Aibu to think this is ungrateful control freakery?

[satine]

Just saw on social media the happy news that someone has had a baby. Lovely.
Then it says "if you would like to make them a meal, ..."
Again, lovely idea. I used to do this when my friends were having their babies.

But then it turns nasty....
"please go to this website to register"
I click on the link in amazement and it's a website where you register and then pick the days you're going to cater, and then you have to say what you're going to make.
Ok - I guess no-one likes lasagne 6 days on the trot BUT then it goes on to say "all meals must be dairy free. Please use xxx brand of lactose free whatever, not Alpro. Please deliver meals in disposable containers and by 7.30pm each day. Please text to confirm your delivery on the day"
These last bits were actually written by or on behalf of the happy couple, not by the Control Your Friends and Famly website.
I mean I'm all for organisation but whatever happened to being bloody grateful for any help whatsoever and appreciating the time and effort that someone has gone to to make you any meal, even if it is the eighth tuna casserole that week.
Anyway, that's my rant over. AM I being unreasonable?!!

" I wouldn't for a couple who've had a full term healthy baby. Men can cook can't they?"

I'd make something because it seems like a nice thing to do and because whilst many men can and do cook, I know some who are useless at it. Perhaps I'd be enabling their uselessness by cooking for them but frankly if a friend of mine has just given birth, I'd rather just make sure she's OK.

But I wouldn't sign up to a website that restricted me to providing food on certain days and within certain parameters. I'd just text and say "how about I cook you X on Y date?"

Pot roast is meat and beg cooked in one pot .... stew or casserole. Tuna bake is cooked pasta and tuna and any veg u like baked in the oven, tomatoes and cheese optional. Could be chicken or anything really.

whilst many men can and do cook, I know some who are useless at it.

Let me fix that for you... "whilst many people can and do cook, I know some who are useless at it."

I think it's laughable that a couple having their first baby need to organise meals like this. With my first, XH cooked. I'm fairly sur he did it with the second too. Sometimes he looked after the baby whilst I cooked for a change.

With my third, he'd fucked off with an OW so I made meals ahead of the birth and froze them. neither me nor my three children starved and we didn't need a wish list of organised meals from friends!

Rightly or wrongly, I think many British people don't like a fuss.

I think YABU. I think anything that encourages supporting others is great .... getting meals from people was a godsend for me after the birth of each of my children! Of course we wouldn't have starved if no one had done it but it was lovely not to worry about dinner when we were both sleep deprived etc etc.

And I am more than happy to make a meal for a friend who's just had a baby.

And isn't it just practical to have a website so that you don't double up dates with others and they can say their dietary requirements? What's so entitled about stating that you're dairy free?

I honestly don't get the shock/outrage from so many posters on this thread. I think it's sad that getting meals from friends is such a foreign concept to people, it's totally common practice in my friendship group (New Zealand, maybe it's different here??)

Why can't they just batch cook ahead of time like everyone else?

I would be the first there to take over something to eat if someone was struggling with a new baby. But to say "why not have a website so that you don't double up dates with others and they can say their dietary requirements" to me just smacks of ordering from your friends what you want and when. They are friends let them step up to the plate if they so want, no one should have to log on to a website to do this. Just talk to the one struggling and see what you can do! Why does everything have to be reduced to logging on to a website?!

Besides which, would there honestly be a queue of people doing this as things might get doubled up? Who the hell are all these people?! I have a close circle of friends but there'd hardly be need for a website for anything they provided as they are so few and they TALK to each other! Anyway, no one did this for me when I had my DC. We just got on with it. All was fine, it's hardly rocket science is it to take out a Waitrose Finest meal, bung it in the oven along with a jacket potato, I'm just not sure why people make such a fuss. I'd be far more wary of reheating or cooking someone else's food.

I would feel like my cooking was on test. I do a cottage pie as per the website. Recipients post "next time, if you don't mind I'd prefer it if you don't put chopped up carrots in as I like those seperately".

I'd have given my eye teeth if someone had cooked a meal for me in the early days. No one did - not even dh! Yes it's control freakery and ungrateful. I wouldn't bother.

It seems to me that one of the reasons people feel uncomfortable with the idea (website and the idea that the person having the baby is ordering friends to cook) is that people just feel too sensitive to either give or receive. Some people feel their cooking would be judged - ie the don't like the chopped carrots thing, and others feel they as the new mums would be judged by the people who bring the food round - the state of the house,if they are dressed, how they seem to be coping etc.

Isn't the thing with real friends that you just accept each other as you are, especially after having a baby. Who is really going to receive a meal and say 'I didn't like the way X does Shepherds pie' or 'I went round to X's house and she was still in her dressing gown at 3pm and the baby had a dirty babygro on'. Don't friends just support each other? And that's also why people might do this, even though no-one did it for them. Yes, people with new babies can cook for themselves and can and do survive. Yes, having a baby is a normal life event.....but what is there to say that acts if friendship and kindness have to be reserved for times of crisis or to be shown in exactlybthe same way you have received them?

The impression I get is that many friendships are what I would call tight-fisted .......that means they are conditional and based on fair-weather conditions. People only want their friends to see them looking their best and behaving in a certain way. I want my friendships to be generous....I want to feel I can offer help liberally (people can always say 'no' and real friends will feel happy doing so) and that people will be honest when they would like it. I also want to be able to ask for help when I need it, without my friends thinking I am being entitled....actually, if they are good friends, I DO think I can ask for help. I don't think there is enough of friends admitting to each other when things are a bit difficult and what they could do to help each other.....instead too much being polite and superficial.

I realise that the no of friends anyone will have that will be really close, where you can be honest and ask for help when you need it,wil always be very small. However, I get the sense on here, that lots of people live very much behind closed doors - they wouldn't ask friends for help and they would raise an eyebrow if anyone ever asked for help. It's a real shame.

People are actually uncomfortable with the idea that a really nice, thoughtful thing to do has been turned into a military like operation, with a list of cheeky demands like "Deliver in disposable containers only". "Must be delivered by 7.30". "Text on the day to confirm your delivery". "Lactose free; but use the brand we prefer, please"
Only short of use the tradesmans entrance, we don't want to actually SEE you.
They seem to have lost sight of the fact that these are their friends, doing a nice helpful thing because they want to; they're not doing an online delivery order to Ocado.

^^ exactly that, FloggingMolly ~ the idea itself is lovely, and the concept of taking food tonew parents is as old as the hills, but having a list of commands barked at you by a website leaves a nasty taste (and that's not the Alpro ... )

I agree FloggingMolly put it very well. I think the website is the real issue, although the meals themselves seem to cause some annoyance for some.

Can't really see why a website is needed. If some co ordination is needed, a quick email from someone should do it - always better if from someone who isn't the mum themselves, and these days with all the allergies around, people just need to accept there might be some restrictions on what can be provided......take any such requests and the whole thing with a generous spirit, rather than feeling peeved about the whole thing.

Diva, entitled, princess behaviour. YANBU
What happened to just gratefully accepting whatever family and friends are able to chip in and give, with no expectation?
Would not remotely be inclined to help a "friend" who gave such a list of demands and made me feel like I was working for her. It would have the opposite effect! Employ a chef?

ffs, I dropped and practically got on with it as had to.
Nobody to help, dh not allowed even 2 weeks off work back then.
Some kindly neighbours brought us a couple of casseroles and shepherds pie for the first week and that was it.
How the hell will these parents cope, its so pathetic its laughable.
I'd be so tempted to post something.

So, in the olden days, a few friends cook for you (if you're lucky). Then you freeze it if (big IF) it happens to arrive on the same day.

I hope they have fun with the Control Your Newborn website! Click here every time baby cries...

Totally agree with FloggingMolly. To have friendship reduced to a set of demands of what to cook and when is not what I call friendship. I would be round at a friends house like a shot if I thought she was struggling, I would be saying "what can I do, let me iron that pile of clothes for you" and just pitch in with whatever.

My friendships are unconditional. We've seen each other at our worst, and we've seen each other at our best. I wouldn't care a fig what I looked like if I was finding things difficult, and my friends wouldn't care either because our friendships come from the heart. We couldn't be 'entitled' with each other if we tried.

I've driven to a friend's house in the middle of the night, I've held a friend close to me after a shock, I've made food for a friend who had her third child and found life difficult. However, they would think I was taking the piss if I subscribed to some sort of website. And me them too. We talk to each other and we're not reduced to filling a slot online.

Let me fix that for you... "whilst many people can and do cook, I know some who are useless at it."

Thanks soupdragon but the comment was in direct response to a PP commenting about men's cooking skills and therefore in this case yes, the gender was relevant. I don't refer to a specific gender unless I need to and it is relevant to the conversation. I don't need a lecture on when and where gender differentiation is relevant.

"I don't need a lecture on when and where gender differentiation is relevant"

No?

here is a lot of rather snipey attitude on this thread. My friends set up one of these 'meal trains' for us when I had DD, and have offered to do so again when DC2 arrives in a few weeks. I live in an (inner city) community where friends like to do this for each other, and I love the spirit of it. Of course I could've cooked for us, or DH could have done, but it was utter bliss to just know that a nutritious meal was on its way every evening in the early days. It was kind, generous and practical. That's the kind of community I like to live in. And when friends and neighbours are going through challenging times (births, illness, bereavements) I am well up for supporting them in this way of they feel it's helpful.

See I just see that as shameless.

You've admitted that you or your husband could have cooked for yourselves.

So how can you feel comfortable accepting charity hand-outs and having other people put themselves out for you in this way?

Bereavements yes, because they're likely to affect all the capable adults in the house, and people are often too filled with grief to think about eating, let alone cooking.

But simply having a baby is no reason imo, for 2 capable adults to get people running round, planning and cooking food for them.

My babby is due just before Christmas, do you think I can set this up or should I ask santa for an early delivery of freshly cooked meals? Did they want disposable plates too as they sound too lazy to even wash up!!

Meant to say, could I set it up for all my Christmas shopping to be done to by my mug friends

I have a friend in America who is going through chemo at the moment and her friends have set up a plan for her family via a similar website (I've been invited to it via FB). I think it's quite useful in her case as she can't manage cooking, has 3 DC and her DH is working extra hours to make up income that she is losing. She has also specified things like no uncooked fruit and veg (chemo reasons), no spicy meals. Her situation is really heartbreaking and it gives people a way to help without getting in the way or phoning when she's trying to sleep, etc. But it's a bit precious just for a new baby- everybody else manages to cook meals/ get takeaway.

I had a full Christmas dinner delivered when DS was 6 days old! With a due date in Christmas week, we couldn't make plans to see family, so my friends offered to make plenty of dinner and deliver it round if we're were home. When their baby was born, the favour was returned.

Setting up the website like that looks demanding and expecting and is against the spirit of friendship.

I can't be arsed making MY dinner nevermind anyone elses! In times of illness, bereavement etc of course but its the tone of the people in the op that is the problem. They are treating friends and family like employees!