To involve strangers in a meal train?

[ChockaChick]

Just moved house and just had a baby…. We’ve briefly met the neighbours on either side and they seem perfectly pleasant. HV has suggested starting a meal train in the road. Yet I really don’t think I’d feel comfortable asking strangers to cook for us. Surely that’s something you organise amongst friends and family, not new neighbours you’ve not met yet? I’d think it a bit cheeky tbh if I got a demand for food from some unknown newbie. AIBU?

Maybe you could cook a meal for an elderly person

It would be completely bizarre to ask strangers to cook for you

But please do it. Just for fun. I'd love to hear how it goes down

This is just the weirdest thing😳 And would be the last time I didn't run away from the neighbour's suggesting that...
I assume it's from pre delivery era

You're right to feel uncomfortable... you're new to the street and have barely met your neighbours to then ask them to get cooking for you!

I think it is though the beauty of some communities in the UK though - within Churches as some have said and maybe other cultures as i recall being a teen and my mum having an op and our neighbour bringing round some meals for us.

I have turned inside out with cringe at the very thought. Is your health visitor mad?

Seriously weird. Embarrassing too.

Your Health Visitor suggested it? I know HVs come out with some gems but that takes the biscuit. Hopefully she won't be dropping round to yours very often.

No. I'm sure, like most people, you and your husband are capable of getting meals together, they don't have to be anything elaborate.

Congratulations on your baby, I hope you are both well.

Weird.

I can understand a meal train (but not organising your own) for single parents, people with illnesses/accidents/disabilities which impede their ability to cook, bereavement etc, but it's weird otherwise IMO.

Most babies have two parents around at the start at least, and a baby can only be held by one at a time, so I can't see why anyone should go hungry, even if for whatever reason they can't cook their own food or bring something in the oven.

To me, it perpetuates the stereotype that women cook, and that men don't, which is an awful assumption to have for a new family.

I'm surprised that your first response wasn't "What on earth is a meal train?" and your second "Don't be daft!".

I honestly couldn’t imagine my neighbour saying ‘me and my husband are expecting our first baby, please can you make us some food and drop it off at our house?’ I don’t even know what I’d say.

Get your baby’s dad to make your food if you’re not up to it. If he is incapable then order in.

Unless people are single + family-less + immobile before birth, there is just no need because they can prep their own beforehand...
Surprise illness making cooking hard or impossible is a different matter.
Then again. There is trillion food deliveries now so...

I can remember reading a post on social media where a bunch of neighbours received a note from their new neighbours asking them to make meals for them because they were having a baby. Full of specific ingredients and dishes, and every person who wasn't American was aghast at the cheeky fuckery of it!

No, stick with the begging letters and then order takeaways.

If he is incapable then order in.

If he's incapable, then

1. he needs to get over it/learn
2. if he refuses, then reassess whether you want someone so useless that he can't take care of his basic need for food himself, when having a family.

Fixed it for you.

I don't know what your HV is thinking. Where is your DH/DP in all of this? Seems weird she thinks it's acceptable to farm out the cooking to random women in the neighbourhood (and let's face it it will most likely be the women), when you presumably have a perfectly functioning partner at home

Does anyone remember a news story about a CF couple doing this a few years back? They were being really entitled and fussy demanding lots of niche stuff. Don't think it ended well.

It's a lovely thing to do if it's so embedded into the culture that it is always going to be a reciprocal thing. In the US and other places where it's a thing, by the time someone qualifies for receiving the meals etc they have probably donated towards dozens of other people's needs over the years, and in subsequent years they will donate more, and so over the course of a lifetime most people would have given and received about the same amount, plus or minus a little to account for a particular individual being more or less generous, but the while community is so much richer in terms of the community bonds and mutual support. It's a great thing in principle but it can't be started off by a solo young mum who is struggling in a new area where she doesn't know anyone, unfortunately.

I don't know the figures, so I may be wrong here, but I suspect that the reason it is a lot bigger in the us than in the uk is that the uk has much higher benefits available for new mothers - you'll have SMP or MA if you have been in work, child benefit, and further means-tested benefits for the most in-need, so in effect the government is already facilitating the whole community rallying around to support the new family, via the tax system. It's just much less personal and friendly than receiving the contributions face-to-face.

I assume though in the US it's not just any random neighbours doing this but people who actually know each other well?

@Lynnikins

Sorry if it seems unreasonable to ask, but what does "HV" stand for? I've worked through all possibilities but am still stumped.

@Lynnikins Health Visitor

Can you imagine getting a knock on the door
“hello, I have just had a baby and I was wondering if you would like to make me dinner?”
When one of my neighbours wife was in hospital I cooked extra and sent it round for a few days but this sounds nuts.
I also don’t understand why it’s a “train”

What's that? You have had a baby, doesn't stop you from cooking! I was back cooking within 24 hours, just quick stuff at first obviously but babies, even newborns can be put down.

The attached Daily Mail article is making me cringe. The absolute CFery of demanding people cook for you & then not even being willing to open the door to collect it/say thank you

@RosesAndHellebores

I think you should write to your local CCG and express concern about the HV who undoubtedly needs some training/assessment of her life skills/common sense!

this absolutely...I mean i had heard stories about the incompetence of some HV's but that takes the cake

I sort of hope it’s a cultural thing we in the UK might import from the US because it sounds great

It wasn't called a meal train or done via a website but as a child in the UK this was something I remember for births/deaths/big events.

It was done within local communities - church/village/street/working club. More accurately - it was done by the women in the local community. I don't ever remember a man rocking up to someone's door with a casserole!

No wonder new parents struggle at times with the attitudes we have in this country. There's nothing wrong with looking after others in our community who might need a helping hand, for whatever reason. Not everyone copes the same after each birth for various reasons. I think the supportive and thoughtful act of making them a meal is a really lovely idea.

I wish we were all a hell of a lot less British at times tbh. Ok maybe the expectant mother is not the one to organise the meal train, but in itself it could be a great thing. Suppose it is that worst of MN crimes though - American.

Seriously? This is a 'thing' when someone has a baby? You usually know you're going to have a baby and roughly when. Plan ahead, fill the freezer or buy in easy to cook food supplies. If there's 2 adults then surely one can manage to put some food together for a meal! Totally different to someone suffering a bereavement when friends/neighbours dropping off meals is often the done thing in the UK.

@EmbarrassingAdmissions

But realistically, how hard is it to whack a pizza or a ready meal in the oven if you're really struggling?

If you mean the OP, some FTMs can be struggling badly. As can others who might have had a rough birth and be unsupported.

And some people can be so unwell that the simple actions you mention can be beyond them. And, for people who are carers for them, it can be a huge kindness at a time of increased stress or when they need to spend even more time caring for someone.

That's not really the issue. This is about the suggestion by the HV that the OP should ask complete strangers to cook food for her.

I've happily done it for friends when they've been ill, but would be a bit WTF if someone I hadn't met before rocked up to my house and requested an evening meal.