Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

Original poster

AIBU to be fed up about this

19 replies

willowisps · 18/04/2021 19:18

DD is in year 11 and is revising hard for the assessments/exams/whatever needed to get her grades.

Each evening I cook the dinner, I tell her what time it will be ready and she's expected to come down. DInner is ready, no DD, so I call her and often repeatedly but she doesn't listen - she says she hasn't heard me - out of frustration the other night I sent her a message on messenger and texted her.

Tonight I told her dinner would be ready at X. She hasn't turned up despite me having called upstairs to her. I've given up now, her dinner is done so I've left it on the hob in the casserole dish and she can have it when she turns up. I'm sick and tired of being treated like the hired help.

AIBU? It's annoying me that I go to the effort of cooking for her, if I didn't have to cook for her I'd just have a tin of soup or a sandwich myself but I want her to have a decent meal of an evening. It's not that she doesn't like what I cook as we choose the meals for the week together.

OP posts:

sadpapercourtesan · 18/04/2021 19:21

My 18yo does this, and it irks me too. It's rude and inconsiderate. He's incredibly stressed about his A Levels though, having had post-Easter exams pretty much sprung on him at a few weeks' notice, so I'm biting my tongue and cutting him slack. I wouldn't be a teenager in an exam year right now for all the tea in China

MeadowLines · 18/04/2021 19:22

Both of mine are like this, one because they're studying, the other because they're outside a lot. We tend to have dinner at roughly the same time most days and if they're there when I serve up then they get it hot and fresh. If they're not there then it stays in the pot and they help themselves when they're hungry. I don't see it as a big deal

Creepygnochi · 18/04/2021 19:22

She's working hard. As your kids get older you need to accept life won't always be like the Waltons. Leave it, she'll eat it when she's done. Nothing worse than something interrupting your flow if you're in the zone.

AnnaFiveTowns · 18/04/2021 19:22

To be honest, if she's revising hard then I'd cut her some slack about the evening meal. If she comes down and it's gone a bit cold then she can just blast it in the microwave for a minute. Pick your battles.

SleepingStandingUp · 18/04/2021 19:22

Is she actually revising? If so I'd cook it and leave hers there. If she genuinely is she probably hears yoi, thinks I'll just finish this bit, oh this bit... And loses track.

Or talk to her. Say do you want me to keep cooking dinner for us or would you rather make your own / something lighter?

HUCKMUCK · 18/04/2021 19:25

DS is the same age. We have dinner all together 2 nights a week and he is expected to come at the time I’ve told him it will be ready. The rest of the week he’s told when it’ll be ready and he can come and get his when he’s ready, within reason.

He’s pretty considerate generally and sometimes he is engrossed in homework, sometimes he’s just gaming and doesn’t want to stop immediately so I don’t mind.

Original poster

willowisps · 18/04/2021 19:35

I do find it rude, I think it's a lack of appreciation of what I am doing for her. It's just the two of us so I wouldn't be cooking at all if it wasn't for her, I can't be bothered to cook a full meal for just me. If I didn't cook for her she'd either eat nothing much or just have something like cereal, she's not got an eating disorder and she can cook but she wouldn't bother to really.

She is revising hard from what I can tell, we had parents evening recently and they said the standard of her work is good and they have no concerns so that's good enough for me to leave her to get on with it.

I just hate the way it comes across as being so rude. I do cut her a lot of slack, I've said that I don't expect her to be doing a lot of help around the house, she has a few jobs like taking the bin out once a week but I don't expect her to do washing up and so on but I do expect her to eat dinner with me. I tell her what time it'll be ready before I start cooking and she's able to ask me to do it earlier/later as I don't insist on a set time each night.

It's so frustrating. I do feel for her (and all teenagers doing exams this year) as I wouldn't be them for anything but it's just so annoying.

OP posts:

marshyindigo · 18/04/2021 19:47

I wouldn't cut her slack, it's disrespectful and rude, whatever she is doing, however old, she should show basic human decency. Pull her up on it, stop cooking for her if she continues to be so rude. Bringing up a young adult is about more than support for exams, no good getting straight As if you grow up to be a rude and dismissive person, so I wouldn't back off just because she is stressed, part of growing up.

Angrypregnantlady · 18/04/2021 19:58

She's studying, cut her some slack. Can't you just take it up so she can study while she eats.

VegCheeseandCrackers · 18/04/2021 19:58

Maybe she really is just focusing on work. Maybe it would be good to plan a night or two that you both specifically sit down to dinner together, and on the other nights accept she might just eat later. I really do understand you though and how annoying it must feel.

Original poster

willowisps · 18/04/2021 20:03

@Angrypregnantlady

She's studying, cut her some slack. Can't you just take it up so she can study while she eats.

Nope, that's not happening as she's hopeless at bringing bowls back downstairs.

To the PP who said about her growing up to be rude and dismissive, she's really a lovely post most of the time but she, like all teenagers, does have her moments. After I had the pfizer jab I felt like shit for a couple of days and she was bringing me drinks and so on without being asked.

It's been helpful to post here about it and say how I feel without getting in a disagreement with DD.

OP posts:

marshyindigo · 18/04/2021 20:07

@willowisps sorry I don't mean that she is rude and dismissive completely, but that she's demonstrating rude and dismissive behaviour and therefore I'd pull her up on it and make sure she understands the impact to you, being stressed doesn't give her a free pass to walk all over you. By all means renegotiate the situation, come to compromises others have mentioned, but to agree to dinner and not be there is simply rude and she should be told as such, exams or not.

CallforHecate · 18/04/2021 20:11

Time to get her to cook a couple of times a week? Both so that she appreciates the effort and so that you get a couple of nights of dinner together. Then maybe ease off on the other nights - cook something she can come down for when she needs it.

countbackfromten · 18/04/2021 20:24

Do you remember what it is like to be studying for exams? I sat my final set just before the pandemic hit and I had forgotten just how awful it is. And she is a teenager and revising for assessments that aren’t normal in the middle of a pandemic.

Cut her some slack. She is revising not messing around out and about with friends.

Original poster

willowisps · 18/04/2021 21:39

[quote marshyindigo]@willowisps sorry I don't mean that she is rude and dismissive completely, but that she's demonstrating rude and dismissive behaviour and therefore I'd pull her up on it and make sure she understands the impact to you, being stressed doesn't give her a free pass to walk all over you. By all means renegotiate the situation, come to compromises others have mentioned, but to agree to dinner and not be there is simply rude and she should be told as such, exams or not.[/quote]
@marshyindigo I reread your post and I can see you didn't, note to self don't read MN when hangry

OP posts:

GoWalkabout · 18/04/2021 22:01

Has she got headphones in maybe? I came home once to a furious dh eating his dinner alone saying that neither dds had had the respect to come down when he called. I went and knocked on their doors and neither had heard him, he often shouts from the kitchen not the hallway and we have thick walls, both were super keen to eat the jacket potatoes and very grateful

LouiseTrees · 18/04/2021 22:11

Couldn’t you go upstairs and knock her bedroom door/open it slightly in case she has headphones in and peer in and say dinners ready?

Speakuptomakeyourselfheard · 18/04/2021 23:59

How about once you've established what time the meal will be ready, setting a loud alarm for her? Having had a really troublesome teenager myself, I've learned that picking your battles is key, after all, she could be doing far worse than studying, for example she could be out with friends while you cook, and then come in and saying she doesn't want what you've cooked because she's already had a McDonalds!!

m0therofdragons · 19/04/2021 00:02

Dd has an echo dot in her room and I have one in the kitchen “Alexa, drop in on teendragon.... teendragon, dinner is ready” Dd comes and can’t avoid hearing me.

Flip