To ask DH to cook dinner when he comes home from work?

[LoveMyGirls]

I'll try to make this brief.

Dh work full time leaving the house at 8.15am and takes dd1 to school on the way he returns home at 5.50pm. He is very capable of doing all house related stuff but cooking is not his strong point, he panics a bit and can really only do one plate of food at a time.

I work full time doing 50hours per week as a childminder, I'm also starting to set up as an artist too so I can hopefully make a living out of it when my dd's are at secondary school/ college, I'm also doing my NVQ 3 in childcare so if the art doesn't pan out I have a qualification to fall back on.

I cook dinner for 5/6 dc's for 5pm, all children are collected by 6pm. This is when I start round 2 of cooking dinner for DH & I. Sometimes I can make enough to put it by for us to eat when everyone has gone but sometimes this isn't possible.

So AIBU to ask DH to cook on the days I haven't managed to put something to one side?

Moondog, I get your point (except serving tuna nads, that's just wrong)

OP, you need to meal plan so that you know who is responsible for which meals.

My DH is a competent cook, as long as you tell him what he is cooking. Unless he opened the fridge and there was a packet of steak and some chips, he couldn't look at the fridge contents and work out a meal.

That's partially my fault, because I enjoy cooking/meal planning and am a bit territorial about the kitchen but my (long winded) point is, he could feed us if he had to.

YANBU, being the sole provider of daily meals in a household often gets to feel like drudgery after a while no matter now much you like cooking.

We got into the habit over the years of kids dinner at around 6 and adults around 9 Mon-Fri, mainly due to DH's long working hours. Kids have got older now and he gets home a bit earlier sometime so we can have family meals, but when I went back to work recently (only part time) and DH asked what I wanted him to do my main ask was for him to be responsible for the adult meal once or twice a week. It's funny how it makes a really big difference to me. Yes I COULD make more meals for the freezer or make sure the kids meal is ALWAYS something we could heat later. But I quite like a fresh, hot meal and often want spicier food than the kids like so I don't think it's unreasonable that DH cooks sometimes. When you have family nobody's working day ends at 6.

exactly sunnydelight, agree with every word of that

moondog it was tuna something, maybe macaroni? but my point is that the food tastes of young children aren't always in line with what adults want to eat, and it's not crazy to want a proper adult meal instead of just extra of what the kids have.

And of course an omelette is quick and easy, but why should the wife always have to be the one to do it? She's working just as long as her husband.

Also, there is something about having watched small children eat whatever it is (and I don't have a problem with fish fingers: anything but - they are often made of sustainable fish and they're a good way to get fish into kids who otherwise wouldn't eat it*) one goes off it, I find.And yearns for something (a) wildly unchildfriendly, reeking of chilli and/or anchovies (b) you haven't watched them mash over every available surface...

It is the expectation that the person with the ovaries serves up food that is also unspeakably wearing.

*I do take food and nutrition quite seriously, incidentally, I write about this sort of thing for a living.

YANBU He needs to learn to cook and to stop being such a pussy about it!

moondog YOU find it one of the most pleasant tasks - many people don't, I can't see why you feel so sorry for a man who is only being asked to do a small amount of the cooking for the family. The OP doesn't want the same as her mindees all of the time, she wants some fresh, hot, adult food and she doesn't want to be the one cooking it all of the time.

He needs to stop saying 'I can't cook' - meaning 'I don't want to cook'.

Wow moondog! Talk about head up your own arse! You have no understanding of this at all as someone who loves cooking and finds it a doddle. Perhaps you shouldn't be so harsh about something you don't understand. And what they hell is wrong with fishfingers! Judgemental about them are we?

Someone posts saying that they are tired of cooking and you just tell them that no they are wrong! Did you even read the OP? You are vaguely writing on the same subject but that's about it.

It's a marriage and a family, both parents working, therefore totally NOT unreasonable to expect that both parents will take a share at the cooking. If DH cooked for people before I got home but for whatever reason there wasn't enough for us to eat, I would certainly expect him to get fed up with cooking again at times, and I would help out. It's how partnership works.

Well said sleepingsowell

At the weekend we got take away on saturday (not good as we are meant be dieting) then on sunday DH made dd's pasta sauce and reheated the left over take away for us so I got 2 days of not cooking which was nice

Last night I did pizza and salad for the kids but there wasn't enough left for DH and I so we had jacket potato and salad, DH has said if I eat with the kids today he will feed himself something later.

I'm taking it one step at a time at the moment. Feeling so tired today. My mantra at the moment is "it will get easier when"