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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Being unreasonable never felt so good

66 replies

stella1w · 15/06/2012 22:18

Had a friend with two kids the same age as mine (four and one) come to stay for a few days during which her four year old dd has been totally rude, oppositional in general and often plain mean ro my dd. Culminated tonight with me cooking shepherds pie for them when they got in at 8 after sightseeing. Her dd wouldnt touch it. So we got her chicken nuggets. Wouldn,t touch it but threw a temper tantrum when told she couldn,t have ice cream. So her mum let her have ice cream. She then threw a tantrum because it she didn,t like the bowl. I took it away from her and then her mum got angry with me. And i said she was a brat. I apologised to both of them and accepted i was out of line. But i still feel liberated from the farce of pandering to this little tyrant.

OP posts:
WorraLiberty · 15/06/2012 22:57

"Demand"?

She actually demands to meet up or does she just ask you to meet up?

stella1w · 15/06/2012 23:02

She texts and calls several times in a row to ask what i am doing and can she join me? And when i see her all day she wants to see me the next day. I tried explaining that sometimes i don,t want to make plans but she is really persistent.

OP posts:
WhereYouLeftIt · 15/06/2012 23:12

So basically the mother is a brat as well?

twinkletoes12 · 15/06/2012 23:13

I'd do it how couthyMow does it. No pudding until main course is over, and 80% gone. I only serve foods I know the kids would like, including guests. I always ask what they don't like.
I think the child was being disrespectful. When my daughter was four she had manners, minded her p n q'z and if she didn't like it would of sat there and tried anyway out of respect.
The child described in the first post sounds like a 2 year old...

skybluepearl · 15/06/2012 23:17

Children only get pudding if they eat their main course in our house. We don't do alternative main courses either. We don't make a big deal out of it, it's just the way it is. I think some parents encourage and pander to fussy eating! I'm sure kids were less fussy in the 1950's

WorraLiberty · 15/06/2012 23:18

Right but look at it this way.

The kid might love her Mum's Shepherd's pie but she might have hated the OP's version.

The thing with meals like that is they all taste different when cooked by different people.

And remember this 4yr old was being fed a dinner at bed time (or what should be bed time) after a long day being dragged around sight seeing.

My bedtime is around 1am and I'd be buggered if I could manage to eat a Shepherd's Pie, nuggets or any other kind of bloody dinner then.

Yes she was unreasonable over the ice cream but again, she's in a different house with someone who clearly doesn't like her, she's over tired and probably over hungry at that point too.

bonnieslilsister · 15/06/2012 23:22

That was my point too Worra. Even if kids have a late afternoon sleep it isn't normal for them to sleep at that time.....everything is out of step and they can feel vile.

cory · 15/06/2012 23:26

I have every sympathy with the doubtless overtired 4yo.

But what about the mum? Is she 4 too? Why couldn't she just say "well, this is the bowl you're having and if you don't like it you'd better go straight to bed"?

watermargin · 15/06/2012 23:33

she isn't on trial at the stand worra Grin

I wouldn't call a child a brat but I have to say, I was the world's fussiest eater but at four, I would not have behaved that way at a guest's house. I remember going through agonies at a similar age when my friend's parents tried to get me to finish my vegetables and I got quite tearful but did not have a temper tantrum!

OneHandWavingFree · 15/06/2012 23:36

You can keep saying that you know you shouldn't have called her a brat, but you come across as delighted with yourself for having done so.

Which is awful. She's barely out of toddlerhood, she's tired and upset, out of her comfort zone, and you're the perfect parent big adult who called her a mean name.

Nothing to feel so good about.

Morloth · 15/06/2012 23:42

I think if the parent is there then the kid is not my problem.

I would intervene if they were hurting my kid but otherwise they can deal with their own kids.

CouthyMow · 15/06/2012 23:43

Then they'll be rather hungry for one night, no DC has ever died through being hungry for one night!

None of mine refuse a dinner 2 nights in a row, they all have different likes and dislikes, but each of them choose a dinner once a week, and EVERYONE has to eat it. Even me. And there's things I dislike like cauliflower, it tastes like the devil's farts, but eat if one of the DC has chosen it.

If one of my DC's thinks a dinner is vile, they will usually eat it then ask me afterwards if I maybe won't do that dinner again, or, more usually, we discuss how we could change the recipe to make it more palatable to them, or if they could add something to their portion to disguise the taste.

I don't have the money to be a short order cook, I do one dinner, take it or leave it.

Obviously, there are a few foods I don't bother dishing up, DD will not eat peas, DS1 would rather eat dog poo than rhubarb, and DS2 can't manage anything remotely spicy, but apart from that, they eat what they are given.

And so would a guest in my house. If they don't like the possibility of disliking the meal, they could always shop for something else and cook it?!

MateyM00 · 15/06/2012 23:43

it sounds as if you wont have this problem again.

the mum demands to come over and you call her kid a brat?

i guess the demands will stop.

It sounds like the OP was tired and hungry and pissed off after a day of sightseeing too and let the 4yo get the better of her. Who is the adult? sorry who was behaving like an adult?

WorraLiberty · 15/06/2012 23:44

Fair point watermargin Grin Blush

But the thread title has annoyed me Lol

It doesn't sound as though the OP is sorry at all.

WorraLiberty · 15/06/2012 23:47

Couthy your anecdotes don't match the OP's situation.

The child wasn't at home, she wasn't eating the food her Mum cooks, she wasn't eating at dinner time...she was being expected to eat after her bed time.

FWIW, I'm exactly the same as you. I keep telling my kids I don't run a restaurant and they'll get what they're given (obvious strong dislikes aside)

And that works perfectly in my house.

But taking the OP's friend's child's situation into consideration here....I just feel sorry for the kid being put in that position in the first place.

CouthyMow · 15/06/2012 23:55

My DC are relatively unfussy, and love their food, btw. Except for DS3, but he's only 16mo and has the appetite of a sparrow.

It's not about fun or not, it's about cost and waste. I can't afford to do lots of separate dinners, I am on a very limited budget, and most dinners are 'all in' dinners, like slow cooker meals, so that I can buy cheaper cuts of meat.

I don't expect a totally empty plate to get pudding, but they know they have to eat a reasonable amount of dinner to be allowed pudding. I don't think it's that odd, tbh, don't know that many people in RL who would allow their DC to be that fussy.

One thing you accept if eating in someone else's house is that the food may not taste the same as it does at home. I personally am fussy about spag Bol, and won't eat it if it is from a jar. If I am offered round a friend's house, I will politely decline and say that the meat for dinner needs to be eaten tonight or something, as a polite get-out. Anything else though, I will eat even if it is horrid, as my friend would have gone to the effort of cooking for me. And so would my DC.

There's nothing wrong with having certain expectations of politeness from DC when out visiting, and I would expect a DC of school age or almost school age to understand the expectations I have of politeness when visiting someone.

When I said that the DC sounds like a spoiled little madam, I wasn't being rude about the DC, after all, she can't spoil herself, can she? It was because I get annoyed at parents that pander to their DC like this, having boundaries and expectations on your behaviour never hurt anyone, did it? Not if it's done properly.

stella1w · 15/06/2012 23:55

Yeah.. I was in the wrong and prob her mum shd have done a better job of making sure she had eaten and got home earlier. I shd have left them to it. She is always like this, btw.. Sometimes she is pleasant for about an hour in the morning.

OP posts:
CouthyMow · 16/06/2012 00:01

Thing is, it seems like the OP's friend has never taught her DC how to behave in company, if my DC did this at 4yo, round a friend's house, they would have been told to eat it or go hungry, and to apologise to their host for their rudeness. And there would be no way I would be giving them a bowl of ice cream after they had been rude.

Ok, the girl was tired, but tiredness isn't an excuse for rudeness. And it certainly isn't an excuse for a parent to set no boundaries and give ice cream when no dinner was eaten. It's the girl's Mother's pandering that is making me cross, yes, brat was a bit harsh, I would have been having words with the mother, not the DC, but the mother isn't doing this girl any favours by giving in to her all the time.

OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos · 16/06/2012 00:32

I can't get past Apparantly she was listening to her body by refusing to touch her mains before ice cream

From a four year old?

This kid sounds like a spoilt brat, but when I dont have to deal with that, it quite funny! I think I like her. Grin

Whatmeworry · 16/06/2012 00:38

She's a brat. And the child isn't much better :o

I think you can now exit with grace....

rogersmellyonthetelly · 16/06/2012 08:04

I can see why you lost the plot, but calling her a brat, whilst no doubt immeasurably satisfying at the time was a little harsh.
When I'm cooking after a long day out or for fussy guests, I generally tend to do party style food, jam sarnies, nutella sarnies (never fails),Or A plate of ham, cheese chunks, carrot sticks and some bread and butter. Fills their tummies and gets their sugar levels back up so they turn back into human beings. Its quick and easy to prepare when ive lost the will to live, and Also it's easy to eat, and always goes down well!
I have a dd who will complain about the chair she is sitting on, the bowl she is eating from, even the spoon if it's not the same as her brothers, but she gets very short shrift at home and would get even less sympathy if she tried it whilst a guest at someone else's house!

bonnieslilsister · 16/06/2012 09:19

I think you are missing the point couthy which is in your own house it is great to have rules like the ones you mentioned but like worra said a 4 yr old eating, when she should be in bed, in someone else's house...... My sympathies lie with the child, as op was horrible to her Sad

baboos · 16/06/2012 09:34

IMO an adult calling a child names is very poor behaviour...regardless of the situation, so you were YADBU!

Snowboarder · 16/06/2012 11:30

Hell truly is other people's children isn't it? Grin

It sounds like you didn't cut the little girl enough slack for being tired/ overexcited/ in strange surroundings though. You should definitely not have called her a brat, but should have done what any sane MN would do. Wait until they'd gone to bed, popped open the Wine and posted about it instead.

Sunnydelight · 16/06/2012 11:39

Respect OP, I've often thought "what a brat" but never actually had the nerve to say it out loud Grin I'm with Snowboarder on other people's children.