To expect an 11 year old to be able to eat off the adults menu

[Icklepickle101]

Me & DP have been invited out to dinner by the in laws, text from MIL said 'you choose where we go, we aren't fussy'.

I text MIL I've booked a table at a local pub type and a copy of the menu. I then get a reply asking if we could go somewhere see as there is no children's menu for SIL age 11.

I could understand if the menu was fairly out there but there are things like a chicken Kiev or pie and mash but apparently these aren't suitable as she won't eat it all anyway.

I suggested she could eat something from the starters menu with a side but apparently this wouldn't be a balanced meal?

AIBU to expect and 11 year old (secondary school age!!!) to be able to choose something from the adults menu and not to want to change where we are going to accommodate her?

Do you actually know that the must-have children's menu directive is from SIL or are you assuming that because you don't like her? Could it in fact be your MIL's well intentioned but possibly misplaced attempt at making SIL feel included because possibly she's aware that you don't want to include her?

YANBU
But I wouldn't blame the poor kid - I bet you a chicken in the basket SIL just doesn't fancy going there.

Let them book somewhere else and sort it all.

Unashamed, unreconstructed carnivore here. (Half-French, so sue me.)

Like the 11-year-old in this OP, you sound very stuck in your ways, dum.

I read it as the MIL being the one the OP doesn't like...

But regardless of all that, I don't think you are being unreasonable regarding the restaurant choice. My SIL used to make us go to the most shite places all because her kids couldn't sit still for 2 seconds and eat something that wasn't beige and deep fried. "You'll understand once you have kids". Well, now I do and no, I still don't.

I would thank them politely for the gesture but would not be dictated to by an 11 year old. 11 year olds can eat normal food unless there is a SN. 11 year olds are also sometimes really adept at spoiling a treat for somebody else. It's pub food not vindaloo, surely it is beige enough even for the most babyfied 11 year old. She will look ridiculous once there is a real baby in the family and she will mid-puberty be as babyish as your dc.

I am 26 and I don't eat from the adult menu. I won't eat Kiev or sausage and mash(mash makes me gag) but I accept I have a problem with food

I wouldn't dream of asking an 11-year old to eat the crap that passes for food on a child's menu in the average pub.

If she really literally cannot, for one meal, for someone else's celebration, eat a crumb from the adult menu, I thibk your MIL has a problem on her hands.

Anyway it's a pub. there will be crisps in a crisis.

Stop derailing this thread!

Yes Dumdedum and we can all see how very proud you are about it - well done!

dumdeedum you realise you sound like a pretentious prat, right?

If anyone else in your party didn't want to go to this restaurant I don't think you'd have a problem OP - you just have an unreasonable level of hatred towards an 11 year old girl.

SIL hasn't made things easy between us and has form for throwing her toys out of the pram to get her own way

'Throwing her toys out of the pram' is a statement I'd use about an adult to suggest they were acting like a child - not about someone who is actually still a child acting in a way that is understandable for their age (what 11 year old doesn't have their moments?).

It sounds like there is a whole lot going on in the family dynamics that major fuss about a restaurant and menu isn't going to help at all. This meal out will not be the time to teach the 11 yr old girl about your perception of her eating habits, bad charactor and errant ways.

Smile to MIL and ask her chearily to suggest some good places, then all go out and enjoy some more relaxed family time. Then another week go to a restaurant of your choice and eat what you like without her.

I read something recently from Jay Rayner about kids menus. It had a line in it log the lines of "we don't need to make restaurants child-friendly, we need to make children restaurant-friendly".

As a formerly incredibly fussy eater I think this is spot on.

Yanbu.
Even the fussiest person could find a side they liked. (not to mention the fact that pubs sell crisps)

I find that the kids menu sometimes assumes a child who's 4ish therefore too tiny an amount.

My youngest is 9 and has the adult menu. Our pub does light/medium/king size to cater for all appetites.

I think I might thank them for the invite but decline and have a takeaway in my PJ's with DP.

Can't remember who asked but there is a 14 year age gap, so she has been an 'only child' most of her life.

*along the lines

So MIL is paying, and SIL is her dd?

MIL is letting out way too much rope, but, hey, if she is paying just choose an Italian that does pasta that SIL will eat, or something.

What does your DH think? She is his sister?

The age gap is irrelevant. There's a 13 year gap between me and my brother and he was always a better eater than me in terms of variety.

I've lived abroad so long that I had forgotten how ridiculous the English are about food

Me too! But luckily there will always be threads like this to remind us.

Agreed Rumpy. And "has form" is usually used about adults too. We expect children to behave unacceptably on occasion don't we?! it shouldn't get held against them for ever more, learning to behave properly is part of growing up.

What happened to kids, barring special needs, being told we are going out to eat and thats the b all and end all of it.

PIL have offered to pay as usual, but we always pay for ourselves.

SIL is her daughter and my DP thinks everyone is over reacting when I could easily choose somewhere else but he also admitted there is things on the menu she has for dinner regularly at home.

BFF's daughter (at that age, she's better now) was extremely precious about food at that age. Eating out was a nightmare of reviewing menus, cajoling her into ordering what she'd liked when she saw it on the online menu, not liking it when it arrived, demanding to 'switch plates' when the food arrived to what someone else had ordered because she thought it looked 'better', pouting and pushing food around. Ugh! No way anyone should pander to that.

Frankly, I'd tell MiL thanks, but no thanks. A meal out should be relaxing and fun. Eating with a pouting pre-teen is the opposite.

As a non-Brit I have to agree they can be pretty weird and precious about food. Sorry. Obviously not a popular view.