to think this IS an acceptable lunch for an 8 year old?

[Helenagrace]

I'm helping a friend out today as she has twin 8 year old boys and she's moving house house tomorrow. I've had them since 8.30am and in my text last night I said I'd "drop them back before dinner - about 5.30?"

I've just given them lunch. They were offered: toast (with peanut butter, egg, pate (homemade mackerel) or cheese), oatcakes (with the same options), half a packet of crisps, tomato, cucumber and pepper, fruit and a piece of home-made chocolate and cherry brownie.

Both have had oatcakes with cheese (6 each) plus salad, a hard boiled egg, an orange, crisps and a piece of cake.

My friend rang to see if they were ok and she spoke to one of the boys. Then I get a text from her saying she's coming to pick them up as she "hadn't realised they wouldn't be getting a proper lunch". I sent a text back saying that we were eating our main meal in the evening and I thought they were too and I've just had the reply back "yes but that's not really much of a lunch is it?"

It's a perfectly acceptable lunch in my house. Does anyone want to ring social services and dob me in for starving my children?

[goodasitgets]

I won't have eaten anything hot today at all and that's not unusual for me
Yoghurt and fruit for breakfast, cold chicken salad for tea. Snacked on an apple and some nuts

[Milmingebag]

OP you forgot the Dairylea Lunchables,Cheesestrings,Pop Tarts, Fruitshoots and Rolo deserts

insert any other crappy nutritionally suspect junk

or perhaps she wanted them 'nourished' on McDonalds?

[sarahquilt]

Sounds yum to me.

[Dutch1e]

You put 50 different things on the table but they're not a proper lunch?

If you ever looked after my kids I'd be round the next day with a good bottle of wine and an arse kissing a big thank you.

Good food is good food. Food temperature is irrelevant - having raised two kids on two continents I am pretty sure that times/ingredients/temperature are nothing to do with human needs and everything to do with fashion and culture.

Please, invite us round for lunch any time. I'll bring two bottles.

[MammaTJ]

How very rude of her and ungrateful to boot!

[BackforGood]

How rude!. Not only is that a perfectly fine lunch (more choice than they'd have got here) but, even if you had only dangled a dry crumb in front of them, they'd have survived until tea-time, and I'd still have been massively appreciative of you having them to help out in the first place.

[AreWeThereYeti]

Mmm, well, I guess Greggs is closed today

If I hadn't been on mumsnet for a few years I wouldn't actually believe that someone could be that spectacularly rude. I wouldn't want her as a friend.

[Gileswithachainsaw]

On what planet is that not a proper lunch?

Fgs what on earth is stopping her from ordering a pizza later if her kids are hungry.

I really cannot see what the problem is. Six crackers is twice what I'd feed dd1 and three times what I'd feed dd2 there's no way with everything else it wouldn't have been enough for eight yr olds.

Bonkers!!

[AreWeThereYeti]

Btw we almost never have a hot lunch apart from soup sometimes.

[RedSoloCup]

Are you sure the boy didn't say 'we're starving she only gave us an oakcake'?....

[RuthlessBaggage]

Even if she gave them half a slice of cardboard spread with engine oil, the mother was RUDE.

[Quinteszilla]

What a rude ill-mannered woman.

I hope you are going to tell her what they have eaten, and tell her you find her rude and ungrateful for picking them up in a huff.

[Hulababy]

Very strange.

Thee was plenty to choose from and definitely enough to make a meal. DD would love this kind of lunch and, infact, often has it. I tend to serve it on a large platter type plate and let DD and her friends choose and serve themselves. When she was little I would use lots f different colours and call it a rainbow platter - one of her favourite lunches.

If they'd have had it on (cold untoasted) bread rather than (warm - please not there is even a hot element here) toast, as a sandwich, bet she'd not have considered it unacceptable.

I find it very strange to have to have something hot at every meal. And I would never serve a starter course at home unless we had a special occasion (Christmas etc) or I was cooking a full meal for guests.

And what exactly is wrong with fishfingers!?!

Regardless of all this. If someone is kind enough to look after your children for a full day to give you the time/space for something you are doing then surely you should be grateful to them and not be making criticisms. A cold "picnic" style lunch is a good, healthy lunch - the OP isn't neglecting or harming the 8y children in anyway!

[5madthings]

I have just sent ds1 to the shop to buy fishfinger..

[shewhowines]

How very rude. Even if she privately thought it, she should have stfu.

[doziedoozie]

I bet she feeds her DCs chips every day and congratulates herself on feeding her DCs 'properly' ie with heated 'food' - oh, I should have said oven chips, of course, she probably doesn't know what a peeler is for.

We don't do physical work nowadays, as was the case 30 years ago, DCs don't cycle 5 miles to school. So we don't need lots of stodgy food. That meal sounds more than fine.

[Sallystyle]

Rude cow.

Mine had a sausage roll for lunch and some easter egg :blush

I think it is actually a pretty big and healthy lunch, my 10 year old wouldn't have been able to eat that much.

[iamusuallybeingunreasonable]

Sounds nice and balanced to me, is she wanting a helping of chips with it, or mets and two veg, some people are so rude, the cheeky mare

[Birdsgottafly]

I'm now Vegan.

Fish finger butties are on my list of what I miss. They were what I asked for when in hospital once, even cold they went down well.

Jane's attitude reminds me of the couple on The Catherine Tate Show, that are discussing what they were offered to eat when out and about "the dirty bastards".

I used to offer playing children, pizza, chicken, some sort of sandwich, beans on toast.

Then if still hungry they would have crisps thrown at them, but in "my day" you didn't get these type of complaints.

[Gileswithachainsaw]

Perhaps she's one of those idiots who thinks a meal isn't healthy or balanced unless it's got meat?

She'd rather a macdonalds than accept protein comes in the form
Of cheese and egg (nothing wrong with a MD before anyone starts, just an example of what would be a high fat high salt high sugar meal full of additives and MSG which is worse for you than cheese crackers fruit and a home made cake)

[Janethegirl]

Sorry, but I wouldn't eat a McDonalds or give them to dcs. I also do not consider myself an idiot wrt food. This thread shows the very different things pp consider acceptable. I love fish finger sandwiches btw.

[ICanSeeTheSun]

Cheeky cow.

My son wouldn't have eaten that, DD would have.

I always offer to send DC with a packed lunch or pick up some sort of pudding.

[ExcuseTypos]

Very rude of her. She's being ridiculous picking them up early. They can survive on the lunch you've given them and if she thinks it's not enough she can just give them more food this evening.

Her precious boys aren't going to wither away becasue she feels they haven't had enough lunch. Don't offer to have them again!

[Parliamo]

I take it not Staffordshire oatcakes! I read this and thought wow, six cheesey oatcakes should feed 6 8 year olds!