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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Being asked to make meals for new mums

508 replies

Paquitalaflor · 08/01/2020 11:04

Feel free to crucify me but I am irked. I have been added to a Whats app group by someone local in my village, along with about 16 other people, asking us to make meals (fresh, freezable, etc) for some new first time mums in the village. I have been asked this before and mentioned that with a full time job, two kids of my own and regularly being on my own as my husband travels a lot, I struggle to cook meals for my own family, let alone someone else's. I offered up a bag of chicken dippers and everyone laughed at my drollness.

BUT ACTUALLY.... JUST MAKE YOUR OWN FECKING FOOD!!! It isn't hard! When I had a newborn and a two year old and my husband was working away and I could hardly walk due to a nasty c-section that woudn't heal, I made my own food! I had food delivered to my house, some of it was fresh ingredients, some of it was ready meals, some of it was delivered on a moped. Literally no one in the village offered me food and if they did, I would feel a bit weird about it.

In this day and age, it isn't hard to source food. Will you be tired?! Yes. Will your other children eat fewer vegetables than they should? Probably yes. But christ alive, that is what parenting and motherhood is..... I would rather be offered food now when there is work and school and activities, rather than when they slept most of the day and we all had nothing else to do. AIBU?

OP posts:
Al1cewith2020vision · 09/01/2020 22:10

Oh god, I was another who enjoyed slobbing out in my jeans and watching crappy TV while I fed DCs. I bloody loved it.

I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have welcomed a stream of people coming to the door with casseroles, however delicious or well intentioned. I would have hated having to make tea & be sociable when I just wanted to cuddle & snuggle.

Then i’d have worried about being obliged to reciprocate.

Honestly I’m so glad I just bought a supermarket delivery pass.

HoldMyLobster · 09/01/2020 22:25

In all the times I've made meals for other people as part of meal trains, I've never once knocked on their door, said hello, or had a conversation with them.

I leave the meal in a cooler outside their door.

HoldMyLobster · 09/01/2020 22:28

I'll say it again - why don't these people who are desperate to help new mums sign up to one of the recognised programmes for volunteering with parents? NCT, BfN, ABM, Home Start or La Leche League.

I'm not in any way desperate to do the new meals thing, but assuming you still mean people like me, yes, I did sign up to recognised programmes too, in both the UK and the US.

Or do they just want the kudos of being seen to rally round and be a ministering angel?

Making meals for people was actually much less visible than helping out at various groups and organisations IME.

Insaneinthemembury · 09/01/2020 22:47

@HoldMyLobster because I dont have time to commit to work for home start. But I do have the capacity to make my signature pad thai (which is bloody delicious if I say so myself) a few times a year.

HoldMyLobster · 09/01/2020 22:59

HoldMyLobster because I dont have time to commit to work for home start. But I do have the capacity to make my signature pad thai (which is bloody delicious if I say so myself) a few times a year.

I was quoting MaybeDoctor. But yes, it's perfectly valid to have time to cook a meal occasionally for someone even if you don't have time to volunteer more regularly elsewhere. Especially if it's Pad Thai you're offering :-)

Insaneinthemembury · 09/01/2020 23:02

Sorry @holdmylobster I'm in bed at the end of a horrible bout of flu and I'm not quite with it still!

RidingMyBike · 09/01/2020 23:09

It's far easier to cook a bit extra if/when you have time to do it than sign up to a regular volunteering slot with LLL, ABM, NCT, Home Start though? I wouldn't have wanted to get involved in the first three anyway (too much judgmental stuff about natural birth and breastfeeding), and there's no way I'd have let someone from one of those in my house. Home Start volunteering I've looked into but I don't have time to commit to it, because I'm either at work or with my child, whereas doing a few extra portions of a meal because someone has just had a baby is much easier to fit in when I can.

The acquaintance who dropped off food to us asked when a convenient time would be, and then literally came in, handed bag to DH, said 'lovely baby, I won't keep you as you've got a lot on' and left! There was no standing chatting for ages or making tea or anything like that. It was actually really nice to see someone as we felt incredibly isolated and no one else had been to visit us.

GabriellaMontez · 09/01/2020 23:16

No one is desperate to help new mums. They just made a few extra meals for some local mums. No one had to make them. No one had to accept them.

We don't need or want an evidence base to know that people eat. Plenty of people don't want a regular or long term commitment to a charity but can still be neighbourly and maybe in many ways.

McCanne · 09/01/2020 23:22

I would have loved some meals at the newborn stage, I lived on toast and cornettos for weeks.

You’re not being unreasonable to not want to do it, but your anger about it seems a bit much.

diydisaster · 09/01/2020 23:45

It's a nice thing to do for close friends! Weird to do it for strangers.

pusscat1 · 10/01/2020 06:43

No you’re not being unreasonable - just remove yourself from the Wattsapp group - I would - how annoying and presumptuous x

Fullyhuman · 10/01/2020 07:27

I’d have appreciated this very much with my first, more for the friendliness/community of it than the food. I found new motherhood very disorientating and lonely (we’ve no family locally).

galison · 10/01/2020 10:29

Not sure if this has been mentioned but it is now possible to change your settings so that you cannot be automatically added to a group.

lovemenorca · 10/01/2020 11:00

* I would have loved some meals at the newborn stage, I lived on toast and cornettos for weeks.*

Why? If you wanted to - lovely
But absolutely NO reason why you couldn’t have done an online order, or your partner cook (or if you didn’t have a difficult recovery... walk to the shops or cook yourself!)

Unusualsuspicion · 10/01/2020 11:17

No reason... except if you live somewhere where there isn't online delivery, if you don't have a partner, if you do but you are both wrecked from being up with a projectile- vomiting newborn 13 times a night, if you have a partner who works late, if...a dozen other possibilities! How much imagination does it really take to realise that there all sorts of reasons why somebody might find it hard to eat nutritious food in the early weeks?!!

Insaneinthemembury · 10/01/2020 11:18

@Multigloves I couldnt have made nutritious food myself because I was bed bound, no family near by, my mums an alcoholic and DH was at work out of the country
Not everyone has your circumstances. Have some empathy.

lovemenorca · 10/01/2020 11:24

Insane - you knew all those who cooked for you

Would you have accepted from complete strangers?

Insaneinthemembury · 10/01/2020 11:28

Yes I probably would have. In context though and would use common sense.
I'm a bit of a risk taker by nature though!

I dont know why people are getting so worked up about people making meals for new parents. It's baffling. I see as nothing but a bloody lovely thing that was done for me. No upset stomach here! Just a happy one Smile

lovemenorca · 10/01/2020 11:37

I struggle to see why you’re baffled that you’re situation is a little different

Your local church group, that you all knew, made up of a high number of doctors and you had no family support and you had a dh away working and you were bed bound... is a little different to some of the scenarios described on this thread!

Forestwitch · 10/01/2020 11:40

Tell them there is a wonderful place called Iceland...

The frozen food shop!

Insaneinthemembury · 10/01/2020 11:52

@lovemenorca I suppose I just run in very different circles. My friends who are mums who did struggle in the new born phase.. lack of sleep, cluster feeding, physical recovery, hormones, mental health issues.

People I know would be grateful for an offer of help or the offer of a meal.
For some people it meant a great deal.
Let these people be. Let people make meals and show their kindness
I dont know why people have got so worked up about it. People saying they couldnt think of anything worse and how ridiculous it is
Just let people be. If they want to help let them
If people want to receive that help, let them.

TrickyKid · 10/01/2020 11:56

Who are the women, have they actually expressed a need to be cooked for. Very odd and I'm sure there's more needy people if the organiser really wants to help in the community.

MyCatIsATiger · 10/01/2020 11:58

You aren’t under any obligation to be involved in this, that’s totally fine. It sounds like a lovely idea though, and I wish more villages took this mentality to new mums.

Insaneinthemembury · 10/01/2020 12:05

@TrickyKid a lot of people do make meals for other vulnerable people. Groups like this meal one and my church offer meals to those who are recently bereaved, or when a friend was seriously ill in hospital.

Sindragosan · 10/01/2020 12:39

A lot of people do actually get involved in NCT etc, as well as making meals Hmm

Unless there is some sort of baby boom, it's one meal 3 or 4 times a year, hardly a great imposition, and you text the new family and ask when is convenient for drop off, do they want you to leave it in the porch etc. No hoards ringing your door bell at all hours.

I don't have family nearby, was exhausted to the point I could barely stand and was so grateful for the help. Yes, I could have ordered takeaways or chucked a pizza in the oven, but having one less thing to do was amazing. No one is forced into it either, it's ok to say you're fine and don't need it, or you've got family help, but equally nothing wrong accepting help when you need it.