AIBU to think sometimes adults should have nicer food to children?

[ImperialBlether]

Something on another thread made me think of this.

I was one of a very big family. My mum always cooked lovely home made meals.

Occasionally my dad (and sometimes my mum) would have different food to us. For example, they might have chops, when we'd have sausages. We loved sausages but we would have loved the chops, too. But when you have a very large family, how can you afford lamb chops for everyone? Half of my siblings were boys and ate a lot, too, so you'd be talking about three chops vs three sausages.

I never felt deprived because my dad had chops when I couldn't. It wouldn't have occurred to me. Similarly if he had Stilton and wouldn't let us taste it, I didn't feel deprived. Envious for quarter of an hour, maybe, but not deprived.

Now in my own family there are some things I like, eg fresh anchovies, which on the one hand I'm lucky my children won't eat anyway, but on the other I wouldn't want to pay for for all of us.

Obviously this is a financial issue. Given the money, my mum would have fed us all organic lamb chops morning, noon and night.

But if money is an issue, is it wrong (as many suggested on the bacon thread) that the children shouldn't eat what the parents eat? Shouldn't there be some privileges for being adult? (And of course I'm not suggesting children go hungry!)

Maryz also think you need to take another lemontart

Really dont get this resentent at DC eating "nice" food
My BIL would knock his own DC over to "get " his share of the food at family events-vile.
If there is a buffet and the nice food is all gone after the DC have been served then I think undercatering is the problem!

We all eat the same -if we are broke its pasta ,if we are not do a nice roastie .Mine are also teenagers -they get the same serving as everyone else and can fill up on extra bread,pasta,spuds,yorkies when everyone else has been served.

Maryz there lies your problem - you should make your DC wash up!

Maryz and Figs have hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned. Children are not always discerning. Most teenage boys I know are more concerned with the size than the 'cut' of steak and wouldn't notice the texture with a Masterchef class behind them.

I think many posters on this thread are immediately leaping in to the conclusions that the parents are taking 'priority' over the child and they're incredibly defensive with their 'eat gravel' (love that, whoever coined it ) mantra... it's not about that at all. Nobody's talking about starving a child, for goodness sakes. I would imagine that most families eat pretty much the same thing most of the time. The 'treat' food is something to be savoured and with the best will in the world, you don't want to fork out a wad of money for a jar of caviar only to have your offspring gallop up to it, slopping half of it into their cheese and marmite sandwich as 'relish'...

Although... perhaps some of the posters here would hand over the price of their monthly mortgage repayments for a dozen jars so that the poor children are not deprived in any way...

I think some of this is just a symptom of 'kids have everything too early and nothing to look forward to'. They don't always appreciate it either. Anyway, each to their own. To the pearl-clutchers gasping at the 'sheer neglect', well... I just don't care.

MrsBaggins... I disagree, if all the 'nice' food is gone once the children have been served, then portion-control is the problem. My children are taught that you look at what's available, count the number of portions required so that everybody has some - and then you take your portion. You don't behave like a complete pig just because that particular foodstuff is tasty. It's not even about hunger... how many barbecues or any other events have you been to where EVERYTHING has been hoovered up, breads and all? I haven't been to one.

I think that we're getting a bit mixed up. As I understood the OP, it was referring to the practice of consistently buying lower quality or more muindane food for the children whilst keeping the good stuff back for yourselves. I don't think anyone is casting aspersions on the the adults having an nice meal in a restaurant or a special dinner when the children have gone to bed. The real issues are when the children get fishfingers, nuggets, cheap sausages etc and the adults are on the organic chicken breasts. It does happen, I see it in my own family. Nearly all of the children on mine and DH's side exist on smiley faces, chicken dippers etc. We are the only ones who give DD exactly the same as we are having, all of the time.

Is anyone else wanting the recipe for Snicker's cake? Pas devant les enfants, of course...

Exactly gwendoline. This thread has wandered a little.

YANBU. Treating people equally doesn't always mean treating them the same, and sometimes requires treating them differently.

For example, young children need food containing more fat and carbs than adults. I can't tolerate much fat at all. So I might well do a meal of potatoes and veg and a mixture of sausages (decent quality but invariably a high-fat food) and lean meat. It's not cooking separate meals, just throwing a bunch of stuff under the grill.

If ds wants some of what I'm eating, he can have it - he's a cautious eater so we encourage trying new things, but in general he has conservative tastes (typical childrens menu plus various other things) and if the aim is to provide a nutritious meal that everyone enjoys, then it makes sense for boys to have sausages and the adults steak.

Lying I agree -in fact I was assuming that the adults would be supervising the children and I was brought up to believe the same as you. Sadly my BIL wasnt
In which case it isnt undercatering but lack of manners and appalling rudeness.

it is not good that MAryz got no lemon tart especially as I assume her kids knew lemon tart was mums favourite so to eat her share was mean and selfish, we are not talking starving children here it is about treats and children to do not have a monpoly on treats re the cake none left for adults as slices cut too big if a large cake you dont cut it into 15 pieces when 22 people there you cut 22 pieces and dont expect 7 to go without so kids can have best that is spoiling kids with sense of entitlement kids should learn that they can not wolf things down with no regard to anytihng else if you buy 16 yogurts for family of 4 that is 4 each it does not mean 7 for each child and 1 each for mom and dad, if you leave yours for another day does not mean someone else can eat it

when it comes to choclate if we had £2 to spend each I would buy green & blacks and ration it out 2 squares a day DH would get 2 x8 packs of asda bubbly bars and probably finish them in 4 days and wonder why no choclate bars till next shop DD would have bueno. white choc buttons dished out by me as appropiate because otherwise being 20 months she would eat them all in next 15 mins just because mine is more expensive per 100g and lasts longer does not mean 1,) that i should share it when theirs run out or 2.) that i should have cheap chocolate instead

witth shoes all fo us have good shoes , i hgave to have really supportive good shoes as have dodgy ankles without them my feet and legs hurt too much too walk much so its essential i have them so can take DD out and run with her, she gets 1 pair of good shoes too

with clothes she grows out of them fast i do not need any new ones but if she has enough I would not be a martyr and say oh she must have 10 different summer dresses but Dh and myself can not even have 1 new t shirt, in that case she would have a few dresses and we would get t shirts , unless money is very very tight i do not agree with different standards for parents and children either way round once children have essential nutrients clothes etc there is no need for parents to be martyrs and buy them more stuff than they need and go without, like spending £200 on childrens toys for a birthday when they can only just pay mortgage
if i buy DD peppa stickers i dont buy DH them too, but if i buy him extra munchies dont buy DD them its fair but different

Gwendoline... I don't think we are at all. You refer to fishfingers (which I personally adore). A fillet fishfinger is still fillet fish. Aside from the breadcrumbs, it's just fish. If you oven them, they're really low-fat and quite healthy. Just because it's a fishfinger doesn't mean that it can't square up nutrition-wise to a goujon.

You don't know family circumstances, even in your own, much as you think you do know them. You feed your DD what you're having? Great. So what? I don't think that children need to feast on everything their parents do - as taste is one thing - but they don't need to have everything all at once either in my view. I think it's more important to keep an eye on the salt/fat levels myself and some of the more luxury foods are high in both.

Thinking about it... I don't want my children to focus on food all the time. I want them to run about and play and eat their food at mealtimes without keeping a watchful eye on what everyone else is eating, ready with a cry of "Not faaaaaiiirr".

Lying
Nowt wrong with a fishfinger sarnie

Ooh dear, that did touch a nerve didn't it?

Sheesh.. I expect you think it did, but you just came over as a bit of a snob in your post, looking down on your family. You don't know my arrangements so no nerves touched here, Gwendoline.

Notcitrus- children need fats in their diets, yes, but 'good' fats not saturated fats from cheap cuts of meat. They'd be better off on the lean meat too.

I'm another one whose children eat what we eat for the main meals. If we couldn't all afford to eat the best quality food then it would be DH and I that would go without because I would rather my growing children had the best diet.

I do think it's important that children learn not to be greedy and grabby when it comes to food. I don't like seeing children overload their plates and leave very little for others when they are helping themselves. We always ask if we can have another helping of something and if we can have the last of something before taking it.

Bumbley totally agree about good manners-my Dc are hungry teenagers but would always ask if anyone wanted the last piece of cake etc

They would not want to feel my wrath if they ate 2 lemon tarts without asking me if I wanted some.

I was intrigued by the way people started talking about rights in early posts. Surely nobody has a right to luxury food, however aged they are? That said, I too don't get the thinking that adults have more 'right' to it than children. We all eat the same meals, even if the little dears do loathe some of them (vegetable curry..).

My children aren't quite at the age where this has become an issue however (being 2 and 8 months they always have an earlier tea). When they are older I will definitely not be cooking two separate meals. It will be the same for all of us. Also, I don't think I would ever have the number of children where I could not afford to feed them the same as DH and I.

I am just at venus and snicker's stories. I would be bloody furious!

Lying said "The 'treat' food is something to be savoured and with the best will in the world, you don't want to fork out a wad of money for a jar of caviar only to have your offspring gallop up to it, slopping half of it into their cheese and marmite sandwich as 'relish'... shock"

We have smoked salmon, blini, creme fraiche and salmon caviar for special occasion brunches (birthdays, christmas etc), and DD has to be physically restrained from hoovering up the whole jar. Last christmas we were at MIL's, and she laid on smoked salmon etc. They already think we're right up ourselves because we shop at waitrose, and that was only reinforced when DD said "But Grandma, where's the caviar?"

Gwendoline, if you read the op, it's talking about children occasionally being given different food, not consistently.

No I don't agree with children being given less nutritious food than adults. Yes I do agree with adults sometimes eating rich, expensive food, if that's what they want to do (and the have 'the right', because they are buying it, surely? ), without sharing it in equal portions with their children.

Interesting. I'd hate to think rights normally proceed from wealth. Children have no income and no real way of earning an income, so I think this is an odd way to look at things. Nor do they normally choose how money is apportioned. I think too that not sharing is not what I want to teach children - or, worse, 'I'll share it if it doesn't really matter to me.'

How do you define rights, sieg?

How long have you got? Assuming the answer is 'not long', I used the term only because others did. I think something like the 'right' to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' might cover it. Such claims of natural justice can't or mustn't be blurred by more local claims to justice as understood as equality. 'I have a right to the last piece of cake because I paid for it' is usually such a claim. A stronger claim might be 'I have a right to it because I made it' or 'I have a right to it because X gave it to me, so it means more to me than it does to you' or - stronger still - 'because we divided it into eight pieces and this one is mine because you have eaten yours'. But generally I diisapprove of the overuse of 'rights'.

Hope said "I also find it interesting that those who agree with the OP say that their is no point in giving their dc the "good stuff" as their kids can't tell the difference.
Yet those who do give their dc the "good stuff" say that the dc appreciate it and know the difference. I wonder if that's just coincidence?"

I agree with the OP, and I'm not saying that there's no point in giving children "the good stuff", just that to never eat anything different to your children seems a bit, well, ridiculous to me. DD gets plenty of the good stuff, but still wouldn't necessarily choose fresh wild alaskan salmon with creamy pasta and veg (which she sometimes has) over tinned sardines or mackeral with pasta (which she often has). I'm not saying it's a lack of discernment; sardines are very nice too, and we often eat sardine pasta, but not necessarily the same day as DD does, same as I'll get her a fillet of alaskan salmon if it's on offer, but not necessarily another two for us.

I think this thread is a bit silly, actually, and I'm wondering why I'm spending so much time here.