To refuse to cook for my 14 year old?

[NC30112021]

I'm sick of the meals that I make being snarled at. DD is 14 and is basically only happy to eat cereal, sweets, pizza and pasta without moaning. It's just the 2 of us in the house and I'm fed up of making separate meals for us.

I like a variety of stuff, and make things like cottage pie, roast dinners, chicken casserole, all of which she has eaten in the past... now, she's just being objectionable and refusing.

She's perfectly capable of making pasta for herself, but cos she's a lazy moo, prefers me to do it.

AIBU to refuse to cook for her, unless she eats what I'm making for myself too?

My mother in this situation would have said to me “it’s not a restaurant” and lm inclined to agree with her. You can’t just have pizza or pasta every night?!

You cook fir you
Sge doesnt like
She cooks it herself
You save the spare portion for tomorriw

YANBU

Do exactly what you've said. She can have what you have or make herself a pizza/pasta.

Although I would cook what she likes a couple of times a week, a bit of pasta and pizza (and compromise) is good!

Perfectly reasonable. At 14 she ought to be capable of cooking the basics that she likes, and you can cook what you like for yourself.

I don't see what she can possibly object to. But she's a teenager, so object she will. Just shrug and tell her to talk to the hand (though that's undoubtedly terribly old hat). 😏🙄

I got what I was given
continue to cook for her if she doesn’t want it she doesn’t have to eat it
but if she is genuinely hungry she will eat it
maybe she should limit the snacking

i mean i would compromise a couple of times a week but yeah if she doesn't want what you're having just let her cook for herself but don't be rude to her about it if she chooses something you're not having

@BananaCocktails she's 14 not 4 surely at that point you have very little say over their diet

YANBU. It would do pasta once a week, pizza night once a week and then sit down and ask her if there's anything else that you both like and can agree on.
If she can't come up with anything else, you are perfectly reasonable to tell her she cooks for herself the other nights.

Yes stop pandering to her. The more you tie yourself in knots trying to please objectionable teens the more they take you for granted and the less respect they have for you.

My 14 year old is fussy but she likes some food. I ask her to eat a small portion of whatever because I tell her that it takes about 7 times of trying something for your palate to enjoy it. So for example, she's not keen on fish, but loves home made fries and salad. So I make that and she eats 1/2 sea bass fillet which isn't much.

Why don't you both go through a recipe book and each choose a few meals? And cook together? Have a challenge that once a week you have to eat something new.

If she is eating it I'd just ignore the moaning.

I'd have pasta one night, pizza one night and tell her if she wants pasta another night she can cook it for you both. Then do your own thing the other nights. Would she eat a mini roast dinner on a weekend night?

Then why should mum cook for her if she gets no say? Daughter should prepare her own food if she's choosing it. It's not hard to put a pizza in the oven.

I have one of these! She would happily live on pasta & cheese or whatever the current obsession is (cauliflower at the moment!). We do a halfway house, if it's easy enough to cook for her separately I will, however it's something like a roast etc she will have no choice and I just tune out the initial grumbling as she will eat it. I'm just treating it as a other teen regression thing like a fussy toddler!

Hmmm I think she's too young to be left to it.

I think at 14 it's still your job/
important to try to get decent food in her, build good eating habits. High carb meals every night with no veg/salad isn't good for her.

depending on her nature I'd be either telling her that this is what's for dinner, she eats it or goes without (if it's food she's happily eaten until recently) I wouldn't be telling her to make pizza/pasta for herself because I wouldn't want her living on that. Some nights have pasta & salad/veg. Let her choose a couple of meals off a list (of things you want to eat) and make those.

if she was a toddler would you let her eat only pizza or pasta every night? At 14, she's still too young to do that IMO

I agree with the posters saying cook what you're having and say it's up to her if she wants to eat it or not... However saying that, I was not interested in food at all as a teen, and when my mum took this approach I dropped to less than six stone and just became incredibly skinny (out of laziness) rather than cooking for myself.

So... Just be aware of that as a possibility. Probably most kids will just cook their own food.

My dc are anyways welcome to make a sandwhich, but not to skip meals.

Agreed.
A couple of nights without them having dinner (well they could have toast) worked wonders for mine. Now they eat anything and everything.

Yep they soon learn which side their toast bread is buttered if you play them at their own game.

Op, I think the answer to it all rests with are you asking her to cook because you think it will be good for her long term or are you asking her to cook because you’re fed up and angry?

If it’s the former you’ll adopt a gentle approach to getting DD to help prepare meals and if it’s the latter you’ll be counter productive in your approach and no good will come of a 14 year old cooking for herself.

At fourteen he's old enough to be courteous and eat what's provided. I'd put it on the table and at first moan I'd inform him that at the next whinge it goes in rhe bin with no alternative provided.
At second whinge it would go in the bin.
One of mine moaned about macaroni and cauliflower cheese several times but quickly realised what happened if the persisted with unacceptable behaviour and comments. Oddly, when they come home now they invariably request the food they was deemed 'common, peasant fodder' back in the day.

I always gave DC a choice; eat it or go without.

Thanks for the feedback... it seems that most people think it reasonable to let her fend for herself if she turns her nose up at what I'm offering. I'm happy to eat pasta or pizza with her once a week but not every night! And I'm fed up of cooking separate meals.

It's just really hard to know how much teenage objectionable-ness to tolerate!

Not unreasonable at all. My 14yr old cooks most of her own meals now, out of choice. Now and again I’ll cook for her but she’s quite fussy and this has been good for her as she’s learning to cook properly, from scratch and following YouTube etc, and she’s eating a lot more and experimenting with things I didn’t think she would eat. If your DD won’t eat what you cook then it’s fair to say she makes her own meals. If she’s too lazy she will soon start eating your meals again. Maybe compromise and cook what she wants twice a week, and you eat that.