For not cooking my teenager dinner

[Ohdesr]

So I am really trying to use everything we have in the house before shopping for more.
today i made homemade tomato soup and garlic bread. My teen complained its not filling enough so they dont want that.
Cue her complaining for the next hour that she is starved, i gave her a list of things she could eat, tuna pasta, tuna mayo jacket potato, omelette, pesto pasta, even cereal.

She has now gone off in a strop because i wont go to the shop to buy her something saucy (?!) she hasnt eaten because nothing sounds nice. And now she’s gotten her dad involved saying i am starving her. Ahhhh

It doesn’t really matter whether soup was filling enough or not though, does it? If she didn’t find it filling enough she could have eaten something else. She was just too lazy to prepare herself something. At 16 she’s capable of making herself something she feels is filling enough if she dislikes what’s on offer.

Do you have teens? Sometimes they have strops. It doesn't mean they are going to be awful people when they grow up. Some of these posts are a bit hysterical.

I wouldn't throw a strop as such but I wouldn't actually be grateful if someone close to me cooked something I didn't like for a meal. Why would I be grateful? Thanks for deliberately cooking something I find gross?? Too kind. Don't you cook from the point of view of the person you are cooking for? Otherwise better to just cook for yourself and they know to prepare their own food when it suits them.

I didn't see the post where the op said her DD told her before she didn't like what she'd made for her?

Yes. I have a teen and a young adult.

And yes they sometimes throw strops. But that doesn’t make it ok for them to be rude and ungrateful. If they are, I’m not pandering to it.

it’s not cyanide. It’s soup.

Maybe you think the important thing is what constitutes a ‘proper meal’. I think treating people who’ve cooked for you with respect is more important.

For my growing teens I would have swapped the garlic bread for cheese toasties on the side and pointed out that the ingredients = a pizza. But yes, I would have added cheese for protein. The teen in question was offered tuna in various forms, could have had a tuna sandwich with the soup.

No sorry. Soup and bread is nowhere near enough for a main meal. If she had an actual dinner earlier in the day, soup and bread is fine for tea. But if that's the main meal, that's sub-par. I'm an absolutely tiny middle aged woman and even on a day that I was very sedentary, I'd be utterly ravenous if that was my main meal of the day. A teenager who is still growing needs way more than that.

No, that's what I asked before but no answer yet.

So either her dd usually loves soup, in which case maybe it's something going on at school or exam pressure etc, or op weirdly decided to cook soup knowing her daughter doesn't actually like soup for dinner.

My other post was more general in response to the poster I quoted

This! Your child has asked you to go to the shop and get her food that she actually wants to eat, how dare you say no? Have you forgotten your role as skivvy, there to service all of the household demands? Do you want to raise an entitled confident young lady who knows what she wants? Shame on you OP!

sarcasm, obviously!

The op hasn’t cooked something ‘gross’ though. just not exactly what the teen wanted.

It was soup. Not intestines.

I often cook things I’m less than keen on, because everyone else loves it. I don’t like macaroni cheese but it’s a huge hit with everyone else so sometimes that’s dinner. I think my husband’s chilli is a bit shit (and definitely not as good as mine) but I’m grateful he cooked me something.

I like to recognise when someone else had made an effort on my behalf. Not throw a tantrum because what they’ve done isn’t good enough for me.

I don't think anyone's suggesting teens don't have strops, just that it's unwise to respond to their strops as if they're some sort of potentate and go scurrying round cooking them alternative meals.

I'm obviously a hard-ass.

My 19 year old told me they wanted to become vegetarian again. I told them that's fine, but I am not willing to prepare two separate meals now that they are old enough to do their own cooking. If they want vegetarian, that's fine when I am cooking vegetarian, but otherwise, they are responsible for their own cooking. Guess who decided they didn't want to be vegetarian after all?

I suppose that makes me a negligent mother.

You run to the shop for whoever wants something random?

Plenty enough for a main meal with garlic bread. If she was still hungry she could have made something else

I know it was different 50 years ago but we literally ate what there was or went hungry.
And there were never any snacks.
In our pantry the only constant items were spices, flour and gravy powder.

I’m sure he’d love to go mad at Greggs for lunch but he has a number of allergies which doesn’t allow him to indulge in stuff like that. He usually takes chicken thighs, potatoes/rice and veg from home. Nice bit of stereotyping there though.

My point was that homemade soup is a perfectly normal and filling meal in itself (assuming we are not talking about one small bowl of watery carrot soup here) and is healthy as well.

YANBU.

Im sure like most teens she will be glued to watching TikToks, tell her to watch a cooking one.

YANBU, I often make soup and bread for dinner, at least twice a week. Yesterday we had leek and potato reheated from the freezer and spicy black bean soup. The black bean soup has blank beans, carrots, celery and tomato in it and it's served with sour cream and avocado. Definitely substantial! If both teens are hungry later they'll sort their own food out. I was pretty much responsible for my own food growing up so I don't get this pandering to every whim thing. If I'm busy ie at work then going straight to an exercise class/out then they make their own tea. I'm not rushing about and starting cooking after a certain point in the evening.

To be honest after 16 years I'm pretty "done" with trying to think up and sort out home cooked, creative, nutritious meals every single day that everyone likes. It's hard work and the mental load of meal planning does my head in. I used to enjoy cooking but to be blunt the wear and tear of cooking for a family especially after lock down has taken that enjoyment away.

It was never going to be substantial enough if she didn't eat it!😂

I also don't think a "light" main meal is a problem every so often-especially if there is other stuff in the house if needed/wanted.

As the father thought the food on offer was inadequate why didn't he prepare something or go to the shop for his poor starving daughter?

The lazy, stroppy mare could have gone to the shop herself if she was that bothered rather than expect her mum to go after she'd been at work. She was offered plenty of options, if she really was THAT hungry she'd have had one (or more) of them....which she ended up doing anyway.

Cos cooking is for the wimmin folk ya know.

She's rude and completely unreasonable.

A good homemade vegetable soup is lovely.

I regularly do soup with a toastie or eggs on toast etc for dinner when people are coming and going.

I always have a 2 litre milk container filled with a pancake mix which I have doubled the egg content.

Very handy for teens to quickly make a savory or sweet snack.

I add ham, cheese, tomato for savory and banana and Nutella for sweet.

Very filling and fast.

Great way to use up eggs too.

Presumably you also have more time and money than sense if you can leave food in the fridge/cupboard to go out of date whilst you dash back and forth to the shops for picky teenagers.

The OP is a parent, not a short order cook. If you let your "strapping sons" treat your house like a restaurant how on earth will they ever learn to cook and budget like normal adults?

Pity the strapping sons’ future partners…