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!)

I wasn't joking whe I said they like all that seafood

There is a fab village pub near us that is renowned for it's seafood and we go quite often.

We occasionally have a more expensive meal that we don't share with the DDs, often on a Friday night when we might eat after they have gone to bed instead of all together. I see no problem with it, the DDs enjoy it because they get to tell me what they want for dinner that night.

We also sometimes all eat more expensive food together, usually on family special occasions if we don't have money/time to go out for a meal. I think as long as the children aren't living on freezer rubbish while you have luxury home made stuff there really isn't a problem.

Interesting thread. OP I think YANBU.

I'm finding some of the horror at the thought of parents eating different things to children rather bizarre surprising. Surely the main priority is that the child is given a healthy, balanced diet, not that they always eat exactly what the parents are eating?

Firstly, DD doesn't eat with us; she eats her main meal between 4 and 5.30pm, we eat ours between 7.30 and 8.30pm. I don't know how people manage to eat as a family with small children and still get them to bed at a decent time. I might post a thread about that, actually.

Secondly, DD has always been allergic (I'm joking) to vegetables. It's an ongoing campaign to broaden her tastes, and they are widening (she recently decided she does like broccoli at last). But it means that the meals I cook for her always contain the veg she does like, and often a tiny bit of one that she doesn't, which she has to eat, in the hope that she'll decide she likes it. DP and I eat loads of veg, which means that DD often wouldn't eat what we eat. Also, DP and I love really rich food, which wouldn't be a particularly healthy choice for her. On the other hand, she very often eats our leftovers for her meal the following day (I make extra if I know that it's something she likes). Also, we eat at least one roast a week, and the leftover meat feeds all of us for several days afterwards (but not the same dishes for us all).

For instance, DD loves beans, which are really nutritious, so lots of her meals are based on that; eg. kidney or cannelini beans, left over chicken, peas and sweetcorn, garlic, pepper and creme fraiche. It's not what DP and I will be eating later, but DD loves it, it's nutritious and satisfying, so what on earth is wrong with that? We'd probably have something like chicken and butternut squash risotto instead; higher GI, higher fat (all the cheese I add ) and not as nutritious. And she does't like squash, although she loves chicken and mushroom risotto (after she's moaned about the onions and picked every bit out).

I'm not saying she never has the richer stuff; she does, but not all the time. I see my job as parent to give her nourishing, healthy food. As an adult, I get to eat the naughtier stuff. She'll be able to do that when she's an adult!

Hope I guess the 'privilege' bit, for me, is not so much the eating of the naughtier (ie less healthy) stuff, it's the choice to eat less healthily if I feel like it at any given moment. At the moment, the final choice over what DD eats, lies with me, because I'm the parent. Once she leaves my care, the choice will lie with her; that's an adult privilege.

That doesn't mean that I don't take her preferences and wishes into account; of course I do. But left to her choice, she'd eat steak every night. Firstly, that wouldn't be healthy for her, and secondly, we can't afford it. Some days I feel like all I do is say no to food requests to DD, but if I said yes, we would go to the sweetshop every day, she'd eat icecream, chocolate, biscuits every day, and exist on an otherwise pure meat diet!

And similarly, the idea of letting DD serve herself first at a family meal is just . She would help herself to all the choicest bits of everything, and load her plate with all the unhealthiest bits (and no veg!). I do think that treating children like this (I'm thinking of the buffet story upthread) is just bizarre, and gives them a sense of entitlement that doesn't stand them in good stead for later in their lives.

I empathise with what Maryz has been saying about her teens. DD is like this already; she's a one girl plague of locusts, given the chance. I agree about the plonk things too; she always has a taste of our wine, and always has had, but if she thinks she'll be drinking the good stuff to swill down when she's 18 (unless she's buying, of course), she's got another think coming. That's be confined to a glass with a family meal.

Incidentally, we have steak on a Friday every so often. DP gets sirloin or rump, which he prefers, I get fillet, which I prefer, and DD is not offered the option of fillet (so flog me) because she wouldn't appreciate the difference in texture between that, and the lamb rump steak we usually get her. She can taste ours if she likes, and if she ever expressed a massive preference then I'd take that into account of course. But otherwise, why pay twice the price for her to have a fillet steak just because I'm having one?

In the OP scenario, If this was not a normal night then we would have eaten the chops when the kids went to bed!!

We are very lucky and our children have pretty good quality food - DS favourite meal at the moment is a whole rainbow trout and veg!!

However if DP and I wanted to have a nice meal (something a bit more expensive) for example we both love monkfish, we would eat it later in the evening - DS loves monkfish but thinks its cod so there is no way he is having it!!!!

Disclaimer - we eat dinner with DC at least 6 nights out of 7 - so im sure one night of peace off is ok!!

YABU. If money is tight I would make sure the dc had the 'nicer' food.

If it was a matter of Me and DH going hungry or the dcs then I would feed the dcs first.

That said DH and I have a secret stash of ice cream, I don't share my chocolates, DH hides his olives and there is no helping yourself to mum's cashew nuts. We have fillet steak a couple of times a year as a treat when dcs have gone to bed. I wouldn't give the dcs fillet steak and give the adults sausages, they can buy their own steak when they have jobs, but I would give it to them and go without myself if it was that or nothing.

I haven't cooked separate meals for DS1 (4) since he was a newly-weaned baby - he gets what we get, and it's up to him whether he eats it. 9 times out of 10 he'll eat it, but if he doesn't he knows there's nothing else.

He loves stinky cheese and always shares the Hotel Chocolat selection box that we get through the post every month...it's a happy day when we find that in the letterbox

I also don't think there's anything wrong with him helping himself to a whole plate of rubbish at a buffet/party. It's a one-off, it will do him absolutely NO harm in the long run IMO. I would make sure he only took as much as he could eat though!

Maryz said "I can't afford fillet steak for five of us,"

so buy cheaper steak and use what is left for a nice dessert....I really can't understand it....how you can scoff fillet steak while resenting your teens eating "expensive food as though it were cheap ham"

How can you resent your children eating???

You don't have teenage boys then Mumbling?

Today DH had 2 big thick pork chops, DC's had lentil curry, I had pate on toast. Everyone happy.

Ooh Maryz, and I had you down as a good mum

No, I actually can't take this thread seriously. Is this really such a big deal? (Said the woman who has a secret chocolate stash that the children can never, ever know about.)

I reckon.....I reckon this is a "foody" thing Maryz. When you described how your DH likes his steak...I thought "But I like mine like that....leathery"

See...to me a treat is some perfume or a hairdo....but I have a friend who is a bit foody and she loves good food...so fair do's....if that's your treat then fair enough.

I am absolutely with you on this, Maryz.

Yes mumbling you've hit the nail on the head; pretty much all my and DP's treats involve food and wine. We love to cook and eat and drink; that's how we relax and reward ourselves. We feed DD a nutritious diet that she enjoys, and she has some food treats, but also lots of other kinds of treats. So no, I certainly don't feel guilty that she doesn't eat exactly what we eat.

Yes....and i think that this is something people who don't cook for pleasure fnd hard to understand....but I see it now...see I hate cooking and food's ok..but it's not something I look forward to as such....not unless it's chocolate based anyway.

I am more likely to buy myself a secret bar of galaxy than anything...