To not understand adult food vs kids food?

They sound like a bunch of mum zillas. Perhaps it is just time to move on. My daughter went out with a group of mum zillas and when one of them went to the cloakroom, they all bitched profusely about her in her absence, and when she came back they were all smiles. My daughter never went again.

It may come across as UK bashing, but it's not even the thing I hate most about the British attitude to food. It's the expectation that everywhere you go you can get the same predictable menu. And the over-dependence on bland restaurant chains reheating meals prepared in industrial kitchens.

I usually split a meal with my 3 year old as the kids menu is usually unhealthy and would upset her tummy (food intolerances). Most of the time it’s fine but she has gotten more fussy in recent times about certain vegetables (though will eat them at home if cut small). We’ve mainly had people warn us food is spicy but my daughter is a spice fiend! She loves her food and will often eat more than half so I’m always happy when there’s a healthy kids meal on the menu.

I actually stopped going to a toddler group as everyone brought snacks to share and some of the mums were handing out crisps and really processed stuff to the (then) 2 year olds.

I am British but also find the concept weird. Kids eat smaller plates of what the adults get.

Child of the 50's here from a very much not rich family. We were never told eat it or go without or made to eat anything. If we didn't want what was planned there was always an option we would eat. It might be a sandwich or just the potatoes and gravy but there was always something.

Ok, cool. I’ve lived in a few countries in Asia, and have visited more. I have also lived in 3 different Eastern European countries with my children and I can assure you each of them has had beige children’s menus. Maybe not in every restaurant - but it is incredibly easy to find one even far off the beaten tourist track.

There seems to be a trend of bashing the UK for offering children’s menus but (unpopular opinion) - they’re everywhere.

My 5 year old would be quite capable of putting a load of ingredients on a pizza and then not eating it. He doesn't like melted cheese - just doesn't like the texture of it. At a make your own pizza party, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he sprinkled grated cheese onto his pizza, had it cooked, and then refused to eat it because the cheese was melted.

He does love fish, seafood, lentils and pulses (including but not limited to baked beans), all kinds of pickles, mushrooms, rare beef, beetroot, etc, so it is honestly not that I only feed him beige food and tell him everything else is yucky he just has preferences.

I know a couple of people who are adults now who were AMAZINGLY picky kids....not related, they don't even know each other..... and I am talking stuff like plain pasta on its own or lettuce and cucumber only picky. Both lots of parents never made a fuss over it and would give the children stuff that they would eat while the rest of the family ate something else. Both grew up to be healthy normal omnivores. I get having to stick to a budget but surely what children will eat, provided its not fat and sugar and zero else, is not a hill that needs to be added to all the other parental hills to die on?

Yep, mine too. DD1, 10 months old, was happy with a well-chopped piece of my Frfiday fillet steak, buttered jacket potato, peas. Or any suitably mashed version of what we were having. One day, no idea when, zipped lip and cried at the same foods she used to love.

DD2 - I used to make a lovely spaghetti bolognese with mince and home-made sauce. Used to laugh with delight when she saw it coming. One day... yes, sat in front of it and zipped up, thrust bowl off table and refused it absolutely from then on.

I don't think I'm a 'shit parent' as someone smugly decreed from their lofty tower of smug; DDs are in their 30s and 40s now and eat a variety of foods, one is mostly plant-based, the other loves meat but still won't have it in sauce, both healthy adults with their own preferences, different from one another despite the same upbringing.

Absolutely agree with those who say there's an MN 'thing' where everything British is shit. You don't need to google far to see it's absolutely untrue that other countries never give their young children a 'child-friendly menu.' And yet the MN Smuggers maintain in countless threads that never happens, and that if I'd only not been such a shit parent, mine too would have eaten everything put before them.

Another MN 'thing' is, 'I do everything right and my friend's child could be like mine if she were more like ME and not so lazy/ignorant/uncaring.' Gah. I think I've finally outgrown MN, it's just so irritating and predictable.

We've always few our children exactly what we eat. When we've gone out for meals, we'd ask for a side plate, and give them whatever we ate. As they got older, we would order 3 adult meals and do the same. Now they will just eat their own meal off the adult menu.

Same here.

I think the 'Kids' menus' don't help because the list of food is usually limited.

I've complained many times on here how there is a concept of 'vegetarian food', where people in general are led to believe that all vegetarians love a narrow range of food (some combination of goats cheese, butternut squash, mushrooms, risotto, beetroot, caramelised onion, pastry)

Similarly, it gives the impression that all under 12s love a narrow selection of food (chips, chicken nuggets, pizza, fish fingers, beans, pasta ...)

I have my first Christmas meal next week: pumpkin soup followed by something butternut squash and beetroot, both vegan so no goat's cheese. Sorry to hijack thread

It always surprises me that there is a separate children's menu and that parents cook 2 meals at night, one for them and one for the children.

What a faff. If we went out, I would have a meal and my sons would share a second adult meal. The children's menus were shit food anyway!

I was first to have a kid in my group and having an allotment meant I attracted the foodies who liked to cook 😂so to have a social life I took my baby and then toddler with me to dinners in Central and my friends (from 6m) would share food with her. I remember her being given seafood and watching her wondering does she have a shellfish allergy 😂I was very scared with new foods but my friends from all backgrounds fed everything. I just watched and hoped for the best. Which meant it was normalised to feed from our plates. She inhaled everything. Even when DM accidentally gave her rum baba at an Italian bakery!
Then the mums I hung out with were majority foodies and cooked from scratch and did baby led weaning and then our kids just ate the food we made. So I think the norms are different for other people and I wouldn't judge them feeding jarred meals, some people don't have skill or are tired or are busy.
I wouldn't buy my kid anything she ordered these days as her eyes are bigger than her stomach (shes now 8 and learnt that the expensive way when she wanted starter and main in a nice place my parents took us to 😳) but I never have nor would not feed her regular food off my plate nor have I ever gone for the children's menu apart from the one time we went to pizza hut.

Although I do think adult vs child food is sad and odd, if I didn't like seeing it, I'd just give up those friends. The whole point of friends is to like them. I cooked with alcohol a lot (wine/port European meals) and fed my kid without issue and we all ate the same. I'd mention this to parents and no one seemed bothered. Obviously no one got wasted on some ragu. But I'm sure some would judge for that and they can leave.
Like, you don't have to be their friends there's other calamari like minded people out there.

Can I ask if there was a reason? That sounds incredibly hard to deal with. My son is 3 and autistic, and miraculously generally non-fussy, but I’m not complacent and realise it could all change one day. I hope not though.

I feel like that style of parenting when it comes to food, is what creates fussy eaters (excluding those with sensory issues)

The whole “oh you WONT like that darling”‘is just setting them up for failure 😂

Mine have been eating prawns, salmon, sushi, muscles ect since weaning. Salmon and prawns are my 4 year old all time favourite food.

I tell you what she isn’t very keen on.. beige. We’ve never eaten a lot of beige food, rarely have nuggets unless a maccies treat or chip shop, dont tend to eat fish fingers, any frozen breaded/battered stuff we just don’t tends to eat.

Recently I’ve had quite poor mental health and just haven’t been up to scratch for cooking full meals from scratch so did do a freezer stock up for quick things I could air fry. They don’t like hardly any of it (which has just made life a bit harder because then I’m scraping around trying to find an alternative 👀)

I think kids like what they’ve been exposed to is my point🤣

I've not been to the US, but away from tourist areas serving English speaking tourists I've not come across the children's beige menu anywhere elsewhere in Europe.

One of my EU niblings, they could be a bit of a fussy eater at home (they went at least two years on little more than toast and Nutella) but always ate normal adult meals when eating out - even during the fussy-at-home phase.

Tbf, my child is a little weirdo, and I tried bloody every bland food going when weaning and he wasn't having any of it.

What he would eat, I found, was spice, and lots of it, and he's a total protein fiend. He's only just now eating well though, whilst his peers are moving into their fussy phase.

Some might find it a stealth boast that he'll sit down and eat chilli, sushi, curry etc. My friends are just pleased for me because they know we went through hell with allergy weaning and food refusal.

It is fine some kids liking simple foods. Some adults like simple foods. It is why some young people think elderly people all used to eat mince and onions and plain meat and two veg - because that is what their parents or grandparents ate.
The OP was posting though about the idea that there is kids food and adults food, when it is all just food.
An adult who likes plain food like pasta in a tomato sauce, was probably a child who liked pasta in a tomato sauce. But there is no reason why kids can not enjoy steak, curry, or similar.

I disagree with your friend's comment about giving food like calamari to your child. I personally prepare separate meals for my 3-year-old because of their preferences. My child enjoys plain foods like white pasta (almost without any sauce and definitely not tomato-based), and they don’t care for meat or vegetables, apart from boiled broccoli. In contrast, I prefer meals with bold flavors—spicy, salty, sweet, or aromatic—so sharing a meal doesn't work for us. It’s not about what’s right or wrong; it’s simply a matter of personal preferences. While people often suggest sharing meals with your child, it’s not always practical in reality.

I also disagree with the idea that this is a "British thing." I'm from a different country, and in my home country, many kids' menu ideas are shared. Parents often reluctantly prepare separate meals for their children because kids are typically quite picky eaters.

I don't understand it either. In my ethnic group you wean early and on what the adults eat.

My DS ate what I ate. He had his fair share of fish fingers for something quick but he mainly had the same food. He's always been a really good eater.

I think 3 is far too old for food in jars. They are in a world of hurt trying the little one on proper food.

In my culture - and a lot of non-western cultures - kids eat the food you eat. Sometimes they like it, sometimes they don’t. If they don’t like it, there’s always the next meal. Like everyone else, they develop likes and dislikes, and those evolve and change. Sometimes they get their favourite, sometimes they get food they don’t like and they refuse it. None of this is considered a big deal.

There is no beige food. There are no kids’ meals. The idea of making a separate meal to cater to a child wouldn’t even come up. I’m not attempting to be scathing - these things simply do not exist as options.

I think it's:

Still somehow have yesterday's hummus crusted in hair = posh.

Still somehow have yesterday's ketchup crusted in hair = common.

hahahahaha, yes I feel you! I'm sure posh toddlers are out there lol.

If anything I'd say that a kid thinking calamari is similar to chicken nuggets just suggests that the kid's not eating decent calamari. Firstly with proper calamari, the delicious little delicate purple tentacles should be clearly visible through the lightest possible dusting of batter - delicious for adults but possibly a bit discombobulating for a child. Ad the texture's entirely different too of course.

My kid lives off hummus, avocados and pollock. She'd love calamari though, come to think of it. Need to give that a try!