My children are both avid swimmers, which means I spend a lot of time thinking about food.

Protein. Vitamins. Carbohydrates. Recovery. Energy. I research things, analyse things, meal plan, prepare food for the week. If I’m honest, I probably think about it more than most people would. Partly because I want to support them well. And partly because, strangely, I enjoy it.

One of the easiest ways to get healthy foods into kids is through smoothies. There’s a lot you can hide in there — nuts, seeds, probiotics, things they would never willingly eat on their own. The problem is that my daughter has long refused to drink them. She says she doesn’t like the flavour.

And this morning, I noticed my son had once again left his mostly unfinished in the fridge.

The moment I saw it, I felt annoyed. Annoyed because they take effort to make. Annoyed because they’re expensive. Annoyed because, in my mind, I’m doing something good for them.

It felt ungrateful.

But after sitting with it for a while, I realised something uncomfortable:

They never asked me to do this.

I chose it. I choose to spend my weekends researching and preparing things that I think will help them. And while I’m sure they probably feel better because of it, they’re also children. They’re unlikely to be thinking deeply about nutrition or long-term health. If anything, they’re probably just dreading the smoothie. And me being irritated about it probably only adds to that feeling.

It made me think about how often we offer things to people that make sense to us — support, advice, effort, care — and quietly expect gratitude in return.

But sometimes people don’t actually want what we are offering. Or they don’t need it in the way we imagined they would.

And I’ve found myself wondering whether effort alone makes something valuable if it isn’t being received the way we hoped.

I don’t really have an answer to that yet.