever we asked if we could have something was, "We're not rich. We're poor! You can't have that."

Considering that we lived in a decent house in a decent neighborhood and my father was working 8 days a week (literally - a double shift on Sunday) while he was building his retirement accounts, she was wrong to say that. I learned never to ask for anything I wanted.

To this day when someone asks me what I want, I really can't answer the question.

This is the same woman who insisted that when we got new carpet put in our house, the most expensive freaking silky PINK carpet was laid in their bedroom. I mean, this is the kind of carpeting that you don't see in the average person's house. We got brown carpet in our bedrooms, and we were told that because we were kids, we didn't need anything nicer. We'd just mess it up anyway.

For the record, I never messed up that brown carpet.

Her teenage daughter, on the other hand, created huge bleach spots on the yellow formica countertop and was stupid enough to (try to) flush a sanitary pad (one of the big old fashioned ones) down the toilet, and clog up the plumbing horribly.

Anyway, on to the point. Kraft makes jars of cheese spread that hold, I think 4 or 6 oz. of whatever. She'd buy herself the cheese spread, eat it (no, she didn't share), and then save the jars to be used as our juice glasses. We did have decent glasses to use; it's just that we kids weren't good enough to drink out of them. It turns out, at 8 and 10 ounces, they held far more liquid that she felt we should have if we were allowed to have juice.

I'll admit, I have a sweet tooth and I've always loved juice. But I always stayed within the miniscule amounts she allowed us to have - 4 ounces. I never even thought to try and sneak more juice.

Then she started bringing home cans of unsweetened white grapefruit juice. You know, the generic kind that is bitter and hurts your mouth to drink it. That was all she brought home for juice while our father was working out of town. When he got a different job that allowed him to stay with us all week, suddenly the menu offerings changed. I guess she didn't want him to know about our strict dietary restrictions.

And it never failed... no matter how hungry we woke up, we were never allowed a second bowl of cereal. She always bought the cheapest, most flavorless kind she could, unless her grandkids were coming over. Then she'd get decent cereal, and they could have 1, 2 or 10 bowls if they wanted, but we were still only allowed one bowl. Oh, and after the first time she gave them unsweetened grapefruit juice, she suddenly started buying grape, apple, and orange juice when they were coming over.

Now I wouldn't want you to think that the breakfast offerings were a mere torment for us. There were a lot of days when supper consisted of nothing but a pot of white beans. Or a pot of turnip greens. She was fond of saying that we were spoiled and that when she was growing up, babies ate white beans until they were grown and that's all they knew.

I think her point was, "look what I'm made of and how well I turned out" but honestly, a beans-only meal isn't healthy. Sure, there's protein, but no other nutrients that I know of. And she didn't turn out so well.

Anyway, I think that feeding us such an unhealthy diet during our growing years stunted my growth a bit. I think I was probably supposed to be a few inches taller - my biggest growth spurt (an inch) actually seemed to occur when I went away for college. That cafeteria food did give me that extra inch, but i think it was too late to correct the whole problem.

The more I think about my stepmother, the harder a time I'm having forgiving her for her meanness. On the other hand, it makes me feel better letting the world know what she's really like.