To think this is a fine dinner for 5 year old?!?

Leisure centre cafe chips are the best

They'd faint at my DS eating pasta and nuggets out of a flask in the car between activities... Sometimes it's hot dogs 🤷‍♂️

No drive thrus anywhere near here (at least a 10 mile drive out of the way) but I FULLY would take advantage of this if I could!

I don't get it... is this a stealth boast that you're actually really organised? I'm 100% with the PP who goes to the drive-thru McD's on the way home.

You could offer that your family members help you with the logistics of the evening and feed one of your DC (or both!)....I wonder how quickly they will change their tune!

It would be my only concern.
it was a nice dinner, OP, I bet your DC loved the adventure.

You’re squeezing in a packed hot dinner between activities, when you have time. So multitasking. And the child is happy and satisfied. Haters gonna hate….

Your family members are nuts.

I actually wondered if you were one of the parents at my DCs swimming lessons today OP. By the time we get in it's 7pm and it's just too late for them to eat when they're so tired.
There's always kids eating on the floor waiting for older siblings at swimming. Bonus points if they get to eat out of the saucepan (like mine did today. Cos I ran out of flasks/takeaway tubs) 😅🤣

I used to do this all the time! YANBU op. Ignore.

There is nothing wrong with the food per se…It sounds nutritious and tasty.

Have you missed the point? Isn’t their objection that it is weird to take dinner and eat it in the swimming pool cafe? As in, it’s cheeky to eat your own food in a cafe. I would be a bit 🙄 at that. Although, if the cafe doesn’t care, go ahead!

Tell them to wind their neck in! It’s fine, much better than trying to feed him when he’s home and overtired.

Sounds fab well done for getting organised. If course family members could always pick ds up take him home feed him and get him ready for bed or shut their mouths.

No, no, this is awful. You should definitely wait till you get home so he's overtired and grumpy and won't eat anything, to make sure dinner time is miserable for everyone.
Your family are weird. Stop sharing.

Of course the dinner is fine.

The unreasonable element of this situation is that you're even giving this any headspace at all.

Don't involve family members in what you're feeding your children (and other minutiae) and ignore unsolicited opinions on the matter.

So much better than my DDs who had 'picnic tea' for YEARS due to their various evening lessons. On the evenings in question, we'd set out with a full packed 'lunch' for each of them. They'd eat their way through it, sometimes having more or less depending on who had a lesson first. The café did have a 'no outside food' policy but we sat far away from the till or sometimes splurged on a packet of crisps...
I'm just grateful their granny didn't read me the riot act.
On they whole, they prefer sandwiches and cucumber anyways!!

If we have tea at the pool, it's normally a rollover hotdog. Spag bol sounds much better.

One of mine has dinner in the car 2 evenings a week on the way to sports club. Typically its pasta bolognese, veggie chilli & rice, biryanni, and Maternal Guilt Sandwich if its been a particularly chaotic week. She gets in from school, gets changed, gets put the door whilst I get in from work, microwave the leftovers, and jump in the car with her. Rural living...
She's 13, so the perfect age to drop physical activity. Im happy for her to miss 2 "proper family meals" in favour of competitive team sport those evenings.

Is it ideal? No. Is it a problem? No.

Why did you need - firstly your family members and then the whole of Mumsnet to tell you that feeding your child spag bol was an acceptable thing to do, op?

Anything goes after swimming. If you bought him chips with a side of doughnuts, that would be fine, because fat and sugar consumed while your eyes are still stinging from the pool chlorine don't count.

sounds a lot better than the vending machine wheat crunchies I used to get after swimming.

we often eat dinner outside - either in the local park in the summer or DH and DD have even been known to sit in the train station eating dinner watching the trains come in and out when I work late. I think it’s nice!

Agreed and then tired and grumpy when no food is actually right!

That sounds like a very nice dinner! Much better to feed him earlier while his older brother is swimming rather than wait til you get home and he's worn out!

How do your family members even know? And why do you care - it’s utter nonsense? It’s not like the nutritional value of food suddenly nosedives if you eat it at a leisure centre and not at your home dining table. Of course they’re being unreasonable, I’d not have judged you if you’d said that you gave him a fast food tea those days. It’s once a week to keep his routine in line AND he’s just swum so he’ll need to replace all the energy and sugars he’s just expended.

You must have the patience of a saint to even entertain criticism from your family for this.

"faints"