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?

Auntie. If you want little children to sit and eat, don’t plonk them down next to a play area!

Most children are often excited when out and with a play area as well understandably too distracted by that!.If Aunt has no children she probably doesnt understand that you cant force them to eat!.Say thank you and they enjoyed the time with her .Dont worry too much !

At the end of the day it's £20 worth of food. Not really worth getting everybody upset about and ruining a family occasion. If I were the parents I would shove a £5 for each child into her letter box and be done with it.

I can understand the Aunt's point of view. The children should have been hungry at lunchtime all things being equal. Eating dessert but not mains shows they did want food. As a child I'd never have been allowed dessert if I hadn't eaten my main or allowed in the play area until I had eaten my main.

Aunt is BU.

The time to query the nachos was at the table, not after the bill was paid, later on WhatsApp.

The time to ask the parents to make the children sit at the table to eat was at the pub, not later on WhatsApp.

All this said, perhaps she felt that in general no one was particularly appreciative of her gesture.

But meh - if you offer to pay, it doesn't give you the right to dictate what people order and eat. You can say upfront "I can't afford the £28 wine and caviar option, so I'd be grateful if you ordered sensibly", but you shouldn't offer if you can't afford to pay the bill generously and without fuss.

Kids were all part of the offer to pay, she paid, not contigent on what they actually ate.

Staying well out of it and remembering for the future never to accept the "generous offer" is the way forward.

@LettuceBe

Sounds like the aunt is a control freak who likes to make people feel like shit with her awful passive aggressive 'martyr' type behaviour!

She was offered the money for the kids meals, turned it down, and then slagged people off, saying no-one offered her anything.

WTF is wrong with her?

I would give her the money back, block her/unfriend her on social media/whatsapp, and then give her a VERY wide berth! Silly woman!

Your aunt was lovely to offer to pay for everyone's meals, but she totally negated the loveliness by grumbling about the children's meals and nachos. Everyone should send her the money for their meals to shit her up! She can hardly say she hopes everyone enjoyed their meal and then start bitching!!

As for the parents, they should have tried to keep the kids at the table and not let them run to and from the play area.

Ice-cream has nothing to do with hunger. Nobody eats ice-cream because they're hungry!

As I said early she's clearly someone who expects disproportionate levels of gratitude and control for a superficially generous gesture and actually isn't nice at all but only interested in having everyone beholden to her.

A generous gesture with strings attached is not a generous gesture.

For the sake of the price of a crappy chain pub meal I'm sure everyone would prefer to have paid their own way rather than be chastised and scolded over uneaten nuggets and mystery unordered nachos.

Oops, shut her up not shit her up! (Does it mean I swear too much when apple changes shut to shit??)

I think your Aunt is BU.

Is she one of those who likes to be thanked a million times and as she hasn't had the gratitude that she feels she deserves, she is "reminding" everyone in a very PA way via WhatsApp how she paid for it all.

SIBU.

she offered to pay. She budgeted money to pay for the meal. Regardless of how much was eaten, she was still always going to spend the money.

So, either she doesn’t feel like was adequately thanked for the gesture (which of course she should have been) or she expected everybody to sit still and be “ever so humble”.

Maybe the “taking advantage of” is because she suspects the parents would have encouraged the kids to eat their meals if they’d bought them themselves, and were only so laissez faire because it was free? Did they make any attempts to have their kids sit at the table?
If not, it was quite rude to order meals for them.

Aunt is being unreasonable.

If you pay you just pay and be happy about it. You can’t police what people eat.

Aunt being VERY unreasonable ....how very PA of her to offer to pay ,,,BUT only under her strict conditions all 3 of the 4 children were under 5 and the 8 year old was probably overwhelmed. Why should parents be forever grateful and sorry for behaviour that is normal for children of that age ??

Does she want the nacho orderer to pay for them?

She wants to know who ordered them but I'm almost 100% positive that no one ordered them and that it was a staff error. One person did the ordering for the group.

She is placing conditions on it so definitely its her. The children eating the food or not does not affect her at all - she paid for the meals regardless of whether they were eaten or not - is she always like that

Were any her grandchildren (and all 4 were only children?). Also 3 were under 5 so leaving food is normal at that age - the 8 year old is more surprising (and I think that is the one the parents should have made eat!

Christ alive this sounds like the worst meal out ever. What a ridiculous WhatsApp conversation you're all having.

No such thing as a free lunch, eh?!

She sounds a bit bonkers to me.

Maybe she’s never come across the concept of ‘sunk cost’?

Whatever happened to the food onece ordered and received, the bill would be no different.

So if she was happy to pay, why then be bothered about what happens to the food? That’s the parents’ problem, not hers.

After that message, I think the Aunt will find that her relatives are otherwise engaged the next time she wants company for a meal.

If she is bitter about the three parents that didn't offer to pay she should have taken it up with them directly and not sent a message to everyone because that is guaranteed to cause bad feeling. She's handled it in the worst possible way which is a shame really because I do think it will affect the family meals in future and it's the opposite of what she intended when she offered to pay.

She offered to pay as a 'grand' gesture to get approval from everyone. But then she regretted it as the reality hit her in the face. She needs to suck it up. She can go back and complain to the restaurant if she wants.
It sounds like she loves being the centre of attention. I suspect she does this a lot.
The Whatsapp is even better than Facebook for attention seekers.

She was. The pull of the play area is always more. It’s a family day and I wouldn’t have sweated my kids not eating.

I wouldn't have ordered a kids meal for my child before the age of 4, they would have just shared mine. I'd expect them to all sit at the table for a reasonable period of time before being excused to return to the play area, and I'd expect the 8 year old to eat most of their meal.

No none of the Grandchildren present were hers. Three are only children, one is not,(Sibling was elsewhere)

I think that they encouraged them to eat a little. I saw them at the table sometimes but more often not,

Regardless of who is wrong or right I think that it's all been blown way out of proportion. I'm not becoming involved with the discussion/argument(other than posting here) and hopefully it'll die down soon.

Thank you all for sharing your perspectives.

She’s being super unreasonable. You can’t offer to pay and then say things like that- it’s not the parents fault, it’s what kids are like. She sounds a bit unpleasant!