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

If she's really hungry she would eat it. She won't starve missing one meal. One of my favourite comfort meal's is soup over a baked tattie or over chips.😋

"It's hard to know without knowing how much lentils were in the soup, but it's very unlikely to have had anywhere near enough protein for anyone, least of all a teenager." Mumsnet is so funny sometimes. Would you like the OP to provide a BBC Good Food-style nutritional breakdown?

They all try it on St this age. I remember saying no a lot when DS was a teenager so he would go off and make himself a giant bowl of pasta and use all the pesto and all the cheese while complaining loudly and going off to eat it sulking in his room 😀

Wow, Yanbu at all.

There's no way on earth I would tolerate my 13 year old complaining about that. In fact, they wouldn't dare, so I wouldn't need to.

I'm staggered by the number of posters who would pander to this.

They're 13. They know where the pasta is and the hob if they want something else.

The soup sounds lovely, though I would think of it as a lunch or first course, but your suggestion of a jacket potato instead of or as well is perfectly ok, YANBU!

Tomato and lentil soup is filling! With garlic bread. What's a pizza then if it's not the same ingredients (bar the lentils and adding a bit of cheese) rearranged?

If she'd had nothing since lunchtime, fair enough. But she'd eaten a lot of snacks, fruit and presumably could have toast or cereal later in the evening if hungry.

Mind you, my kids would be crying with happiness if I cooked a homemade soup, I don't ever make soup any more since the supermarkets started making them.

You can understand why there is an obesity problem in this country when people done think soup (containing fresh vegetable and lentils) with bread on the side isn’t enough for a main meal. I bet that is a more balanced meal of protein and carbs than a lot of meals served up in the evening.

I genuinely don’t understand how anyone can think you’re being unreasonable. You made her a balanced meal, from scratch, and then told her that if she didn’t want it or she was still hungry afterwards she could make herself something else.

I encounter some pretty entitled teenagers in my day to day life, and reading some of the posts on here makes me realise why.

@Wanderingowl
That judgemental post must have taken an impressive amount of time to write, some of which would have been put to better use reading the OP's post properly:
'i gave her a list of things she could eat, tuna pasta, tuna mayo jacket potato, omelette, pesto pasta, even cereal.'

I dont think that any of the choices you gave were an evening meal, but having said that they were all food and no one would have gone hungry by maybe eating one of them with some extra snacks. As a one off she was being a brat, as the norm I get her point.

Portion size is a Biggie when it comes to obesity/over eating. Many people are deluded into thinking they eat healthily and can't understand why they're "just not losing weight", my mum being a prime example. Cue because you're eating huge portions! Unless you're doing some kind of serious exercise programme we don't "need" anywhere near the calories we think we do. A hearty soup, plus a grilled cheese sandwich plus a pudding is a massive amount of food. I'd be bursting. People refer to me as "skinny" but my BMI is smack bang in the middle of the normal range. Just goes to show how distorted our perceptions are about food/weight/eating/, nutritional needs.

You’re not unreasonable to go out to the sho as you’ve offered a fair few other options. But soup for a teenager’s dinner is really not great for most teenagers. Even I wouldn’t just have soup for dinner, unless poorly.

Homemade soup and garlic bread sounds delicious but not all that filling. However you offered alternatives that she could make herself so it's fine.

My teenager turned down dinner last night so he was told he could make himself an omelette which he did.

I do a meal plan and I try my best to include things that everyone likes but inevitably you can't please everyone so we have eggs, cheese, pasta, freezer food, potatoes but I won't make two entirely separate meals.

@MeghanThyStallion 😂😂😂brilliant!

I wouldn't have soup and bread for my evening meals and none of my family are obese we are all low to medium bmi.

Definitely remember being in this stroppy teen phase - once my mum offered me something for tea that I didn't want, so I walked to my gran's and asked for tea. Got offered the same thing and ate it there 🤷🏻‍♀️
Sometimes they're just stroppy for the sake of it - OP you are definitely not being unreasonable. She had plenty of options she was just past the point of being rational!

Very occasionally, DS will decide that he just cann't face whatever it is that I make. Or, that he's still starving if the dinner was not substantial enough.

On those days, he makes himself beans on toast or a fried egg sandwich or a bowl of cereal.

I'm shocked at the posters who think the OP should have a) cooked another mean or b) gone out to the shop. CRAZY.

But to provide her with a light meal and to tell her that's adequate as a main meal, is gaslighting.

This deserves some sort of award for the most ridiculous use of gaslighting I’ve seen this week.

Do you know what? If I happen to eat something ‘light’ and then decide I’m
still hungry, I can have something else. There’s no law that you can only have 3 meals a day.

Same with my teenage son. He knows how to make himself a sandwich or heat up leftovers or make some fried rice if dinner hasn’t filled him up for the night.

some posters on MN are SO weird about food. Light meal v main meal, as if there’s some sort of legal definition. See also people who are weirdly rigid about the temperature of meals - can’t have a hot meal for dinner if lunch was also a hot meal!

I make roast tomato soup for lunch quite often at the weekend, it definitely fills us so I’d definitely consider it adequate (with bread) for dinner. I have 4 children and they get given what I’m making! If one really doesn’t like it they have had something like tuna pasta/pesto pasta as a substitute. I’d probably cook it for the younger ones but once teenager they can make it themselves. You did the right thing, food is a huge expense at the moment, I would definitely not go out and get more when you’ve offered a decent, home cooked meal.

Tin of soup would totally be unreasonable, homemade soup YANBU.

I despise tinned soup, it’s not filling at all, but homemade soup I’ll occasionally make for my family and it fills us all up, especially with some bread/garlic bread. And obviously something small for pudding afterwards and everyone is happy and isn’t hungry!

You’ve also offered decent alternatives so YANBU.

At 16 it's fine to tell her that you made tomato soup and garlic bread as that's all you are in the mood for today. And give her the ingredients and responsibility to make something to supplement it, like a substantial chicken salad. Or the ingredients to make herself a different dinner. But to provide her with a light meal and to tell her that's adequate as a main meal, is gaslighting.

you didn't read the OP or any of the other posts about quite how substatial the soup and garlic bread was.
And you really shouldn't use the G word for this because it's a) nowhere near gaslighting and b) diminishes a term for a very specific form of actual abuse.

Welcome to Mumsnet, where a single chicken makes 24 meals but a hearty bowl of soup and homemade bread for dinner warrants a call to social services and/or therapy.

YANBU OP, sometimes teenagers are just dickheads.

this "soup isn't filling" nonsense is hilarious
I made soup at the weekend for us, to eat with regular bread (well, a nice artisanal rye bread). I made a lot. But we ate a bowl each with a piece of bread each and the soup was so substantial we were too full for seconds.

I don't understand people saying soup and bread isn't enough for dinner. Just eat more of it and then it is?

It's all in peoples heads.

I wouldn't have been that impressed by tomato soup and bread as a teenager. It sounds more like lunch than dinner. My mother used to give us that kind of food when she was on a diet. I would have eaten it though (and then been hungry). Why do you keep going on about the fact it was homemade? What difference does that make?