To expect my dh to stop stealing ds's lunchbox food?

[Longstocking2]

I have to HIDE stuff from dh. It's so irritating.

TitsalinaBumSquash

It works with simple stuff - ordinary sandwiches such as ham and mustard, cheese and pickle (not tomatoes or cucumber or anything wet), marmalade, sandwich spread, fishpaste, pork pies, fruit cake. In plastic bags takes up less room in the freezer, as long as it will later fit in the box without needing to be bent or squashed.

BTW a lunch box crammed with tomatoes, apples, chunks or carrot and cucumber might be good - porky dad might not steal them ,and it wouldn't do him any harm if he did

Mine's the same. Not only that, but he'll then complain that he's putting on weight because I bought chocolate biscuits for the DC and naturally he had to eat those rather than go to the fruitbowl for a snack.

I cannot imagine a parent taking food meant for their children with the attitude that they get what they want first and then, if there's any left, the kids can have some.

That's a bloody awful, selfish attitude.

You get only after I've had my fill.

Disgusting.

Honestly.

When it comes to food he is a meanie for sure.
He adores his kids but has weird ideas about 'treats' and snacks.

It is hard to do healthy sandwiches for ds because he doesn't like anything for long. Went off cheese, then went off marmite, likes ham but that gets wolfed by the paternal figure. Same with salami, bought some pastrami to try it on ds and that was wolfed as quickly as I could blink at the fridge. Literally - whoosh, gone, as if dematerialised by aliens.

Any kind of crisp, whoosh, Gone. Try not to buy them of course but ds says all the other kids have them so sometimes like to put a pack in once a week so he doesn't feel like Oliver Twist.

so glad I'm not alone! Hecate, respect to you for your high standards!

YANBU!! As my DS is only 14 weeks old its not so much of an issue there but DH nicks food i've bought to treat myself all the flippin' time! Though I think when we wean DS i'll be the one pinching his rusks "1 for you, 5 for me!" lol!

How about your DH takes responsibility for making and shopping for the DCs packed lunches? Then he'll be the one who finds himself with a problem when he's eaten their food - so he'll have to either stop doing it or plan in advance and buy more of whatever it is he nibbles?

Sorry. I suppose it is a bit high and mighty I just feel very strongly about selfishness in parents. What your children need comes above what you want.

A lunch for your child comes above a snack for you. (not you you, him you )

• I have a whole set of baggage (including hand luggage and vanity case!) about parental selfishness and fucked up priorities that I carry round with me in a wheelbarrow

seriously, Hecate, I respect you for your position! Dh puts dc first in most important respects.

Treats are different though.

Hunger is a kind of top level national emergency and nought shall get in the way of satisfying it!

Hecate - Lol!
Pinkhyena - your DH has a point tbh. We're on about food for children to take to school, who don't have access to shops at lunch time therefore if they don't have a packed lunch they will not eat till tea time. We are not talking about buying stuff exclusively for ourselves which we resent sharing with our partners.

Sorry - should only speak for myself - swap all the 'we's' for 'I's' but I think waht you're complaining about is a bit selfish, whereas I'm talking about food for children not myself.

oh. ok.

My husband knows that if he attempts to pinch 'earmarked' food, I'll stab him in the hand with a fork.

It's happened.

I hate people nicking food while I'm cooking / preparing it.

This is so funny! I have a rule that DH is only allowed to eat something if there is an odd number - ie: if there are three penguins he can have one, but if there are two he can't because then I won't be able to give both the DCs one

I totally get what you're saying about hunger being a top level emergency! It doesn't matter what the food is for, if he's hungry, he's "starving" and will eat whatever he can find which doesn't need cooking (too impatient). This is usually kid snacks. In fairness, it doesn't happen often because I don't buy child-specific food often. He's lactose intolerant, so I get them yoghurts, baby-bels etc. to keep his mitts off

Yikes... not for the lunch as such but this could be a food issue and eating disorder waiting to happen. Your DH being so greedy could make your DCs greedy because they think they won't get anything.

My Dad was like this; used to eat anything and everything in his path... if we got up from the dinner table to nip to the toilet, our plates were clean by the time we got back.

Why is your DH so greedy and inconsiderate about your DS's lunch? Have you asked him?

It's just hoggery.

I'm very careful when I bake to put raisins or coconut in and other such ingredients of the devil for her shall not scoff those.

sorry, 'he' shall not scoff..

Could you get some sort of tupperware/etc box for the fridge that you put 'Kid's Packed Lunch Food' on and keep all the food in the box. if you can find a padlocked one all the better

Sit him down when he is not hungry with the dc there too and ask shame him in front of the kids to agree to not each the food that you have specifically got in for packed lunches. if the kids are asking him why he is taking their food then maybe he will not find it as easy to dismiss as when you ask him.

Also ask what you can do to help him not eat the packed lunch food - so if he has a separate box labelled 'daddy's treats' in the fridge for example, or if he does forget and scoff it all then what additional reparations is he going to make - hand a fiver in to the kitty to get extra lunch food, miss his favourite footie match at the weekend, whatever will hit the message home to him.

Seems a rotten thing to do on a regular basis - easy to make a mistake once but after that to do it deliberately is outrageous.

And it's hardly like pinching the last biscuit in the pack - something that is a treat - he's not taking their treat, he's taking their lunch.

I just tell my husband "this is for the kids lunches. You can eat this"
If the fridge is only full of food for lunches then buy more stuff, or get husband to. If my bloke moans about lack of stuff in fridge I tell him he isn't barred from Tesco.

Hate to tell you ladies, it doesn't get better! DH has just opened the pack of yoghurts I'd bought to take to DD at uni tomorrow despite there being others in the fridge because he fancied one of those

I am seriously shocked by lyingwitchs post about her dad eating the food off her plate.
I do buy special food for DD to take to school and got mightily pissed off when DD ate the two mini salami things that were for thursday and friday. He said he was hungry which was fine, but FFS tell me so I can replace them.

I don't get this "food for lunchboxes" and "general food" split. Food is food - if it's in the cupboard or fridge & you're hungry, it's fair game. The boys don't have separate stuff-for-lunches - they get sandwiches, veges, fruit and occasionally a yoghurt. If we're out of ham they get cheese, or marmite, or whatever. I would never stop my husband snacking on something from the fridge or fruitbowl if he was peckish! He has a right to any food in the house as much as the kids do.

"he couldn't care less! he says "I paid for it"
When he's hungry NOTHING else matters and his child getting a treat is only acceptable if dh has had his fill of any treat he might fancy!"

Is your DH living in Victorian times?!

Technokitten, I do understand your POV, but I do something I swore I'd never do prior to having DD and making packed lunches.
I buy the ready wrapped things in small sizes. Tuc crackers and salami spring to mind.
At the weekend, DH decided to have some cheese and biscuits. Rather than take the tuc out of the biscuit box he used DDs four in a pack ones. He ate 16, so four packs of four. There were literally hundereds (maybe 25 realistcially) in the biscuit box that had been shaken oout of a long packet. That's the sort of thing I mean.

DH used to do this until I got pg!

Morning sickness meant that even thinking about doing their lunches had my head down the bog, so he had to do them. He does them every day now and he never touches their lunch stuff after he realised that after scoffing the last of the ham the night before meant he was legging it to the shop at 7am! That happened once and has never happened since, so I second the idea of passing the lunch making responsibilities onto him.

I also have frozen sandwiches a month ahead as its a job I have never liked anyway. Ham and haslet freeze well.

Techno, it isnt so much "seperate" food as the fact that the DH in question is eating his share of the food and then his kids share too, just out of greed. If the OP is like me, she budgets and buys what they need for each meal. Its hardly fair if he eats his meals and then his childs meal too! WOuld you be saying the same if he sat down and hoovered up his kids dinner because he was "hungry" greedy?

Greed in grown adults is a horrible thing to see, DH used to be very bad. Eating something just because it was there. He is alot better now but when he was bad, nothing was off limits and he expected me to a)know he had eaten something without telling me and b) provide a bottomless cupboard full of snacks for him but to not spend anymore on shopping! Thank heavens for morning sickness!

Freezing sandwiches! What a good idea!