Family meal out issue. WIBU?

[LettuceBe]

A family member organised an extended family lunch today. We have gatherings two or three times a year. Today there were 12 adults and four children.(I don't have children so none were mine) An aunt received some unexpected money and wanted to pay for it all. It was a chain pub type place so reasonably priced but still incredibly generous of her and offers of payment from some were repeatedly refused before and during the meal.

It went well but all four children aged 2, 3, 4 and 8) barely touched their kids meals(The build your own type when you choose a main and two sides, Dessert is free) There was a huge kids play area so they were more interested in that and left the vast majority of the food. Said Aunt was not pleased and made some remarks about it having to pay for nothing. One parent didn't look pleased but offered to pay for the kids meals.(About£4.95) but Aunt declined. It created a bit of an atmosphere but we finished and left. Aunt left a Whatsapp about enjoying the day and hoping everyone else did too, but that she felt a little taken advantage of because the children didn't eat their meals and none of the other three sets of parents offered to pay for the uneaten meals. Understandably it didn't go down well.

So who was being unreasonable here?

I’d go down her house and put a fiver in her hand and tell her to keep the change. What a miserable woman. But actually I would’ve expected the 4 and 8 year olds to sit down and eat their food no exceptions. My dc all sat down and finished their food from age 3 onwards in restaurants.

Sorry OP - I haven't rtft - she is being VU though

I think she’s being incredibly petty to bring it up later in the day (especially as she turned down the one parent who did offer to pay!) but I would never have been allowed to flit in between the table and the play area as a child. I wouldn’t have been forced to eat either, but I would have been expected to come back to the table when the food arrived and to eat my fill before going to play again. Maybe that’s what she was annoyed about, that the older children weren’t being encouraged to ‘appreciate’ that they were being treated to a meal out, and that the parents were being a bit disrespectful for not more actively encouraging them to eat? They were obviously hungry as they ate the ice cream, just not very interested in the main course. She might also have been annoyed that they were allowed to eat the ice cream given they’d not eaten their mains, but it’s pointless to be annoyed about that from a monetary point of view given the pudding was essentially free!

It doesn’t sound like great parenting to me, but it’s not really her place to complain about it.

The Aunt was being ridiculous. Kids were being kids. So what that they didn't eat, I really thought you were going to say they were badly behaved. Far better that they were having fun playing, a reasonable person would get joy from bringing them altogether to be able to play and have fun with extended family!

Aunt is BVVVU.

She offered to pay so she should pay with good grace and not make snarky remarks either in person or in the group message. She is RUDE!

(I have teens btw. )

You cannot force food down young kids necks. They are mostly unused to eating in such a large number where adults are talking, lots of distractions, the play area is neither here nor their tbh because any kids that young in that setting could be the same even if there wasn’t a play area.

If adults had not liked their meal and left 3/4 of it would she also have made comments about them not offering to pay? Totally unreasonable, you don’t offer to pay, with the condition that everyone eat all their meal, especially toddlers!

If she is at any family meal in the future someone needs to loudly declare “we are all paying for what we order, okay?”

Blackmailing children to eat processed chain pub food before you'll let them run around in a play area is so perverse ... Along with bribing them to eat chips with ice-cream as a reward.

That is every bit as bad as letting children leave the table to use a play area before adults have finished.

A chain pub with a play area is not the place to go to teach children the etiquette of eating out in polite company. It's an incredibly informal setting where appropriate behaviour is also informal.

In a nice restaurant children sit nicely, and the waiting staff take your order. If you have to order at the bar and fetch your own cutlery or whatever it's inappropriate to expect the waiting staff and equally the patrons to behave as they would in a silver service restaurant!

Hm, actually if the kids were up and down from the table and the parents had made no effort in getting them to sit and eat for a reasonable time, I too would have been annoyed. 8yo should know better too.
I personally would have told my kids expected behavior before the meal. Eat some of your main then go and play. No dessert if you can't eat your main.
However, I have 5yo and 3yo boys who simply aren't interested in food unless they are actually hungry. It is difficult and frustrating to eat out. The aunt clearly has no experience of these struggles but probably expected some token effort to be made.

Aunt is bu. You give generously or not at all.

Withholding pudding also does this, as it encourages children to eat their meal even when they are feeling full

If they're too full to eat a main they're too full for dessert. Not sure we should be encouraging leaving the main dish and just letting them eat sugary stuff because they want it.

I don't know. I see both sides. Children often get full quickly (eyes bigger than their belly saying comes to mind) and want something but then decide they don't and they'd rather play.

Two things though; didn't anyone at that table think to ask for a takeaway container? I'm guessing they do meals for takeaway (like most pubs) so would have containers to put what they didn't eat in. I don't understand why not one person thought of that? Secondly, I can understand the aunt if they ate the free ice cream, but not the meal she paid for. That is very rude, imo. The parents should have said "if you don't have at least half of your meal you won't be getting the ice cream it will be cancelled". There is no way I would allow my children to snub a meal paid for by someone else, only to decide they are hungry after all for the ice cream. It just would not happen. But that's the way I was brought up. These days parents let their kids have dessert before dinner. Or in place of dinner. The parents were rude not to at the very least say NO ICE CREAM then. At the very least. I would be upset too if I paid for a meal someone's child picked out, only for them not to touch it and instead just have the ice cream that was free. So I can understand your aunt. Although I think she also is coming across as a martyr and didn't put her case well. If the parents asked for a doggy bag/takeaway container, so the food wouldn't be wasted, I wouldn't mind so much. But not only did they not care about the waste, they actually allowed the children to have the ice cream! That would be the kicker for me. Just not good parenting imo.

Thank you all for sharing your perspectives. I'm leaning towards the idea that both were being somewhat unreasonable, though more so my Aunt. I'm staying out of the whole thing though. The drama continues and now the focus is on a plate of nachos that appeared at the table that no one had ordered and which weren't touched because the adults had already eaten. She was charged for them, and is demanding to know who placed the order.(No one to my knowledge)

I don't think that she has form for this but she can be a little difficult. I think that in future we'll stick to paying our own way.

The aunt either never has kids or has forgotten.

Sometimes they eat, sometimes they don't.

Both, IMO. Parents should ideally have kept the DCs at the table until they'd eaten at least some of their food. However, the aunt is being a massive martyr. The aunt is definitely behaving worse, as she has essentially received an apology in the form of the offer to pay, declined it, & is continuing to complain. Bad form.

They don't offer takeaway food that I know of, other than cakes. Perhaps though if asked they'd provide a container.

Dear me she sounds like hard work.

She does have adult children, but they're in their thirties so it's been a while.

So basically she took the good out of her lovely gesture by sending that horrible text. She sounds delightful. And you can't force feed kids. And with them going to the play area the rest of you could relax and enjoy your meal. What a pain in the ass.

Does the Aunt have children? It sounds like she hasn't got a clue...

Or, alternatively, she is of a generation which didn’t allow kids to run off and play leaving wasted food on the table?

As a parent I would have made the children have a good go of eating before playing (certainly the 8 year old!). But that said Aunt is unreasonable for making such a fuss.

Why didn't she query the nachos at the time? Sounds like a restaurant error and that she she should've made a fuss about, but too late now!

If it had been my child, they would've been Brough to the table when the food arrived, and not allowed to leave until they had had a good try at eating their meal. Nor would they be getting ice cream if they hadn't!

But I do think your aunt is being very "passive aggressive". And to carry it on over the bowl of nachos is ridiculous. Maybe she despairs at modern parenting, and what she perceives to be rude and/or naughty children "getting away with it" but I think there are other and better ways to make your point.

I can appreciate that she might have disapproved of the parents disinclination to have their children sit and be part of the family meal for a while (I imagine that the parents had to leave the table periodically too, to supervise the kids. That would be annoying).

But that WhatsApp message was ridiculous and sulky. She's taken every bit of pleasure from the event for everyone.

I'm sure it was a restaurant error because one person did the ordering for everyone. No idea why she didn't query it at the time. Perhaps she just didn't notice. It isn't worth arguing over now though.

Unfortunately your aunt is BU although I sympathize with her annoyance. She paid the same amount whether the child meals were eaten or not but it is upsetting to see food wasted and she obviously felt this was not acknowledged by all the parents. I wouldn't have allowed ice cream if main courses were untouched and I would not order a meal (even a child's meal) if I did not intend/expect some of it to be eaten. It would have been cheaper just to order garlic bread or chips for the children to share or to give them something from their parents' plates. The 'taken advantage' reference came because your aunt felt that the parents would not have ordered a £5 for each child if they had been paying, or they would have ensured more of it was eaten.

I think you could speak privately to your aunt, acknowledging how she feels, without saying she is right. Publicly I would thank her for the meal and hope this ill-feeling blows over.

I think if you offer to take everyone out for dinner then unless people massively take the piss by ordering expensive food and drinks then you don’t get to police whether or not the food gets eaten.
I could understand if the kids have insisted on ordering an adult meal and then not eaten it but a dessert from the adults menu would cost over the entire cost of the kids meal so in the grand scheme of things it didn’t really matter that they only ate the pudding.
The extra nachos are greedy though and were taking advantage.

They checked on the kids a few times but there's a tv showing CCTV coverage of the play area.