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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:
FourTeaFallOut · 08/01/2020 11:32

Well obviously most people here would not want food from a stranger, most mumsnetters hit the floor and commando roll to behind the couch when a stranger knocks on the door.

BlueJava · 08/01/2020 11:32

YANBU just leave the group. I am not sure I'd want strangers giving me food anyway!

formerbabe · 08/01/2020 11:32

Yanbu

This would really piss me off.

Unless you've been left totally incapacitated by childbirth and are a single mum, then I see no reason why you wouldn't be able to stick a jacket potato in the microwave.

Boom45 · 08/01/2020 11:32

Are you expected to do this? Or is it just an idea some of the others (who have time on their hands) want to do? The other mums at my daughter's school are all making stuff to send to Australia for the animals - lots of chat about it on the WhatsApp group. But I'm not, and neither are the other mums that work. It's not required of us, just am idea they've had.

Letsallscreamatthesistene · 08/01/2020 11:33

oh god and just read your comment that these women are strangers. No way would I be accepted food from strangers.

TheOrigFV45 · 08/01/2020 11:34

I would leave the group, with a message saying "I think this is a lovely thing to do. Since I make my own arrangements for helping others I do not wish to belong to this group as well".

I hate being approached to 'do good' - unless it's an expected whip round for a close friend's birthday or something.

I will help others on my own terms, then it's done with graciousness rather than resentment.

formerbabe · 08/01/2020 11:35

In fact one wonders how older siblings ever get fed if new mums are totally unable to cook a simple meal.

BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 08/01/2020 11:35

I would hate to have to be grateful for people making me meals when I really wouldn't want them. I don't think of myself as a picky eater, but that's only because I control what I buy and can always find at least one thing that I want to eat on any menu. When someone else cooks for me I'm forced to face up to just how fussy I am about ingredients and textures.

It's a thing in American, isn't it? It gets mentioned in novels from time to time, usually in the context of how weird and inedible the meals are.

Just leave the group, I bet once you do it there will be a flood following you. Nobody wants to be the first.

Bluerussian · 08/01/2020 11:35

I doubt that anyone who made food for someone else, on the basis described by the op, would be all that unhygienic. They would be capable cooks and managers of their kitchen. Anyway if something goes in the oven at a high temperature most germs are killed off. Why do we suppose others are less clean than ourselves?

Most of us will eat in cafes and restaurants from time to time and would be horrified to see what goes on in even the most efficient commercial kitchens. What the eye doesn't see, the chef gets away with (I remember that from Fawlty Towers).

I've only had food poisoning once, when I was twenty, and that was from food I had prepared! More a situation of inexperience than lack of hygiene but still, it was down to me.

SandyY2K · 08/01/2020 11:35

You don't have the time, so don't do it. It should be voluntary...not by force.

Just don't respond to requests and stay in the group, unless it was specifically set up for this purpose...then I would exit.

VenusOfWillendorf · 08/01/2020 11:35

Of course you're not BU to say no (and no justification on why not is needed), but not sure why you are annoyed that someone else might want to? And that they seem to think you are a charitable soul who might like to also?!
I would also say no to this. But have no objections to anyone else who would want to - live and let live Grin

tillytrotter1 · 08/01/2020 11:35

Next week there'll be a request for others to give birth for them! Have people really become so helpless?

I could understand it for elderly or infirm but giving birth has only in the last few years become so incapacitating!

inwood · 08/01/2020 11:36

I wouldn't eat food provided by someone I didn't know and had seen how clean their kitchen was....

ParanoidGynodroid · 08/01/2020 11:36

YANBU. I think it’s a strange request. It would be a nice thing for family or friends to do for a new mum, but from people they don’t know it’s a bit weird. Furthermore, they may not like the food given. Or they may feel judged (that they’re perceived to be not coping). Or it may be unsuitable for their diet choices or allergies. Or they already have some help. Or they may be coping just fine TYVM.

BTW I have 5 DC, so know exactly what it’s like to have a newborn.

Squirrelplay · 08/01/2020 11:36

I think it's a lovely thing to do. I sure as hell would have appreciated it. Cooking was such an ordeal when I had two 15 months apart. DH worked away, I had no family nearby, lived in the middle of nowhere so even getting to the supermarket was a faff. I really struggled with cooking at that stage and ate complete junk as a result.

Anywho YANBU to not want to do it and it's fine to say so but I wouldn't mock others efforts to make a new mum's life easier.

Biker47 · 08/01/2020 11:37

The correct and polite way for this person to organise this, would have been to ask people if they wanted to be added to the group to help, not just add the OP, and I'm assuming some other unsuspecting people into it from the get go. They will probably shit talk the people as being unkind etc. if you leave the group either by saying you're not interested or even if you don't say anything before leaving.

Brefugee · 08/01/2020 11:38

just say: "no, too busy. Good luck with it." and then leave the group?

TBH i would have loved a bit of help with DC1 - moved to a new village far away from family and friends 2 weeks before the birth and knew nobody. But we survived. I would also hope that people are aware of food allergies/requirements and would ask before just turning up with a pie or something.

I think it actually sounds quite nice and community minded.

yagayagayo · 08/01/2020 11:38

Has no one ever sent you a Tesco shop or Cook new parents pack of freezable food when your babies were born? It's quite normal for people to offer food OP.

If you don't want to be part of the offer that's fine, no problem, but it's not unreasonable for others to want to do this. I'm sure the expectant mums in the village will be grateful for the 'do gooders' gift.

I much preferred the food gifts I received when my little one was born, over the baby grows, or worse still the flowers! Maybe just remove yourself from the WhatsApp group about it.

CatteStreet · 08/01/2020 11:38

I'm in two minds about this. I like the gesture, and I've done it for a neighbour when they had their fourth. But I don't think it's really first-time mothers who need this, presuming they aren't lone parents, and i suppose I find the implication that the family (the man) needs to be catered for while the mother is indisposed a bit Hmm. Am also wondering if it's only women who have been asked to cook.

PurpleDaisies · 08/01/2020 11:39

Next week there'll be a request for others to give birth for them!

Overreacting much?

There’s nothing to say that this is a request from the family with the new baby. This sounds like a nice thing from others who recognise having just had a new baby is likely to be hard going.

PurpleDaisies · 08/01/2020 11:39

I find the implication that the family (the man) needs to be catered for while the mother is indisposed a bit Hmm

You really worked hard to see that one as sexist.

fascicle · 08/01/2020 11:39

Not sure how long ago you were previously asked, but presumably the issue is not sounding you out before adding you to the group chat.

bellinisurge · 08/01/2020 11:40

It's a volunteer thing. You don't have to.
No need to get het up about it.

Letsallscreamatthesistene · 08/01/2020 11:40

@Bluerussian you'd be so surprised. Different people have different standards.

I have done community nursing in the past which involved going into other peoples homes. From that I learnt that people who I would consider to be 'like me' actually had different standards to me. Im not a picky eater and nor do I have weird OTT hygiene standards. I'd just be really wary about food from a bunch of strangers.

Maya31 · 08/01/2020 11:40

I think it’s a kind thing that no one should feel obligated to do.

We have no close friends or family in our area who we could ask for help. I had a c-section with complications and my husband barely kept us all afloat.

We hadn’t prepared food because my parents were going to come to stay but then my mum became massively ill at the last minute.

Of course we survived, but I’d love to help someone else out if they needed it.