Parents both now and a hundred years ago sometime have difficulty getting their children to drink milk. The 1922 edition of Good Housekeeping’s Book of Menus, Recipes, and Household Discoveries had the following tips:
How to Get a Child to Drink Milk: 1922 Advice
A Hundred Years Ago 
Who knew a straw could work magic?
I remember thinking that straws were something special when I was a child since we didn’t have them at home.
We didn’t have straws at home, either. Did you have one of the fancy curved ones? I was probably almost a teen when I got one.
Oh, I do remember them. I’d totally forgotten about curved straws until you mentioned them, Looking back I wonder how we ever kept them clean – but I didn’t worry about things like that when I was a teen.
We rinsed out those curved straws, but I think the novelty wore off before unreachable crud developed.
The tiny glass made me laugh. My youngest did something similar. My husband brought home a shot glass that was handed out at a baseball game and left it on the counter. We later found out that our daughter had been using it for “shots” of milk. On the other hand, I don’t think lactose intolerance was widely recognized back then. Milk could have been making some children feel bad.
Yes, there is probably a very good reason so many children instinctively know they shouldn’t be drinking milk! My daughter wouldn’t touch it, and she is most definitely lactose intolerant!
I’m a strong believer in listening to what our bodies tell us.
What a fun story! I hadn’t thought about it before, but it makes sense that some children may not feel well after they drink milk because they are lactose intolerant.
Fun solutions are fun to read.
It’s nice to hear that you enjoyed this post.
Chocolate milk! Never fails.
How true! It worked with my kids.
You should have been a post-war British child, like me. At school, we all had at morning break a bottle of milk – 1/3 of a pint – to drink through a straw, whether we liked it or not. In winter the milk was often frozen solid, and in summer, warm and cheesy. Margaret Thatcher put a stop to this in, I think, the early ’70s,hence the slogan ‘Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher’.
It sounds awful to have to drink frozen milk in the winter and half-spoiled milk in the summer. Times sure have changed – sometimes for the better.
Indeed!
Yep! We were always given a big tumbler of milk – 10 -12 oz. at dinner and after eating a meal were required to finish our milk. It was torture! I’d have much preferred to have had a small glass to refill. My sons on the other hand would consume almost a gallon a day at their peak!
My kids also drank a lot of milk.
My grandma’s solution was what she called the Grandma Special. Only later did we learn she put sugar and vanilla in the milk–of course it tasted better.
Maybe I should make Grandma Specials for my grandchildren.
My grade school offered white milk for free and chocolate for 2 cents. Most kids chose the chocolate and had no trouble drinking it down.
For just 2 cents, I’d take the chocolate, too.
Sadly my mom didn’t want too, probably because she had four kids in the school.
These are certainly cute suggestions and I remember some deceptions I used with my children. I have to think that milk at that time was not what we drink today and maybe not as appealing. Although I always feel bad for children today whose parents give them 1% fat milk not only because of the taste, but because children need the full vitamins and fat from whole milk.
My general sense is that milk is more standardized today. I grew up on a dairy farm and remember that the milk tasted different in the summer when the cows were out grazing in the fields than what it did in the winter.
Pasteurization and homogenization processes have also changed the taste of milk. For several years my in-laws had dairy cattle and would give us milk that they had pasteurized, but I didn’t care for it (neither did my children, but the hubby loved it).
Growing up on a farm. I was used to the taste of unpasteurized milk and refused to drink “school milk” for most of first grade.
My paternal grandparents only drank buttermilk as they did not care for the sweet milk. I recently switched to an organic brand in a wax carton because the taste is what I remember milk tasting like before they began putting it into plastic jugs. Like many foods, it is what we get used to!
Yes, I agree, we tend to like foods when they taste like what we are used to. Your comment reminds me of how my mother used to complain about the ketchup that we bought at the store. She said that it tasted slightly burned, and that homemade ketchup tasted more like tomatoes and was much better. I’ve had homemade ketchup a few times, but didn’t appreciate it like she did. I liked commercially produced ketchup better.
I do remember loving it when our neighbors would bring us a gallon of fresh milk, with the cream still on top!
I’ve occassionally seen nonhomogenized milk for sale at the store, but it’s not the same as fresh milk wiht cream.
I was one of those little girls who refused milk. I now know I was instinctively right because I am allergic to milk now as a grown woman.
It’s fascinating how our bodies can let us know what is good for us.
Interesting about the straw! I didn’t like milk as a kid, either, and as an adult, I didn’t tolerate dairy products very well, until going vegan. I just wish my parents had pursued calcium supplements…
I don’t think that people knew about lactose intolerance back then. We’ve learned a lot about foods in recent years.
This wasn’t a problem my parents had to deal with, they had to *limit* the number of glasses we were allowed. Even so, their three daughters easily went through 8+ liters a week – I remember mom loading the grocery cart with bag after bag of the stuff. On the other hand, my sisters and I are all taller than my mother. 😉
What a fun memory! It’s amazing how much children can eat (or, in this case, drink).
Oh ,this post brings back memories of raising the youngins. Straws and chocolate syrup work great.😃😃
It’s nice to hear that this post brought back some warm memories.
I can relate to Winnifred, although, in kindergarten, milk cost 5 cents. I remember sitting at my desk trying to finish my carton of milk which I sipped through a straw. Though I had a straw, I still didn’t like it. 🙂