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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Visitor's access to your fridge

120 replies

Magnificentbeast · 18/02/2019 15:52

This one is on the light-hearted side. I am curious.

Do the friends' of your DCs have 'free' access to your fridge/food? My DC had a friend over recently who declared that 'her' fridge is an open house to anyone who comes to her house. At the same time implying that this should be the case in all houses. She's 10. This was the first time she had been to our house.

I'm not really sure why but I didn't feel comfortable with this idea. I also wouldn't like the idea of my DC (they wouldn't) to go to a friend's house and help themselves to the contents of the fridge.

I'm not sure if it makes a difference but this particular friend has a health condition which requires her to have a restricted diet. I gave her lunch as directed by her mother but no guidance on snacks. She said that her DC knows what she can eat. She was hungry again later so I ran through which snacks we had in so that she could tell me what she could eat. This involved her having a nose through our fridge and cupboards. This isn't my AIBU as there was a 'consultation' going on. It's more the idea that anyone's fridge is an open-house.

I then started to wonder if I'm BU about it.

OP posts:

longestlurkerever · 18/02/2019 18:16

Surely the "mum I am hungry" "there are apples on the tree" "but I don't want apples from the tree" "you can't be that hungry then" dance has been going on since time immemorial?

hoge · 18/02/2019 18:21

Not access as such but if the kids have a friends round then yes, they are allowed to go to the fridge together and get some food. I have never come across a friend of a dc who would just go to the kitchen and take the fridge alone though.

And I'm somewhat flabbergasted that people have teenagers who have to ask!

NaturalBornWoman · 18/02/2019 18:29

What if any of the snackier savoury stuff was needed for tomorrow's packed lunch (or the juice boxes, or the crisps, or the yoghurts)?

I just think everyone must have bigger budgets!

It isn't just budget though, yogurts were for pudding when mine were children. I don't get the constant need to be snacking all the time. A piece of fruit maybe, if they genuinely can't wait for the next meal, but not free access to the fruit bowl, they don't need unlimited pieces of fruit every day and definitely not access to biscuits and crisps.

sirfredfredgeorge · 18/02/2019 18:37

AryaStarkWolf Why do you have "allow" in italics? Are you saying that it's a bad thing?

It was more because allow for adults doesn't really mean allow, as yes that is badly controlling and bad, it actually means everyone in the household agrees one person controls the food. Which in situations where budget is very limited, and cheap shops an effort to get to and it is possible to make a meal impossible then may well be sensible.

All the people who don't restrict access, do your children just naturally regulate their intake or don't you care how many snacks they eat and what type?

Everyone in the family regulates themselves. And the way the family ensures dinner is still possible is via simple rules about not using the last of anything, discussion on what is actually for dinner etc. as well as flexibility with dinner - and yes, that is made possible with the privilege of money and shops being in easy reach.

And of course controlling other kids is different to a family, so not allowing other kids to root around is a different kettle of fish again.

longestlurkerever · 18/02/2019 18:40

Surely whoever wants free access to food also has to take a share in the responsibility for keeping supplies topped up, budgeting,meal planning, making sure things are used up before they go out of date and so on? Genuinely amazed that people just allow young DC to walk in and help themselves to whatever they like. My DD would eat an entire packet of biscuits in a couple of hours and then move on to ice cream. Perhaps other people's DC are naturally more restrained?

gamerwidow · 18/02/2019 18:44

My guests have open access to everything I have in the fridge. DD's friends aged 8 have to ask and I'll decide if it's ok.
Today I gave them all a bag of crisps seconds later they were after something else and told to take a hike.

Ispini · 18/02/2019 19:13

I just had the joy of having my niece and nephew here for over a week. They constantly rifled through the fridge and cupboards eating everything they could lay their hands on! It drove me beserk and totally messed up meal planning. My kids can help themselves to fruit but ask for anything else. I thought my ‘guests’ were incredibly rude but their mother did nothing to stop them. I would flip if I thought my kids behaved like that in anyone’s house.

Auslander · 18/02/2019 19:15

No. Even my own kids weren't allowed to just go in and help themselves. They're adults now and they still ask.
On saying that, even if they would have been allowed they would have been very disappointed, being as it only ever contained fresh meat, veg and milk.
I never bought yoghurts as no one liked them. Never bought crisps, biscuits or cakes etc either. Too easy just to eat them and end up with blimps for kids.

Jux · 18/02/2019 19:27

Certainly not! I bet your dd's friend's fridge isn't really eithe, she said it because she wants free access to oyurs.

79andnotout · 19/02/2019 08:52

Open fridge access in my house. But I was basically raised feral with my siblings so we fed ourselves for as way back as I can remember.

79andnotout · 19/02/2019 08:53

Also my fridge only has ingredients in it so it would involve making something.

twoshedsjackson · 19/02/2019 09:53

I'd check with Mum, in a lighthearted way, especially as there are diet restrictions to consider. As a PP has said, a 10 year old can be very convincing about what's allowed in their house! This may be her trying it on in the hope that someone else's Mum isn't quite up to speed on her diet restrictions!
You have surely heard from your DC some of the things which "everybody else" at school is allowed (usually followed by some back-pedalling when you offer to check with "everybody else's" parents.......
If it turns out to be true (unlikely in the circumstances) I'd just do "My, house, my rules" kindly but firmly. "I know that's what you are used to at home, but in this house, we ask first so that I know what needs to go on my shopping list", and follow through with suitable snacks.
When I have adult guests, I usually say "Help yourself, but let me know if you use the last of something", and they usually ask anyway, simply out of politeness.

AryaStarkWolf · 19/02/2019 10:19

I wasn't talking about adults I was talking about kids and it's not to do with budgets, it's to do with kids not spoiling their appetites for meals and for eating a load of shit food

Pinkblanket · 19/02/2019 10:31

No, after one incident when a child came round and ate through a whole tub of chocolates that were for the whole family and hid away in a bedroom eating my daughter's sweets, I'm a bit more cautious.

Toupholsterornot · 19/02/2019 13:18

Apart from fruit, crisps, biscuits and squash/water. Nope even my own kids niece's and nephews ask first. It's called manners

macaroniandpizza · 20/02/2019 15:14

I wouldnt just help myself to my friends fridge and she doesnt do it here. Only thing we help ourselves to at each others house is juice which we are fine with

Pinkbells · 21/02/2019 00:31

My kids help themselves to the fridge but it’s never excessive (usually it’s just for milk/orange juice/cheesestring or something) otherwise I’d stop it, and I don’t mind if they give their friends a drink and snack. They don’t go mad, and the kids always help their friends rather than the friends helping themselves. They’re only 8/11 though . I kind of like the idea of a houseful of teenagers knowing they felt comfortable enough to do that although when the time comes I will probably have a designated shelf when they’re older so they don’t take the supper ingredients though!

gingerbiscuits · 21/02/2019 10:05

No bloody chance! When my son's (age 11) friends are guests in my house, I'm pretty relaxed about providing drinks & snacks BUT they're things which I decide they can have & I either I or my son actually get them. No way would I allow them to go rooting through our fridge & help themselves!!

Bumblebeezy · 21/02/2019 10:16

My children are like locusts. If I gave them completely free range of the fridge and cupboards they'd go wild rummaging after school and then not eat the proper meal I'm cooking for them.

Fruit bowl is free range here and a few cupboard snacks like rice cakes, or toast. Anything else they are eyeing up needs asking for first.

I tend not to keep a wide range of delicious snacky goodies in the fridge anyway so any visitor raiding my fridge would probably be bitterly disappointed!

Bumblebeezy · 21/02/2019 10:21

Another thing to consider is that plenty of people out there are on a tight budget and meal plan/shop accordingly. I have been in this position before and actually someone raiding the fridge might well end up eating ingredients needed for tomorrow's evening meal, or the kids packed lunches, rather than the food I had specifically bought for snacking on.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a fridge bursting with a wide range of snacks to be eaten whenever.

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