To wonder - is it normal to feed you children cheaper food than you eat yourself?

[Mrsbiggs]

We (OH, me and 5 of our various children) had corn on the cob with dinner last night. DS (15) and DD (13) said "we aren't allowed to have this at dads - its "adult food"".

I was a bit and asked them what they meant. Apparently their dads OH (they have been together 4 yrs I have never met her but she has caused many many issues, and destroyed a once amicable and friendly divorce) - buys economy food for the children ( she has 2 DC of her own) and finest food for her and the kids dad. They have Heinz beans and the kids have value range, at BBQ's the kids are only allowed a burger or a sausage, not kebabs or chops etc and they aren't allowed pudding (and have to watch the "adults") eat theirs, and they are not allowed to talk at the dinner table . The adults have chops etc while the DC have pasta bake.

Am I right in thinking this is appalling, and bordering on abusive or do other people do this?

Exactly midori there's no way I would allow that to happen.

As the OP says, what about their self esteem?

I would be telling my ex that if he wants to see the children on a weekend, he needs to stop treating them like dogs and let them sit on the furniture.

The food thing isn't nice at all but as long as I fed them properly at home, I'd be more concerned about how the ex's DP is treating them.

And of course how their Dad is allowing them to be treated.

I have tackled him over many many of these issues and he tried to have me arrested for harassment - in my own home in front of our children.

I take the view that the children choose to go, they know they can choose not to go end of.

• and I have stopped them going in the past but the kids were not happy about it and he stopped paying maintenance meaning I was unable to pay my mortgage.

My kids will have mid range ice cream while I had Ben and jerry for example but everything else is the same

This is how I was brought up, but it certainly isn't how my son is brought up. If I had to choose I'd give my son the more expensive food and me the cheaper stuff as he's the one that is still growing.

I wouldn't bother about it but feel they should be having some fruit and veg occasionally. Perhaps they can take some with them.

Oh I think I remember you talking about your ex before OP, your son was stealing his step sister and step mothers knickers and hiding them in his room and your ex had to sneak away to speak to you about it.

My ex has done that, MrsBriggs, stopped paying maintenance because ds is too afraid to see him. You should get the CSA involved, maintenance and contact are two very different issues and he shouldn't use this to blackmail you.

It's much calmer now and he's self employed so easy for him to hide money.

The only time the children eat anything different to DH and I is if I know they won't like it (like a particular garlic-y prawn pasta thing DH loves) or we're eating junk (like take out) and I want them to have 'better' food. Whenever we do this, I will feed the children and then DH and I will eat later, once they're in bed so it isn't so obvious that we're having different meals.

I cooked for myself and ate alone a lot when I was younger and I want my children to feel included.

Is it possible that she is cooking the food that she thinks they like - so sausages and burgers for the barbecue, pasta bake for supper etc?

The sofa thing, and the no-pudding thing, is very odd though.

Have they ever said anything to their dad - 'could we have one of those kebabs please, oh good lamb chops for tea, could we try the ribs next time you have a barbecue' - ? I think they're probably old enough to do so.

I would also bear in mind that they may be exaggerating slightly to please you.

We did baby led weaning so dd has eaten the same as us since she first had food.

Although we do sometimes eat fruit for pudding with her and then have a magnum or something once she's gone to bed. She gets "proper puddings" at nursery though so I don't want her to have two puddings a day.

I wouldn't eat something different in front of her though.

I don't share my wine with her though! (Not that I'll be drinking any for a while as I'm pregnant.)

I let her on the sofa supervised but not unsupervised as she has just learnt to jump and likes to jump off things.

She's also only 2 so probably a bit different to your teenagers!

My Stepmum did this to us. She also turned an amicable divorce into hell aswell tho...
She had a cupboard of branded 'treats' for my Dad and we had value sandwich biscuits.
Amongst many other shitty things!

We eat mostly the same but I can and do feed DD different things if she won't like what we're eating, but we usually then eat separately. I wouldn't give DD cheap sausages while we're eating decent ones unless she actually liked them and didn't like ours. TBH we tend to eat simply and things that DD likes as it's easier to prepare one meal for the three of us.

Bizarre, but my ex DH was brought up like this, Dad got the special stuff the kids got value stuff.

My DSSs would be welcome to eat what we eat, but one doesn't like chicken, fish or steak, the other doesn't like anything in a sauce so we do have a limited diet when they're with us. I tried to get them to try different things in the beginning but that just led to abusive texts about what I could and couldn't feed the kids. So I gave up and feed them what they've already tried and like.

We mostly have three people eating one meal and one person eating something else, it's just easier to cope with that way.

I have heard of this happening in "the olden days" in families where money was tight, for example Dad having steak and chips, and everybody else having egg and chips but never heard of it recently.

I would much rather give my DC quality food, while I ate plain pasta. They are growing and I'm not. My DC seem to have a taste for cheap food, and get rather excited over Aldi frozen pizza and cheap ice cream. However, I am really mean and insist on serving up quality meat and veg. Lots, and lots of veg. They think I am evil. One day I will feed them cheap crap and let them do no homework and they might actually like me. Sorry, I'm ranting now.

In France DC tend to be given the best food.

I think it's a cultural thing.

I don't really feed my kids kids food but value biscuits and value ice lollys and crisps all the way!

OP you haven't answered if her children get treated the same as yours with regards to food and sofa. Could be her dc wouldn't like adult food so se just thinks oh big job lot of pasta bake for them to stuff themselves and her and her dh have the proper food.

that sounds the sort of thing my dads mrs would have done.Nasty spiteful behaviour in my opinion,if she included her kids aswell i might have said fair enough.She sound awful.Poor kids

No the kids have always ate what we eat. I rarely buy crisps and biscuits, when I do they eat the same biscuits as us. I usually try and persuade them to make biscuits if they want them.
When they were very young they'd eat different stuff as they were eating earlier than us so there was more fish fingers and smily faces then, but once they started school it was the same stuff as us.

Come to think of it I was brought up in almost the opposite way - that is, kids food was looked down on and I was expected to eat exactly what my parents ate. Had its drawbacks (making junk food something of a forbidden fruit!) but it did give me a wider palate I suppose.

Although that is largely irrelevant as it seems this food issue is a symptom of a much bigger problem :( can't imagine treating my stepchildren like that, they eat what we eat and they can certainly sit on our sofa!

We kind of eat like this, but in reverse.

On a tight budget at the moment, so I live off toast, noodles, pasta etc but the DC's get meat, fresh veg etc. On the grounds that I'm fully grown, (Probably a bit too well grown) but they are learning and growing and also need to learn good
eating habits.

I thought it was more common to sacrifice the adult nutrition in favour of the children, unless one adult was in an intensely physical job

Oops i read op wrong.Sorry.Thats what my dad mrs done to us.They had nice food we had beans with chicken dinosaurs.It always made us feel awful but then they used to have burgerkings and leave us out.

Weird and selfish IMHO. For treats, like special ice cream, chocolates, etc, I can see where mum and/or dad can have a little stash of their own but for main meals? No! If anything, the kids should have the better bit since they are still growing and their body need all the goodness from good food.