Teenage food

If someone played the "parental responsibility" card with me like that then I would remind them that by that logic in 2 years time they would be an adult with responsibility for cooking, cleaning, paying for and housing themselves.

Or, if they fancied it they could have a more managed transition where they take on some of the stuff more gradually over time as they get older.

Their choice.

Maybe she needs to realise how much she’d benefit if she ate the way you do! She sounds very immature. I wouldn’t want my teen eating frozen pizza and takeaways all the time. So expensive and unhealthy. She’s not a child - she could be a parent herself. I’d provide basic foods in the house she can make herself, but otherwise she should buy her own food if she wants something else - and work to pay for it.

Oh yes, they are always happy to receive those. . .

Mmmmmm, she's a one that is going to have to be dragged into adulthood and personal responsibility kicking and screaming, isn't she?!

She'd be quite hungry in my house, with that attitude.

YANBU OP.

You are cooking healthy meals which she is welcome to eat.

You are cooking separate food just for her several times a week.

You are willing to let her buy and cook her own food if she wants to.

She's 16, not 6, she's more than capable of cooking pasta.

My mum hates cooking and basically stopped feeding us in the holidays as soon as I was old enough to make sandwiches.

Agree with her. Explain that your parental responsibility includes providing healthy food for her growing body, as you are doing, and supporting her transition to adulthood - you want her to be a happy, healthy and successful adult, you see it as your parental responsibility to help her do this, and allowing her to develop life skills, rather than treating her as a baby, is a crucial part of her growing up.

You're doing great things for your health by switching to a more nutritious diet because (I guess) you reached a point where you wanted and chose to do this. At the moment, the change of diet probably feels like it's being imposed on your daughter, and perhaps that feels like a criticism to her - you wanted/needed to change, she experiences that change by having different foods being presented for dinner, and maybe she interprets that as you thinking that she also needs to change, which is usually hard for teenagers to take from their parents! You've given her the option of cooking for herself, but does she already have the skills to do this?

Could you also be honest and open with her about your change in diet, if you have that kind of relationship? If you can find a good time, perhaps tell her your motivations for changing what you eat (as brutally honestly as you can manage to be with your daughter about why you wanted to lose weight), whether you found it daunting at first, whether you felt you'd miss the McDs or the cream or whatever else you're eating less/none of, if it took you a while to get to like the taste of beetroot, or greens, or something else. If you can bring her a bit into what you're doing and why, she might feel slightly more 'in' on the change.

Well she’s plum out of luck then. She’d best get a job and go out to eat if she won’t cook. You’re definitely in the right here! Your parental responsibility is to provide her decent food, not cook for her own personal fast food cafe.

I would try and cook something she likes together.

You can have a little bit of pasta and tomato sauce (home made) with a side salad...

I don't know how you arrived where you are with her eating habits. But it's time to change things gradually!

My DC were helping with cooking on and off from about 3-4 years of age. (That's from selecting the order carrots & potatoes are chopped over frozen pizza to making a simple dish like pasta bake.)

I’m a vegetarian. My 14 year old loves meat. So i cook veggiemeals and he is happy to cook/bake/grill the meat. We are actually having a good time together in the kitchen.

But we al eat healthy food. Maybe one cheat dinner a week. But being a teenager doesn’t mean you have to eat rubbish. Make a fresh pizza together , fresh pasta sauce with lots of veggies.

Six months is still pretty new when you're a teenager and your mum has cooked for you and catered for your every whim for sixteen years, though.

I think the problem is you changed it all at once - type of food, you expecting her to cook etc. it's a lot when you're sixteen even though it seems like nothing to an adult.

I don't think it's about her ability to cook, it's the fact that you changed everything with meals almost overnight.

As PP said, people can have funny relationships with food and often equate it to love.

It's your parental responsibility to encourage and help her to learn to cook for herself.

But i would be trying to find a quiet moment to ask her what this is really about. Sounds like a reach but i wonder if subconsciously she's worried that not cooking these things means you don't love her any more. Or worried about?or threatened by) your weight loss.
If she is that still doesn't mean you have to cook those things for her without her input.

It sounds like you're accommodating her as much as it would really be possible to do without completely sacrificing your own well being. And she is being rude as fuck about it.

If the question is should you let her eat pizza, chips, and takeaway when there's nothing you've made that night that she's willing to eat then I'd say you might as well; if she's refusing all of the lean meat and vegetables and wanting to live on pasta, cheese, and cream then she doesn't really have a healthful diet either way. The only other thing you might reasonably do is make extra of the things she likes when you do make them so she can have the leftovers on the days when there's nothing she likes - but honestly, it sounds like she's resisting every compromise you try to make and holding out for you to do exactly what she tells you to do even though it's not the best thing for her either.

Have you ever taught her to cook properly or have you always provided all the food for her?

I do get your argument that she's sixteen and capable of fending for herself but it sounds like you changed a lot of things around food and meals all at once, which could be a bit disconcerting for her.

I’m always on a diet of some kind. My kids like creamy pasta too, I do cook for them (daughter often cooks her own food, she’s 16). Yes she can cook her own food but I’d personally do two dinners, probably batch cook for myself for a few days and make her what she likes. I don’t make my kids change their diet when I’m dieting, I don’t think that’s fair

A bit off the topic but I'm impressed with your weight loss. Congratulations!
I'm interested in your diet. How do you cook red beets? Thanks

I think this is where I would feel guilty to be honest, because you've previously cooked and enjoyed this food and now you've completely switched to something completely different.

I don't really agree that just because the designated cook is on a diet, that everyone else should be too, yes she can make and buy her own food, of course she can, but if you've never taught her to cook, or practiced particularly good food habits yourself, and you've always made what she likes until December, I can see why she sees it as unfair that you don't do it anymore.

Definitely time for her to step up in the kitchen somewhat, and to be less fussy, but you expecting her to just want to eat your food now that you've decided you want to is quite unrealistic.

Can't you do a trade off of chores, get her to step up in other areas (laundry, gardening, dog walking etc) and you'll cook more of what she wants too? She's old enough now to not expect something for nothing surely.