To not want to do packed lunches?

[TickledOnion]

Just had DD1 (age 8) in tears because she desperately wants to move to packed lunches. It's all or nothing at her school. You sign up for a term of school dinners or packed lunches.

All her friends have packed lunches and they sit in a different dining hall to eat. So she has to sit with the same 2 girls everyday as they are the only ones is her year who are on school dinners. She doesn't dislike these girls but they aren't her close friends.

She likes some of the food but not the overcooked veg and there are a couple of days where she really doesn't like the meat bit of the meal.

My reasons are that I really, really hate making packed lunch. I am a single parent so it is just more mental load and more stuff to do each day. DDs are not particularly helpful around the house and I feel like I have enough to do nagging them to do every single thing every day. They do very little without being asked 20 times.

And it's a balanced meal that I don't have to think about. It's stuff like meatballs and pasta or bbq chicken and rice. Which means I don't feel guilty if I do pizza or fish fingers or beans on toast occasionally for tea.

And if I did it for one I'd probably have to do it for both.

So, AIBU to say no despite the tears?

Have her help or make her packed lunch? My 9 year old likes doing hers when I’m cooking dinner or when dh makes his.

I'd make her do it herself if she is really that desperate.
Most 8 year olds can butter a roll and plonk a slice of ham inside and stick a yoghurt and banana (and Wotsits) in a lunch box.

If she really wants it, she does it.

Time will soon tell how much she does want it.

I think school dinners have come on a long way from when I was a kid, but I do remember them being awful and not healthy either!

I'm defo not a fussy eater now ( 😀 ) perhaps I was then but I do remember the taste of several things they did every week and it was grim!

Most of us that had to have school dinners really didn't want to eat it so we'd sit there all lunch instead of playing outside until it was time for lessons again and dinner ladies had to let us go!

I was so happy when I got to yr 6 and Mum said I could have packed lunch with all my friends, sit outside to eat them in the summer, play in playground afterwards etc!

I probably should have just got on and ate the dinners but the ultimate result was I honestly hardly ate anything at lunches for the first five years of school (and only had a sandwich in evening as Mum assumed I'd had a cooked lunch)

I'd do it OP

Too zeitgeisty to talk about mental load all the time, imo.

Packed lunches are easy if:

• you're organised with your shopping anyway
• you don't stress about variety

My 8yo doesn't like school dinners, and does some lunchtime clubs where her school requests they have packed lunches.

Every day she has:

Tuna mayo wholemeal (or "50/50") bread sandwich. Freeze the bread and all the ingredients are long life, so even if you don't plan your shopping, it's easy not to run out.

Or:

Pasta and sauce. Both long life.

And:

• a Frube (several weeks life)
• some carrot slices. One carrot in the fridge does me all week - I just peel each day 2cm more, then chop chop chop
• some cucumber slices, lasts a week
• a chopped up apple, these easily last a week
• a ginger biscuit or 2 squares of chocolate, longlife

I usually do it the night before and even with the chopping (I spoil her!) it takes me maybe 3 mins to do.

I sometimes add chopped pepper and grapes - if we have them in the house.

Base the lunch around what you have in the house anyway. Always have an emergency option (there is never a time when we don't have pasta and a jar of sauce in the cupboard) and don't stress about variety,

I don't buy that adding a carrot and a cucumber to a weekly shop is an increase to mental load.

Oh right, that's what I said, is it

Yes. It's there to read back if you forgot what you said.

Oh right, that's what I said, is it

Yes. It's there to read back if you forgot what you said.

Some of us would need to either not do something else or get up 7 minutes earlier to do that

Ooh, a whole SEVEN minutes earlier. How could you possibly manage that?
The cult of busy-ness some people sign up to is so yawnsome. You're neither as busy or as important as you think you are.

This thread is making me laugh 😂.
To save time you don't even need to chop a carrot, I just bing a whole (small) on in! or a chunk of cucumber

@Pengggwn perhaps I should have said significantly increase mental load?

Most of what you described there isn't mental load, it's physical time.
It is mental load to think "I must get lunch bits" or "has she picked up her lunch?".

But it's not mental load to empty it, make it, shop for it.

If you don't make packed lunches then the initial thought of it might seem like a lot. But it really isn't.

If you are food shopping for your family anyway, how does it increase mental load to add a cucumber and a carrot to that shop?

I didn't post to tell the OP to just do it, I shared what I hope was helpful advice - to use foods that are long life, ones you use anyway in your house, don't stress about variety.

It's all about automation.

I make a packed lunch every school day. There is ZERO mental load in making sure my child has it with them, because it's automatic. It's the same amount of mental load to think "has she got her school bag" - not more. It just becomes routine.

Ditto having food. It is not an extra 20 minutes of thinking every Saturday. It's just part of my normal shopping.

How much time do I spend thinking about lunches? It really is negligible.

I think people are too quick to shout "mental load!" because it's the latest buzz phrase. That said, it's genuine and it's helpful in some cases - especially in a relationship where it isn't balanced!

But I'm a single parent making a packed lunch every day, and I promise you that the additional mental load really is negligible.

As for getting up 7 minutes earlier... do it the night before and combine it with other activities. I often do it whilst listening to spellings, or just chatting about the school day. It really is not that big a deal.

FWIW, I found it a greater mental load coping with the school changing it's payment method for school dinners 3x in one year, remembering to top up the account, and the thinking time involved in wondering whether she would eat the items on the meal, and having the indignant conversations that went "and they weren't fish fingers mummy, they were fish nuggets and they says fingers and I left them because they were breaded not battered"

School dinners are a much bigger PITA and mental load than a nice easy packed lunch routine!

Oh and 3 minutes to empty it?!

Unzip.
Fish out fork on pasta days.
Tip contents into bin.
Stick fork in dishwasher.

It's 3 seconds not 3 minutes!

@Pengggwn of course the OP feels differently to me, or she wouldn't have posted.

I didn't just reply "get the fuck over yourself OP", I posted my suggestions that have made ME feel like there was no mental load, I wanted to help the OP - so I resent you calling me nasty.

The single biggest thing that helped me, was to accept that it was OK to use the same foods repeatedly. They can have variety in the evening meal.

There is no need to make a meal of it!

I think people are too quick to shout "mental load!" because it's the latest buzz phrase

So true!

My point is simply that the OP doesn't. She didn't seem to feel she had the elasticity in her day to fit this in without significantly increasing the mental load

You feel it, it seems, as you are the one posting repeatedly about it. And as I and others have said, that doesn't really fly as an excuse.

You can't ope out of basic parenting citing mental load and 3 mins extra a day.

The pasta isn't every day, it's 2-3x a week, a break from the tuna sandwich.

It comes in a small Tupperware pot. I do have a dishwasher so dealing with it takes a maximum of 2 seconds. My dishwasher is right next to the kitchen work too where I empty the lunchbox. If you're a handwasher, then I think one extra pot and lid a day is negligible - seconds.

Again though - increased washing up is physical time not mental load.

It seemed to me that the OP wasn't sure if she should say yes or no - hence the AIBU. My post (and ones like it) were not nasty. It's a balance. Maybe other parents saying "I give the same thing every day" is enough support for OP to feel happy to try that too.

If this was a schoolgate chat and a mum said "I don't have time" I wouldn't berate her and say of course she does. But if she said "what do you think - AIBU?" I'd give the same advice I have here - that actually, you can get into a routine, there are ways to make it easier so if you're unsure: consider these tips.

I make lunchboxes every day for DD (almost) 3 and DD 16 months, we go to 4 toddler groups a week and I don't drive. The little one is asleep before we get home so they have a lunchbox at toddler group. It takes no time at all and I do quite exotic ones-lots of chopped things in tubs/bags etc

DD1 who is now 14 had packed lunches at primary school and it was never a bother even working. I have no idea how it could be a big deal to anyone. It just sounds lazy tbh. Especially since the OP says her DD is crying..why wouldn't you just make them?

I know what she said but I don't understand the big deal.