"There's nothing to eat in this house!" - DS17 complains

[flow4]

Apparently there is "nothing to eat" and I am "vindicktive" because I won't give DS(17) money for a kebab and I'm "leaving him with no T and in a foul mood". (The swearing and nasty verbal abuse he's given me are evidence of that ).

We have in our cupboards/freezer, right now: pasta (spaghetti, fusilli and macaroni), rice, bread, flour, cereal (tho no milk cos he drank it all), pizza bases, eggs, cheese, tins of beans and tomatoes, veg sausages, veg burgers, onions, courgettes, mushrooms, toms, apples, pears, tinned tuna and sardines... Not to mention the nuts, lentils, chickpeas, etc... And more...

Oh, and I did make tea - a veg/tofu stir-fry with rice - and saved him some although he wasn't home, which he has now eaten...

But he "wants to eat something that doesn't look like it comes out of a rabbit's arse" (i.e. veggie food=rabbit droppings)

He wanted a kebab, bacon, crisps, biscuits, a ready meal... Something junky, basically.

I didn't want to buy him a kebab partly because we have plenty of food in, partly because I think junk food is a waste of money, but largely because he was being rude.

I think he's being unreasonable, probably because he's hungry... But am I also BU not to buy him a kebab? And more generally, AIBU -

• to expect him to make himself something out of what we have in the cupboards?
• not to keep a constant supply of snacks/junk food in the house?
• to expect him to be polite when he asks me for money, even if he's hungry?

flow4 - well its a very good thing that he apologised once the heat had gone out of the situation and he had slept. For a 17 yr old to admit he was out of order is no small feat - so credit there and I am sure he will think twice before doing it again if ever.

I do though detect all the way through that although you don't prevent him eating meat there is quite a strong passive resistance to it in the home. You do not eat meat, you don't like preparing it, you don't have a significant stock of meat in the house and the meat DS does eat seems to have been contracted out to 'school meals' outside the home. In effect, eating meat at home is not really an option he can freely choose but has to contantly negotiate and that is beginning to grate.

For most teens, the major issue that causes blowups is the feeling of not having choices and autonomy in any area of their life and being treated like a child still under the control of their parents.

What mathanxiety said earlier I think is a rather good idea. Give DS control over his food budget by allocating family allowance to him, give him responsibility for shopping and cooking too. Maybe get him his own pans/board/knives too if you don't like the idea of meat in contact with your utensils. Maybe not give him the task of cooking every single one of his meals but if you are having stir fry he cooks some chicken to put into his portion for example. Maybe get him to cook a batch of lasagne, spag bol, chili con carne for the freezer in portions so he can microwave it himself if he needs something quick.

I really think some good can come of this but I do think you need to acknowledge how much of your preference for being vegetarian you are effectively imposing on him. Definitely keep an eye on the alcohol thing as well - coming home shouting the odds and being abusive after a drink is absolutely indefensible if that was a factor here.

Horrace - DW is the same. Hates fish. The way I get round it is have fish on days she is out and I am eating alone or I do home made fish n chips for me and DSs but DW gets a nicely cooked chicken breast in breadcrumbs.

Meanwhile, I cant eat gluten, DS2 really can't stand a piece of 'meat' on his plate but will eat mince while DS1 is a meat and 2 veg man and can't stand something like cauliflower cheese and I think would rather die than eat a mushroom.

Surely it is possible within a family to compromise and make a meal with the same basic generic components but modify for tastes and preferences rather than impose your view on everyone else as a form of cooks privellege?

I do all the cooking in our house and have very strict dietry requirements myself for serious health reasons but I don't for example force my family to stop eating bread just because I am not able to eat wheat gluten.

I'm still really confused by all this stuff about needing animal protein. There were eggs and cheese in the house.

I am at the level of complexity some families go to re food and menus.

What I don't understand is that we are talking about a 17yo who has been brought up in a vegetarian family. That's what he has been eating all his life apart from cheat and tasteless meat from the school lunches so it's hardly something new to him.
That also means that a tofu stir fry is part of his normal. From that pov, he had no reason whatsoever to be difficult about it.
He also has no reason to really be craving meat that he is NOT used to eat on a regular basis.

As for ensuring that everyone eats what they like... I would go with Horrace on that one, apart from health related issues.
dc2 doesn't like mushrooms but dc1 does. Does it mean I have to cook 2 meals? I don't. I prepare one with mushrooms in, dc1 eats them, dc2 leaves them on the side of the plate.
DP loves baked beans but I hate them. We do have baked beans from time to time. I don't eat them but the rest of the family does.
There is no way I would expect anyone to cook 2 meals for me and I would not expect anyone to expect me to cook 2 meals.

But that's not even the issue is it? The OP's ds never said he wanted meat. He said there was nothing there he was keen on eating. A very different story....

Jeez currently I have potatos, pasta, couscous, oodles of tea, things like pesto and ketchup (and some vinegary off mayo), instant porridge with a drop of milk left and a tin of soup to last today. Going for a backbreaking shop tomorrow, £30 worth lasts for two weeks. He won't last long in halls next year, though he'll have a job getting there with that spelling sorry, so snobby. Doing Battle Royale with this stupid presentation here. Of course, I must work Naomi Wolf into everything.

If he doesn't want to be vegetarian you have every right to insist that all meals consumed in your house are vegaterian (or pescetarian, as you seem to be).

Oh and by the way I think my dad would have hit me if I'd said anything like that to him- he (and you) works so hard, comes home at the end of a hard day to do the shopping and he's my parent. It just wouldn't occur to me!

Does he even know what vindictive means?

NOBODY will answer the question- substitute dp for ds- still OK?

I don't think any of it is ok seeker.

Of course it wouldn't be okay, seeker. It's not okay for anyone to speak like that - there's no excuse.
I get fed up of having to dance round teenagers sometimes, because they're hormonal and their brains are rewiring and posters telling off the OP because they think she's not being the ideal parent - by behaving perfectly at all times, having the patience of a saint and giving up their own long-held principles in the name of 'compromise'.
It's a good point about substituting dp for ds.

Agreed, Lady. My mum cooked the meals. We ate them and then said "thankyouformynicedinnerpleasemayIgetdown?" That's just how it was.

Yes Ariel, and we were grateful. At least outwardly (and that's what counts).

You know whose fault all this is? Annabel Karmel, that's who. She's the one who began all this nonsense about making food fun for children and spending 3 hours labouring over one over-complicated meal for a 9 month old. Children need 3 meals a day in front of them - the same meals the whole family eats not something special for children, which they eat and say thank you for, and ideally 1 out of the 3 should contain something they're not keen on but they eat it anyway, and once a week something should be served up that they hate and don't have to eat but it has to be on their plate nevertheless until one day they accidentally eat a tiny bit and decide they don't despise it after all. I'm only half joking.

Well I was never grateful for liver, if I'm perfectly honest.

Nor me, or kidneys . Still ate it though. I got my own back by deciding to be vegetarian at 15.

This is beginning to turn into an interesting general discussion about food... I'd certainly agree kids are becoming fussier. Curiously, both my boys ate much more varied and nutritious diets when they were younger, and have become fussier as they've got older, though DS2 (nearly 13) is starting to be bold again :) DS1's eating habits, particularly, have become worse and worse as he has got older, and as he eats away from home more often. It seemed to start with school dinners, which were massively less nutritious than the meals I provide: I was shocked that they served totally unbalanced meals like pizza and potato smiles and baked beans :( Personally, I think the more junk you eat - and therefore the more additives and salt and sugar - the more you crave those unnatural substances and find nutritious food unsatisfying.

As for my son... MoreBeta, I know you want this to be about his Manly Need for Meat, but it really wasn't, and your detection of 'passive resistance' to meat is entirely in your head! I choose not to eat meat, and I much prefer not to cook it, but I really have no problem at all with my son (or anyone else) cooking or eating it. I don't even demand separate chopping boards or pans and suchlike. He could eat more meat if he could be bothered to buy it or cook it, but he can't... And I definitely see that as his problem, not mine!

If there was any 'food issue' in our argument at all, it was about time, effort, interference with social life and carbs, not protein. DS didn't come home for tea because he was out with his mates, and (like many teens I guess) he would sooner socialise then eat cereal or noodles or a kebab later, than come home for a meal I object to kebabs because not cos they're meat, but cos they're crap!

And bless you, math and MoreB ... The idea of giving DS the Child Benefit to buy meat is, frankly, insane! Firstly, there is no way our family food budget would stretch to that much meat (which I'm afraid I do think of as luxury, not a necessary foodstuff). Secondly, if I gave him an extra £20/week, he would without a shadow of a doubt spend it on alcohol and junk food and (probably) skunk instead.

Oh and seeker and choco, even DS doesn't think his behaviour was OK!

when I was a teen not that long ago my friends had v unadventurous tastes tbh. It's their parents fault though.

So, by some peoples reckonings, this adolescent is so "in tune" with his needs that he was able to receive this message:

"Hey body, it's me - brain! Sorry for all the confusion recently, it's these hormones it is. Driving me crazy, can barely get a word in edgeways! Anyway, despite you having all that food earlier, my animal protein levels have dropped significantly and, as you know, it just needs to be satisfied right here and right now. But you know what? The food that's in the house, yeah the tuna, sardines, sausages, burgers, everything like that - it just isn't enough. I would like a kebab. Yes, a kebab.

Rather than eating all the lovely stuff in the house, I'd much rather you waste your parents money on crap that's probably spitroasted donkey with some mashed up rats from a greasy takeout place that'll charge through the nose to deliver. Because that's obviously a much better source of protein than anything else."

Some of the opinions on here are a fucking joke. They have to be!

He is a teenage boy who eats meat, has a multitude of meats readily available in the house along with a plethora of dribs and drabs that, under any kind of circumstance, would make a snack, and he wolfed down his dinner which, on this particular day, was vegetarian. That doesn't mean he can't cook something himself, it doesn't mean that he automatically qualifies for whatever he wants and it certainly doesn't allow him to say such horrific things TO HIS MOTHER.

Good grief, it's like the stone age here. I'm joining the sensible planet.

But...

But...

WHY are so many people focused on the fact this boy needs meat?

He kicked off at his mother and called her a bitch because she wouldn't fork out kebab money at 1am.

My daughter when she comes in hungry is perfectly able to cook herself something - quick and easy and immediate like beans on toast or a bacon sandwich. She is a nornal teenager in that she looks in the cupboards and says 'there's nothing there' meaning there are no pop tarts, but she would not call me a bloody bitch fgs.

OP you sound like a good egg - it must be extraordinarily hurtful to be spoken to like that. I really wouldn't let it go if I were you. He can't go through life reacting like that. He is an adult now, he needs to act like it.

I just read out the OP to ds1 who is 16.
He said "Well, he's a dick!"

And men do not NEED meat. Fgs, where were the kebab shops in prehistoric times? And how has my brother survived without meat for the last 20 years?

OP, if you suspect your DS smokes skunk and drinks then you need to call in a third party (it is not as ridiculous a proposition as some posters think it is) because you have to get to the bottom of the abusive outbursts (Seeker, these are as indefensible in a DS as they would be in a DH/DP) and if alcohol or pot are at the bottom of this habit then he and you both need help. Digging in your heels and being obstinate about money for lunch is not addressing the problem if that is the problem.

And really, you can't say --
he could eat meat if he bothered to buy it and cook it
and there is no passive resistance to the consumption of meat
when simultaneously you laugh at the idea of letting him have some money to buy meat.

And you can't complain about him eating junk instead of wholesome home-cooked fare when all you have by way of meat is bacon and sausages and ham.
If buying meat is going to make you bankrupt then why did you teach him to cook a chicken casserole?

There is a control thing going on here.

And men do not NEED meat. Fgs, where were the kebab shops in prehistoric times? And how has my brother survived without meat for the last 20 years?

PMSL

Ever heard of hunter gatherers?

Well, my brother's not a hunter gatherer! (Or a frequenter of kebab shops.)

Now you've mentioned weed I can see where the angry, violent outbursts come from. I'd be even less inclined to tolerate them.

I'm glad he apologised though. Out of curiosity is he at college? Does he have a job?

Math you've not even got the wrong end of the stick, I think you've got an entirely different stick.

I don't know anyone who allocates a certain percentage of the family food budget to a specific person, why on earth should the OP?