Do you cook all adult DC's meals?

[BoredBeforelEvenBegan]

If they live at home, obviously.

DD is 24 and I cook all her meals - she likes different food to the stuff DH and I eat and we eat dinner later than she does so I usually cook her meal separately in the evening. She doesn't cook herself but makes herself a sandwich for lunch sometimes.

She pays board so I always considered this to be fair enough, until I saw someone on here mention that they don't cook for their adult DC.

Do you cook for yours? Do they cook for you? fantasises about someone else making my dinner for a change

On rare occasions when I've not been able to cook for her (health reasons, usually) she's managed to put a frozen pizza in the oven but that's it.

At 24 years of age, that's just ridiculous. Of course she doesn't bother to learn any life skills, you just turn around and do it all for her.

I agree with @Ohalrightthen. This is learned behaviour. It is so easy to get recipes for different meals on YouTube if you are a novice cook and ar least compared to written recipes you can see what things should look like at different parts of the cooking process.

Surely she won't want to live with you forever and having basic cooking skills is a big part of independence. Untie the apron strings!

I lived at home with my DM and SD until I was 27 and my DM (or sometimes SD) would cook for me, but I generally ate the same as them, with them.
If I was eating earlier or later, she might offer or I would sort my own food out.
Every other week I would treat the 3 of us to a takeaway

I think, as long as she doesn't expect you to do it and she wouldn't "kick off" if you decided not to cook for her separately, I wouldn't mind doing what you do.
I think if she feels "entitled" to have you cook separate meals at different times, it would irritate me

Just tell them they cooking wednesdays and saturdays from now on.
Then add thursdays.

If it s frozen pizza so be it.
They will learn if you push

Or let them get recipe boxess like hello fresh for them to follow the instrux
They havd to choose znd menu plan

You sound a soft touch op. You’re not doing your dd any favours

I can’t understand spending time/energy literally catering to another adult. Cooking for the whole household most of the time is one thing, cooking a special meal for an adult goes way beyond that!

Your time and energy could be much better spent on other things, and what you’re doing has drawbacks for her too.

OP, doing the dishes and the odd bit of hoovering do not balance it out.
My 21 yo DD and her boyfriend live with us and we pretty much split the housework four ways. Bathroom cleaning, take turns. Hoovering, I’ll do downstairs and DH upstairs, then next time we swap and the young ones do it. We all clean as we go in the kitchen and take turns to do the dishwasher. It’s all pretty informal and if one of us has a lot of work that day, be it paid or uni, the rest will pick up the slack. We all wash our own clothes but if we have space in a washload we ask if anyone else wants some of that colour done.

Cooking, sometimes I cook for just DH and I (or he will) and the young ones do their own thing. Sometimes I cook for everyone. Sometimes DD and boyfriend cook for us - as least as often as we cook for them. I do more traditional meals and they do more pasta/ stir fry/ curry. The person cooking chooses. The others can opt in or cook their own.

DD is back due to Covid after 2 years away at uni. One thing she was really worried about was feeling like a child again and I didn’t want to take back on a workload for 4. So we decided to run it far more like a houseshare - and it’s working brilliantly.

I’d sit down with your DD and say you need to all function as equal adults, and find a way that works for all of you.

When DS21 is at home from uni, he and I jostle competitively to be first in the kitchen! But he worked as a chef in a 5-star hotel for two years before starting his course, so he is very skilled (and I'm a pretty decent cook). However, DH prefers my meals because I know what he likes.

Sounds like you think her and your husband not being able to cook is cute and funny

I hope they help you out in other ways! I think you should take a night off cooking every week, and if they refuse to cook make them pay for takeaway.

How much earlier does you dd eat? Early dinner makes her sound 4 not 24!

Of course she’s not interested in cooking, she gets her whims catered to!

@AuntyMabelandPippin

I cook one meal, if they want something different, they cook (and clean up) themselves.

This I am not running a cafe

Can she read OP?
Sorry if that sounds patronising. But honestly, a recipe is just following a few instructions.
Of course she can boil a pan of pasta, drain it, stir in some sauce and grate some cheese.

We all learn somewhere.

Start small - let her bugger it up, it won't be the end of the world, we all started somewhere.

I left home when I was 17, married by 20 and by the time I was DD's age I had her to look after too. My mother never showed me how to cook - I just cracked on (and committed some horrific crimes against food in the process, until I learned not to).

Like I say I do worry about her being able to look after herself when she leaves home - ready meals are all very well and she won't starve but I'd like her to be able to cook more than that. DH never learned to cook anything at all and it's a bit of a pain, particularly when I don't feel well enough to cook (I've got a few health conditions which mean sometimes I feel completely fucked/in pain). He says that if he lived alone he would just order takeaways every night, as some of his friends do.

Oh and further to above post, DD and boyfriend are veggie and DH and I are not. I don’t expect them to cook meat for us (you’ll understand that) and it does us no harm to eat a vegetarian or vegan meal 2 or 3 times a week. If I cook for them I am very careful to do a veggie version and keep it entirely separate from ours. That can be managed too. She can cook vegan meals for you and if she’s desperate for meat, add some meat to her portion at the end.

IMO it’s reasonable for a meat eater to cook a veggie/ vegan meal but not vice versa.

Oh OP for her sake please change situation now! When I was a child I could clean a house top to bottom as mum insisted on it but I couldn't boil an egg when I left home as she insisted on controlling the kitchen so wouldn't take time to teach us as "we were too slow"! So left home completely incompetent in the area of cooking and swore blind my kids wouldn't be the same. It was such an unnecessary complication for when I left home and affected my confidence in general beyond cooking, the fact that I didn't have this basic life skill. My now 11 year old LOVES cooking and she cooks family dinner once a fortnight by choice. Older teenager HATES cooking but she is still made to cook once every 6 weeks (just so she feels she can) and even though she doesn't enjoy it there is still a knowledge she is capable. Believe me would rather cook myself as mine tastes nicer but feel it is worth it for their long term life skills and confidence

@Cpl415642

Sounds like you think her and your husband not being able to cook is cute and funny

I hope they help you out in other ways! I think you should take a night off cooking every week, and if they refuse to cook make them pay for takeaway.

How much earlier does you dd eat? Early dinner makes her sound 4 not 24!

I don't think it's cute and funny - at best it's exasperating. And I do worry about how DD will manage when she leaves home, or what DH would do if anything happened to me (his takeaway plan doesn't sound too healthy!).

Me and DH eat at about 9pm, DD at about 6pm.

It's nice you have such a close relationship, but being able to feed yourself if a basic life skill and tbh you've done her a bit of a disservice letting her get to this age and only being able to "manage" a frozen pizza.

Oh man - no way! I moved back in with my parents for a year when I was 23 - and did my own cooking! Obviously some days my mum would cook a big dish and say there was plenty if I wanted some etc - but mostly I cooked for myself!
And usually cooked for them a few times a week too!

I would cook same meal as we are having at same time, anything else and they would sort their own. Mine are 11 and 13 and will cook for themselves if they don't fancy what we are having and or want to eat earlier.

I cook for mine. Doesn’t bother me at all. And one is vegetarian so often has something different. I like cooking though. I imagine if you don’t like cooking, and have to cook different meals, that it’s a bit of a pain.

At 24 when she's eating separately from the rest of you, not a chance. I would if I was doing a family meal. She's old enough to buy and cook her own food.
I was married at 24!

But I mean I'm not saying she shouldn't be living at home or she's spoiled etc, but cooking her own meals is one of the fundamental basic skills she needs to learn so even if you enjoy making her food, it's not doing her any favours for her independence.

I’m not speaking from experience as my dc are too young, but as others have said - if she doesn’t want what you’re cooking then I think she should sort it herself. She appears to be taking you for a mug here OP as there’s no way she could have got to 24 and not realise how good she’s got it with your current arrangement.

@BoredBeforelEvenBegan ah ok I see why she eats earlier!

A story from my own family...my mum has always did all the cooking when I was young. Dad NEVER cooked when I was growing up. Right before dad retired he was asked to take a final 6month contract with his job abroad, and for the first time Mum didn't go with him - she was sorting out the house they were going to retire in.

Guess what - he was fine! He did eat a lot of rotisserie chicken at first but soon he was cooking for himself all the time, and proudly sending me pics it was hilarious. When he went home to mum she still does most of the cooking, but he is very capable, I feel much less worried about him looking after himself if he needed to 😅

DD 19 is home from university. She's an excellent and confident cook. We have one family meal each night which she cooks or helps me to cook about 3 times a week.
She usually makes her own breakfast and lunch.