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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

I might be being unreasonable

91 replies

Catnao · 03/02/2011 18:15

Kid has been to our house for tea. Declined to eat said tea because he didn't like it. Told his mum on pick up he had not had tea becausE wouldn't eat the tea. She said "Well did you not make him something else?". No. I didn't because there was nothing wrong with the meal and he has eaten the same thing here before (SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE). AIBU?

OP posts:

DitaVonCheese · 04/02/2011 21:01

Okay, I am dull but an adult at a dinner party is slightly different. For one thing, you've got a reasonable chance of getting a starter and some bread to fill you up, and no one's going to withhold pudding if you don't clear your plate. And you just have so much more autonomy - you know you can pop to McD's on the way home or have some midnight toast when you get in. Plus if you drink enough, you won't be hungry anyway

Trying to think what I would do if I was at a dinner party and they served something I really couldn't eat. I did once go to someone's house for I think Burns night and they served haggis with neeps and tatties (of course). My god, it was disgusting (and if I was going to serve something that a lot of people don't like, I'd do an alternative as well). The haggis was beyond vile (sorry Scots ) and the neeps and tatties had no salt or butter, just plain boiled turnip. Luckily there were a lot of us and we were wandering about so a lot of it ended up in the loo/in plant pots etc. No idea what I would have done had it been a sit-down meal.

Some of these stories have made me laugh though - DD is only two so have all this to come ...

MCos · 04/02/2011 21:02

Well, if the other mom is usually perfectly normal, then it probably just slipped out without thinking.

itsalarf · 04/02/2011 21:10

I don't think the child is rude not to eat. I think children are better than us at only eating when they are actually hungry. But the mother? Unbelievable. I really don't care if my child comes home hungry. They are not actually going to starve, and they can have toast before bed. End of problem. YANBU

Original poster

Catnao · 04/02/2011 21:35

Mcos - she is and she prob thinks I'm a mental case because when I dropped him off she asked if any luck with getting pregnant and I CRIED! (Only a bit, but still! - expect a "My son's friend's mum is mental and became tearful when she dropped my son off" thread!)

OP posts:

proton · 05/02/2011 09:40

catnao - i nearly always cry when people ask me if i managed to get pg again because i can't...

BoffinMum · 05/02/2011 10:03

We get kids like this visiting our house. My ripost is "This is not a restaurant, we all eat the same thing here at the same time, if you're hungry, you'll eat." Any dissent meets with a short, sharp, "Get on with it if you're hungry, and stop fussing,". If parents contest this, I just say that in a family this size a la carte is simply never going to happen, and they are usually sympathetic. I have got vegetables into lifelong refuseniks and wierd foreign stuff into a number of conservative eaters over a few visits, and I don't see why it should be otherwise. If their parents don't like it, then they can confine their play dates to other households where silly eating fads are welcome.

I also do not tolerate kids who sneak into our room and rifle through our things, or bounce on the bed to see how far they can push us; kids who are cliquey and mean and try to exclude host siblings for a laugh, and kids who give me backchat.

It takes a village to raise a child ...

PlanetEarth · 05/02/2011 18:05

Dita - you went to a Burns Night evening? Well of course they had haggis! And I've never been to one where an alternative is served for the haggis-haters, except for the vegetarians, who usually get veggie haggis. I was most disappointed at one where as a veggie I was given stir-fry...

thumbdabwitch · 05/02/2011 18:43

Catnao - they are capricious little buggers, aren't they?

I got a quarter watermelon the other day - we had one half of this on Wednesday, cut into blocks - DS (3) ate several blocks, they were "yummy". Next day, same watermelon, I cut up the other half of it into blocks - "No mummy, I don't LIKE watermelon!!"

Ah well. More for me then!

Glad the mum was less stressy the second time - I imagine she was just a bit "oh FFS now I'll have to feed him as well as everything else back at the old maelstrom homestead" in her head the first time.

bubblewrapped · 05/02/2011 18:46

Luckily there were a lot of us and we were wandering about so a lot of it ended up in the loo/in plant pots etc.

Not a civilised function then

bupcakesandcunting · 05/02/2011 18:50

The princess mum would have been wearing the spag bol if she'd questioned MY authoritah like that. Cheeky wench.

AnnieLobeseder · 05/02/2011 18:50

YANBU - I'm sending mine to bed without much dinner because they're refusing to eat it. It's perfectly good food and full of things they like. I know what my children like to eat and don't offer an alternative if they decide to be picky one evening.

If friends don't eat what I offer, they get offered toast as a backup. One of DD's friends is a very fussy eater and his mum is says to just give him toast if he doesn't want what's on offer.

PrincessScrumpy · 05/02/2011 18:55

YANBU but I do think I would have offered something else like a sandwich or toast if child tried it and didn't like it. If he/she didn't even try it then no.

If child was fussy, mum should tell you.

thumbdabwitch · 05/02/2011 19:05

I had a fussy child come to lunch one day - he didn't like the pasta, so he asked for a jam sandwich. I gave him a jam sandwich, he took one bite and left the rest. I was Not Pleased (two lots of wasted food).

thefirstMrsDeVere · 05/02/2011 19:13

I dont make other people's kids eat. I figure that not eating one meal wont kill them and I dont want to stress them if they are fussy eaters. My kids eat anything but my sister's kids are very fussy. I know how stressed her little boy gets when presented with food.

But YANBU. I would have just let him wait till the others finished. His mum was rude and should have left it.

I had a boy come to my house once. I served up a kid friendly meal, home made oven chips and something else (it was 12 years ago). He looked at it and said 'fucking hell are you trying to poison me! I not eating that rubbish!' He was 5.

Now I am not easily shocked but even I was taken aback. I was taken aback and he was taken back - to his house so fast his little cloven feet didnt touch the ground.

I told his mum that he would probably be hungry because he refused to eat anything at my house.
Now I know why she was so suprised when he was invited round in the first place.

bupcakesandcunting · 05/02/2011 21:53

MrsdeVere that just made me LOL so loud I woke DS up. He wanted to know if I'd been watching Mr Bean (the benchmark of humour in DS's world)

Maelstrom · 06/02/2011 17:54

You are not unreasonable, but she might have not asked if you made him something else implying you should, but perhaps because she needed to know if she needed to feed her kid something on arriving home?

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