to think its a bit tight when parents count a school dinner as THE main meal of the day

[MariahScarey]

all other things being equal (money activities etc)

have a colleague who makes her kids have sandwiches for tea " as they eat at school"

they have money, they can cook - is this laziness?
I know they wont starve or out, but I wouldnt count a tiny school meal that is then burned off as a main meal.

USUAL DISCLAIMERS

Yes there are worse things to worry to about
YEs its none of my business
Yes I am judging

I wouldn't give DS a sandwich for his evening meal,whatever he'd had at school - because he thinks dinner is cooked food and pudding and has an annoying habit of consuming a dinners worth of calories and nutrients in a carefully made sandwich and then appearing and demanding to know what is for dinner...
It isn't worth the hassle.

Depends really on if you are happy with what is provided in the school dinner,and if your DC's will actually eat it.If you are and they will why not have that as their main meal. If not - then cook.Easy!
We have always eaten together,6-6.30 when DH gets home,and my DCs have always since babyhood eaten a lot more in the evenings than they would in the day. So actually,if I had a child who ate better at lunch time,it'd have to be school dinners I suppose...

I simply refuse to get involved in all this Food Angst. Life. Is. Too. Short.

Oh it really is. When DD was a toddler I used to tie myself in knots trying to fit in working and being Delia in the kitchen. We used to eat late because I was so determined that she would eat healthy, filling '5 a day' meals. I didn't trust DH to do it, and it caused many arguments.

Then she went to nursery. The menu was fabulous - honestly, I didn't eat that well, ever. The change was immense. Instead of slaving over a hot stove as soon as I got home we could have a quick and easy dinner and I could actually spend some time with my daughter. It was a ton of weight off my shoulders.

Now DH makes quick and easy meals Tue/Wed/Thu and I cook healthy filling meals on Sat/Sun/Mon. Our weight hasn't changed, our level of fitness hasn't changed, we are all generally healthy.

All that's changed is the lack of stress and angst. I wouldn't go back to the way I was for the world.

Do you not eat on Fridays LtXmasEve?

"I'd like to ask of the parents that do a sandwich tea for their kids is this meal the same for everyone in the family? Do you not all sit down and have dinner together?"

I am sure like many other Mumsnetters we don't have a '50's style of everyone home for an evening meal at the same time' -most nights DS (11) is out and about at activities, DH or I also have a lot of evening comitments and DH also works away a lot so we never have a 'set' time for an evening meal. Mostly we will eat together if we can and yes, it can be a 'sandwich type' meal for all of us.

I think so much of this depends on your food preferences - because I love good bread and 'naice' ham, deli stuff etc that is the sort of food I enjoy providing, DS doesn't enjoy a 'traditional meat and two veg' meal so is more than happy to have sandwich meals (packed lunch at school as well ), he is 11, very sporty but doesn't get incredibly hungry like some of the children obviously do in other MN households. DH likes all sorts of different meals.

For me it's nothing to do with time/money/cooking etc (SAHM - I love cooking ) but more about what we enjoy eating. .

We make sure that everyone has eaten hot food at school or at work, and then everyone sits down together in the evening and eats sandwiches that they make on their plates, with a selection of fillings.

I don't think there is any scientific law that says a hot meal will be more nutritious than a cold one, so I think that's a bit of a red herring. I also imagine that the nutritional value of what different schools serve varies, as well as whether it's enough for your child (though if it's that bad, the answer might be not to send them for school dinners!). So I very much doubt that most of the evening sandwich eaters are missing out nutritionally.

But it does seem rather a shame to me that many children are missing out on sitting down with their family for a proper evening meal as a normal part of every day life. Learning to enjoy a wide variety of food, watching it being cooked, perhaps helping to cook, setting the table, lighting the candles in winter. I know it might not be possible in many families due to our working hours culture and commuting time, so it's not the individual family's fault, but it's still a loss, I think.

My children are 9 and 10 now so it's easier. We don't eat until 6.30/7.00 which gives me enough time to cook after getting home at 6.00 - OK, sometimes it ends up being pizza from the freezer, but I don't think it does any harm in the scheme of things!

I think we are encouraged to feel that hot food is by default better than cold food, because it usually takes a bit more thought and effort to prepare most hot foods, whereas cold food can all too easily be a bag of crisps and a bowl of cereal. So really, we are just being encouraged to think about the content of the food and provide a nutritious, balanced diet. I think the fact it should be hot is a red herring, really.

We always eat together regardless of the temperature of the food. DH gets home at 7pm and we eat then. Always have, even since the children were tiny. I suppose that is how DH and I were brought up - we used to do the same in our house when I was a child, even on days when I had a hot lunch and sandwiches for tea!

The only meal that isn't all together at the table is the Sunday tea as DH and I always used to eat a sandwich tea, on our knee in front of the telly just that one time during the week - that was before the children born and we still do it. The children are getting to the age where we wil have to rethink as our sacred sandwich tea without interruptions, chatter and questions is getting later and later!

All that said, if you have to eat at different times or together, if you only eat one hot meal a day or find the room for 2, if you have sandwiches or don't, what the hell does it matter to anybody else? I am sure none of our children are deprived and malnourished despite our different ways of feeding them. There is no right answer to this so judging and calling parents 'tight' because they don't do what you think they should do is all wrong.

(What happened to the OP I wonder?)

Hmm,with regard to the value of family meals,sometime it feels like this:

Learning to enjoy a wide variety of food: Check (ignores moaning over food choice,refusal to eat ceratin items,tailoring of meal so everyone is vaguely ok with it...)

Watching it being cooked: Check (Mum,when will it be ready? Mum,why are we having fish? what are those red icky bits?...)

Helping to cook: Check (ok,yes,Ds you can chop those - but please don't tell me the entire plot of your DS game in-between cuts,or we'll never eat...)

Setting the table: Check (DD,set the table please....DD,table,NOW...will someone set the * table,I'm dishing up NOW...)

Relating to loved ones in a relaxed enviroment: Check (Yes,you have got to eat that. DD,please come to the table. DS,stop talking and eat.Use your knife and fork.USE YOUR KNIFE AND FORK. DD,do you want this fat? Eeurgh.DS,stop talking and eat. DS - we have all finished,why is your plate still full? That is quite enough ketchup. Stop talking and.....DH,please don't put your head in your hands like that )

Sandwiches,thats the way to go!

Hot or cold it really doesn't matter. It's the nutritional content that counts, making sure it's balanced. Of course people aren't tight if their DC's have a school dinner and then they serve sandwiches at home, school meals aren't known for being cheap anyway. I think there is a social side to it, but most families aren't the Brady Bunch anymore and work to different schedules. We will sit down to eat together if we all want to eat together, but if my DD doesn't want a big meal in the evening or want to wait until we are ready to eat she gets a cold tea. If she chose to have a sandwich at school for lunch she'll more often than not wait for us to eat a main meal. If she does eat a main meal at school she doesn't want to eat another main meal in the evening, she's not that hungry.

COCKadoodledo Nope, never. that's my not very well hidden addiction to Friday night takeaway Chinese food rumbled

quite PrideOfChanur.

A bread meal with a selection of cheeses, meats, appropriate vegetables, and of course decent bread, it lovely especially with

Not read whole thread but read a post on here once about a mum who gave her DC bread and butter for dinner as they "ate at school"...

WTAF?!!!

My ds11 has a school dinner and a cooked dinner at home. He is rake thin git but we don't allow snacking apart from a piece of fruit when he gets home.

Yes whatever it is we eat together. Last night dd and I ate reheated pasta while Ds had toast and jam. (Both had school dinners) and we all got in at 730pm

Sorry as we all got in at 730

DH was MIA after work Xmas lunch, no chance I was waiting for him.:)

Meh! sorry disagree with you. If they have sandwiches at school, they have a hot meal at night so what is the difference if they have the hot meal at lunchtime and sandwiches at night?

With our previous school dinner provider DS used to come home really hungry - now (new provider) if I forget when he has eaten at school and cook him a second meal he gets really annoyed with me as he is a light eater.

TBH it's my nutrition I worry about. I rarely have a proper meal at lunchtime. Then have a snacky tea with dcs after activities. I end up not having had 1 decent meal. But the I am not growing so I suppose it matters less.

Food has not been only fuel since humans worked out ways to make it taste better and worked out that eating communally is a wonderful thing.

By all means don't cook if you can't or don't want to. By all means feed your DC whatever you like. But trying to say that those who do prioritise family cooking and eating as seekers of fashion, is just silly. Virtually every culture values the cooking of and the eating of food as important and has done since the dawn of civilisation.

I agree wordfactory
La Queen, I do believe you have just used the "Islington Inclusive", which is the use of the word "we" to mean "people I know".
I am not brainwashed into feeling I have to produce TV chef style extravaganzas. I doubt most people are tbh.
Come to think about it the only cookbook I own are is an inherited copy of Pears family cookbook!

Half and half - eat together in various ways about half the week (Friday pizza in front of a film, thurs Sat and Sun meals at the table or out - works for us. I would be sad if we never got to sit down together, and it's one of the joys of children getting older when you can all have a leisurely meal and chat. But I don't feel bad about Monday Tuesday and Wednesday, when they eat at half six and we eat later, and probably nine times out of ten nobody's eating anything very impressive.