The Natural Fork

I've come to the conclusion the twins were barbarians in a previous life.  This would explain why Finn enjoys throwing his fork on the floor as soon as I hand it to him, or why Mirabelle would rather use her fingers to pick the food off the end of the fork instead of sticking the fork with food in her mouth.

Perhaps my children are natural geniuses; because honestly, why do we really need forks in the first place when we already have two perfectly good hands?  It apparently defies simple logic and I'm not sure I can fault my children for questioning why Mommy is making dinner so much more difficult than it really ought to be.

I'm not alone on this matter, most of Western Europe felt the same way in the 11th Century, roughly the time the fork was introduced as a proper meal time utensil.  One clergy man even went so far as to write:

"God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks - his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to Him to substitute artificial metallic forks for them when eating." 

Excerpt taken From Hand to Mouth by James Cross Giblin.

So now I'm presented with an even more complex dilemma, will my children go to Hell for using forks?  Will I meet them there for forcing such demonic behavior?  Frankly, I'm baffled the Tea Party movement hasn't jumped on this one pushing to make fork use unconstitutional.

Is it already time to play the 'Because I Told You So' card--or should I start with the truth?  It would go something like this:

Some snot-nosed Byzantine princess married an Italian dude and refused to eat with her fingers (I know, right!?!).  Then it became a status symbol to own a fork and actually use it during meals.  Now today it's a sign of civility, can you say Ci-vil-i-ty, Finn?   

So, here are your choices.  You can eat with your fingers (probably go to Heaven) and get picked on by the other kids at school or you can learn to use your fork properly and pick on all the kids who use their fingers.

Final note, parenting is hard work.