AIBU to give my DD £20/week and tell her to cater for herself?

[twofingerstoGideon]

OK, this is sort of lighthearted, but I'm semi-seriously considering it...

My 16 yo DD 'can't' tell me if she'll be home in time for dinner apparently. There are only two of us in our household and after a busy day at work I'd be happy to eat a slice of cheese on toast or a bowl of meusli or something quick and easy. Instead, I have always made a 'proper' meal, which DD and I eat together.

Nowadays she 'can't say' what time she'll arrive home, so WIBU to forget about catering for her, give her £20/week and tell her to sort herself out, saving endless arguments? As she wouldn't dream of clearing up after herself, washing dishes, etc., this would have to be done with the proviso that all meals must be eaten outside the house.

AIBU?

Why yikes? You are answering what the OP asked 200 posts ago.
I agree that unless the DD learns to cook, she may end up on the thin side.
But if she intends to leave home, go to uni and have an independent life, she's going to have to learn what a healthy meal looks like and how to make it.

No support in fostering from social services? Umm...apart from the recruitment process? And the form f assessment? And the supervision? And the mandatory training? And the payment? You can't be a foster carer without support from either a social service department or a private agency. So are you sure you are a foste carer? Because I think you might be confused.

Social workers are overworked and in my experience, low on morale. They generally can't support because they have no time and they don't know the child (continuity doesn't actually exist). Since they have lots of questions to ask and tend to be at least three hours late each visit (without explanation or apology), they end up more trouble than the teenager. When they leave, the family is exhausted and has to go straight into calming down an unsettled child who seething at having been grilled by someone they don't know well, if at all. And also reeling after having been given information about family members without any warning. And pressed for decisions regarding contact that no child should have to make quickly. They email questions to me, then cut and paste my answers into their reviews as if they'd written it. Payment? Well, yes. But it doesn't go very far you know.

None of that is supportive. Members of my extended family have also had a horrendous experience with social services recently in which they tried to fight a forced adopted. The lies and the underhand tactics were horrifying.

Ehric, if you've gone through the process and had a more positive experience, I can only be happy for you. If you haven't been there, don't question my truthfulness on a thimbleful of knowledge.

facts enough 2nd coming? :)

Honey, you were never going to change. Ok, let's call it quits.

Egg. Sorry your experience of fostering has seemed so unsupported.
You may not have a child from -40 wks to whatever but it is a massive contribution and equally valid.

And OP, it is just so hard to get it right.

Sounds like you are going to try a few suggestions tho, so good luck!

Egg, I've worked in a LAC team for 8 years. I really don't recognise your account. Maybe you work for the worst local authority in the country but your experience is by no means universal.

Going back to the OP. Would batch cooking help?

I don't have a 16 year old, but I do recognise a lot of what you say with DSD who is now 17 and currently living with my MIL. I also recognise what it's like to come home from a hard days work and only want to eat a bowl of musli (although in my case it was a bowl of coco pops!)

In my case what I used to do was cook a huge bowl of chilli, a shepherds pie and a curry or what have you on a Saturday, then decant it into take-away tubs before freezing. On a morning before I went to work I'd get one of the tubs out and let it defrost in the fridge. Once I got home I'd bung it in the micro, job done. I was living on my own and started doing this when I realised that I was having hardly any 'good stuff' in the week through sheer tiredness - and my skin and body were suffering for it. I found that I could do a good 3 weeks meals at one time and it made everything easier.

Since MIL has been poorly I've taken to batch cooking on a huge scale whenever we visited and doing the same for her and FIL, because we discovered they'd been living on toast and sandwiches in the week. Now DSD is living with them it means that she is also eating a decent meal at least once a day whereas she was surviving on McD's. it also means she can come and go as she pleases.

The next time we visit I'm going to do my usual, but also rope DSD in to help. I don't actually know if she can cook, because I've never asked her to, but I figure if I get her involved she can choose options that she likes in particular.

Would that work for you?

Just wanted to say I agree with fabergeegg and came out from my lurking position to say this, as I am disgusted by the way she is taken apart on this thread, especially the wanting to crack her head, not being a real foster parent, effing off and other abuse.

The vitriol is really unwarranted. Can you lot not handle an opion that is sodifferent from your own ? Says more about you really.

Really Chandon? You think she's been taken apart?
17:47 on 30th May she waltzes onto a thread, which is described as 'lighthearted' in the OP to say:
You're in trouble... It sounds like you're losing all control and stepping back when you should be stepping up... She should not be drifting around goodness knows where, seeing where the wind takes her. On a school night! ...Grow up and be a parent.

So she's painted a picture of an out of control teenager who 'drifts around... on a school night' who has a mother who's out of control and 'stepping back'. And where has her information come from? Her own head apparently. Frankly I found that insulting. Her dig about DD not working (again based on nothing more than speculation) comes later, as does a further dig telling me I shouldn't have had children.

She has called other posters 'slow witted' (a personal attack if ever I saw one) and accused another of having a 'thimbleful of knowledge' (again, with no knowledge of that poster's background, this seems based on egg's own assumption/speculation).

Her original post on the thread was clearly meant to goad, so I think she's got exactly the response she wanted.

And, Chandon, no-one minds differing opinions.

As MumnGran said above: of course AIBU threads attract strong opinion and posters can expect a rough ride but one assumes that those opinions will be fairly applied to the content of the post and not based on extrapolations which have been created solely in the mind of the respondent.

'especially the wanting to crack her head'

It was an expansion of the theme of a Goblin and a Faberge Egg having a disagreement.
FWIW I don't think she's glittery and ovoid or that she contains a jewelled gift. Just in case you thought I'd really lost the plot.

Sure. But implying child abuse, bypretending to fear for her children is surelytakinh things a bit too far.

Hi all, just stopped by and think you're being ridiculous. Stop wasting your lives going through the thread as if it was a comprehension test. There's something absurd about voluntarily staying in the thread to tell others how justified you have been. Nevertheless, I cannot help myself being sucked in to say the following:

When you are counting up all my sins to a poster suggesting you've all been a bit strong, I think 'fair enough' until you start listing 'offensive' responses I have made to posts that were much more aggressive. You're not entirely innocent and you would actually look more reasonable if you acknowledged it. And when you jump on anyone who dares to oppose this reading, it also comes across as petty. I've thought this a lot about mumsnet and once took a conservative and unpopular position on a thread, defended it and subsequently found my inbox full of lurkers saying they agreed but hadn't wanted to face the opposition. Basically, they were afraid of the kind of response that Chandon received. I can only think you're not aware this goes on. That gang mentality makes a mockery of the idea of AIBU being a place where different views can be freely debated. It makes it boring.

Don't pretend that anyone's behaviour here has been logical, reasonable, or upsetting. It's been an interesting bunfight and we should all put down our weapons. Nobody's outraged. Or everyone is. Whatever. But let's drop it now or we'll never get out alive this side of Christmas.

Oh, the irony.

I know im 9 pages in and havent read any of them only the Op so if I have missed something ... sorry

I have a 16yr old daughter and have recently started giving her, her child benefit money which amounts to £80 per month, she has to buy all her own clothes, deoderant, etc.. we keep back £20 of that to pay for her phone. She also earns £20 per week term time at a local nursery. Out of her earnings she pays us 20% which is about £28 per month towards her upkeep.

We have meals at set times, if she is there she is included, if not she makes something herself, she clears it up.

Op, I haven't read the whole thread, but my situation is similar to yours - just me and a teenager in the house and after working all day I really just want to eat quick snacks like soup, cereal, eggs on toast etc. My daughter has gone through stages of complaining about the lack of cooked meals but when I've then made the effort (including extra expense) to make a cooked meal every night even though I don't want to eat it myself, she hardly ever wants to eat it because she's not hungry! Drives me crazy.

Now, I just make sure there's plenty of low-maintenance stuff in the fridge/cupboard like soup, pasta, tuna etc and tell her to get on with it. Anytime she complains about the lack of cooked meals I remind her of all the times I have cooked and she hasn't wanted it. I do cook at weekends though.

Also, my weekly food budget for 2 of us is less than £40, so £20 is definitely doable, but only if eating in.

PS I've also made big batches of bolognese, chilli etc and frozen it in single portions so that dd only has to defrost it and cook some rice or pasta to go with it.

Buy her a cookbook flumperoo and say that you're delighted she sees the value of learning how to cook.
Now it's your turn to be the appraiser and quality control.

Before starting to lump everyone who commented into a "gang mentality" assault posse which everyone is terrified to comment against, I would have you know that this is the first time I have ever reacted in this way to a poster. I am very happy to admit that you made me cross faber, and certainly admit that my rsponses moved from pointing things out politely to outright sarcasm.

Are you equally happy to admit that you posted highly critical responses to the OP which were not based on what she had actually said, and that you have been remarkably variable in stating the age of children you have responsibility for (both your own &/or fostered). That may be due to typo's memory or some other unknown factor, but it is one of the reasons why people began to question validity of response
If so, then I agree that its time to retire from the fray. If not, then what makes you think you should decide that you are having the last word?