Doodle poll for meal plan

[traumatisednoodle]

Would I be unreasonable to produce a doodle poll to ask DH (46), DS (17) and Dd (14) what they want to eat and/or cook for the coming week. Asking them ellicits a "I don't mind" response leaving me to sort out 7 days of dinners.

You could give it a try.

You could also cook 7 things that you like and/or feel like cooking and if they complain remind them that they told you they didn't mind.

Why is it all up to you anyway? Everyone in the house is capable of cooking, so you should only be responsible for a couple of dinners a week each, surely?

Or do you 2 days, DH 2 days, each of DC a day each and a takeaway on Friday or Saturday night?

Everyone cooks one day per week - cook decides what's for dinner at least x days in advance.

My kids (15, 13, 10) cook when I have late shifts, which averages out 2-3 nights per week - the 13 and 10 year old usually choose to cook together so sometimes do so twice but sometimes the eldest cooks twice because it means she controls what dinner is). They put what they're going to cook into the family Google calendar. The younger two do mostly something like sausages or fish fingers with home made potato wedges or home made pizza or jacket potatoes, the middle one does gnocchi or pasta if the youngest isn't cooking with him, the eldest does all sorts.

Assign them a suitable evening and be clear the rest is up to them ...

It's probably worth letting us know why it's your job to do this op, otherwise many responses will focus on that.

We have a four week rolling menu (and with our online shop we can store four different shopping lists, which we can then top up with the less regular purchases). Every so often we change bits of it, because someone says "I really don't like this much", or activities affect cooking time available, or the person cooking has found a better recipe. It does mean that we don't have to meal plan each week. Originally we thought we might leave one night out of it specifically for trying new things, but mostly we can't be bothered, and we can always change things if there is a new recipe we want to try.

YABU. I grew up in a house where you ate what was made or you didn't eat dinner, all freshly cooked from scratch. (No allergies etc).

You're making a rod for your own back. Cook what you want to eat, they either eat or make toast for themselves.

mainsfed you've completely missed the point! traumatisednoodle , like most of us who ended up lumbered with it at some point, wants a way out of the "wife work" of being the only member of the household responsible for deciding what to cook every damned day of the year!

@UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme

mainsfed you've completely missed the point! traumatisednoodle , like most of us who ended up lumbered with it at some point, wants a way out of the "wife work" of being the only member of the household responsible for deciding what to cook every damned day of the year!

But she now has the wife work of creating and responding to a weekly Doodle poll!

It feels like even more extra work to me...

Why don’t you simply put your foot down and say everyone has to pick one meal a week?

I don't understand why you think you'd be unreasonable to do this? Organise your family meals however you choose.

Not unreasonable at all. My nine year olds now cook something simple once a week. Dh chooses Saturday as he's fussy about 'Saturday' food. I chose the other 4 although one normally gets subbed out for a delivery.

Do what works for you but setting up a poll especially on Doodle sounds like an unnecessary pita.

I voted YABU as meals have two options...eat it or don't eat it.
I really would not be wasting a single second of my time faffing about with a poll.

Here's dinner...eat or starve.
QED.

MasterBeth I agree creating the poll is misguided as it confirms her as solely responsible for meal planning and exacerbates the problem.

The problem is wanting the rest of the family to do their share of meal planning, so doing all of it is not a solution, its telling the op to suck it up!

Why is meal planning my job ?
DH cooks 2-3 nights a week, DC cook as and when. DH does all DIY and house maintainence, including all utilities.

We recently got a bit of paper out and wrote down ALL the meals we ever cook at home and then put initials next to it for who actually enjoys it.

ie
Steak dinner - A, N, J, S, D, C, S, P
bolog - S, D, A
fry up - J, A, C, S
roast - A, N, J, S, D, C, S, P
chilli - J, D
ect ect

Dead simple stuff obvs BUT
a) we thought of loads of meals we'd forgotten
and
b) turns out i'm cooking lots of meals on repeat that i don't like much thinking everyone else likes them and it turns out they don't!

It resulted in a bit of a shake up and a renewed interest from everyone in what we're planning to have.

I do all the food shopping? I think possibly because I used to work part time. I also quite like cooking. What I can't stand is thinking of 7 healthy balanced meals that everyone will eat.

How would this even work? I've only ever used Doodle for meeting up with friends etc.

Would you have to list all of the possible meals and they would vote for each one? That doesn't solve your problem.

*How would this even work? I've only ever used Doodle for meeting up with friends etc.

Would you have to list all of the possible meals and they would vote for each one? That doesn't solve your problem.*

Yes obviously it would be more work the first time but hopefully then get easier

@traumatisednoodle

Why is meal planning my job ? DH cooks 2-3 nights a week, DC cook as and when. DH does all DIY and house maintainence, including all utilities.

Because if you’re the one who ends up cooking the meal, at least you want the choice of what to cook