Unexpectedly late lunch at friends house, wibu to expect to feed the kids some dinner?

[SquigglyGum]

Genuinely not sure if iabu.

Went to a friend's place for lunch on good Friday, 4 families including the host's. 9 kids 3-8yo. It was a seafood lunch, we all brought dishes to share and the host provided lunch for the kids.

Kids ate their hot lunch around 1.30pm. Adults grazed on prawns and chips/dips and for some reason the hosts didn't start cooking the hot parts of our lunch until gone 4pm. The kids were happy playing. We sat down at around 5pm, by that time I was starving (breastfeeding), and half an hour later the kids were all saying they were hungry. The host seemed to either ignore them, or say she'd given them dessert (I.e. stop asking for food, you've had loads), but that was at lunch time and it was coming to dinner time.

Obviously we hadn't come for two meals, but I was surprised she didn't either raise it with us or offer some cheese toasties or something simple. I found some leftover rice from our lunch and offered it to some of the kids but it wasn't enough really. It was clear the host didn't want to feed the kids, but she did want the fun to continue with the adults.

The other parents there didn't seem bothered that their kids were hungry either.

I called time at 7ish when I realised the others were kicking on and the kids wouldn't get fed, so we came home and gave our kids beans on toast, all sorted.

Was ibu to think it was odd not to even acknowledge that the kids needed something for their tea? In that situation I would have rustled up something simple, really to be able to keep on socialising with my mates having kept the kids fed and happy.

What would you have done in this situation? Note that we couldn't have chipped in for a takeaway pizza or anything as it was good Friday and nothing was open.

Interested to hear your thoughts!

After preparing a cooked lunch for the kids, then nibbles & another meal for the adults, I certainly wouldn't prepare any more food after that.

I get from the responses that a lot of people agree that they wouldn't let kids go hungry or only have lunch but no dinner.

But quite a few others don't think it's a big deal or have different dynamics in their friendships around food and catering.

I can't stress how impossible it was to get any food in, so it was a choice between staying + hungry kids or leaving + fed kids.

I guess my mate is in the other camp from me!

It is though on mumsnet! For lots of people on here being hungry is the WORST THING in the world, it’s bad for you and should be avoided at all costs!!

If we have guests over for lunch I usually make sure I get the kids eating first (at a sensible lunchtime) even if the adult lunch is coming a bit later (mind you anything after about 2.30pm isn’t really lunch in my book). Often adults aren’t ready to eat again but kids do need food about 5ish and I will automatically start making it for whoever is around - even if it’s just ‘easy peasy pasta (pasta plus some stock and some frozen veg thrown in), or beans on toast. I find it impossible to believe there wouldn’t be something, however basic kicking around to fill up the kids.

I think it’s far more mumsnet to think there’s some kind of moral superiority to skipping meals and trying to demonstrate how very unbothered by food you are.

Children need feeding on a reasonably regular schedule. No skipping a meal won’t kill them, but arguing in favour of withholding dinner from them unnecessarily (and in this case, because the grown ups were too busy getting pissed) is such a batshit extension of the usual mumsnet competitive underrating. Skip as many meals as you want, it doesn’t make you any better than people who like to eat at regular intervals, and applying the same ‘meh who needs to eat?’ smugness to children as young as 3 is bullshit.

You are hugely overthinking all of this!

@LuckySantangelo35 absolutely! I don't understand it at all. Mumsnetters need to know that It's OK to feel hungry. A later lunch/dinner or a missed meal now and again won't kill you! And low blood sugar too is OK. You know when you jump out of bed too quickly and get a bit dizzy? It's OK, you'll be fine.

Where do you live that everywhere was closed on good Friday??

It’s just politeness not to be eating when others of your group aren’t? If the kids had had their meal at 1.30 and the adults at 2.30, not a problem, but when the adults are eating at 5, which is often children’s tea-time, I would at least provide fruit and toast or similar, on the assumption that the kids would be getting peckish! You don’t usually expect to turn up to a social gathering involving food, most of which has been provided by the guests anyway, to have your children taught that there’s nothing wrong with occasionally going hungry! Surely that’s a life lesson more appropriate for another occasion?

I don’t think half the posters responding have actually read your posts @SquigglyGum

FWIW they sound very like my SIL and BIL. We think we’re going for eg lunch at @ 1pm, they feed the dc separately at @1.30 and then somehow manage to pootle and potter back and forth from the kitchen for hours, always giving the impression that the serving of food is imminent. All offers to help are met with No, no, have another beer/glass of wine and eventually food will appear about a half hour after the time we imagined we’d be leaving!

So it’s not a case of outstaying your welcome, it’s that although they said “lunch” or “dinner” they actually meant a more casual get together where food will appear whenever and the drinks will keep flowing. Which is fine but it does mean the adults are pretty hungry (and possibly tipsy) and that the dc who ate hours earlier need to eat again in the evening time.

Easy for posters to say Oh I would have just said can I make them blah,blah but that’s a bit awkward in someone else’s house when the someone else is pushing back on the dcs requests for food and seems to believe the children have been adequately catered for! I can just imagine the AIBU from hosts point of view 🙄. To be fair to my BIL and SIL, there would be plenty of food provided for dc to snack on, even if it wasn’t a second meal as such. They wouldn’t leave them complaining of hunger!

Yanbu OP. If they want people to come over and stay through the evening (as they clearly did given they were still offering drinks around and there was no sign of the afternoon reaching a “natural” endpoint), then they ought to make sure there’s plenty of food for all.

Of course it’s ‘ok’ to feel hungry, but it can actually be quite miserable and painful. Most adults can manage these feelings, especially as we are largely in control of when and what we eat, so we can sit with it knowing that we’re going to eat in an hour’s time or whatever. It’s a different thing for small children, who may become annoying or badly behaved because they are feeling uncomfortable with their hunger and may not know or be able to rationalise how long it will be till they can have something to eat. It’s not reasonable to expect small children to remain hungry so that adults can get continue to get pissed.

Do you think it's good for young children to experience hunger? What do you think that teaches them?

Sounds like host was drunk and lost track of time.

It teaches them that they can survive a few hours without food, which is important information that some people never learn.

It’s not reasonable to expect small children to remain hungry so that adults can continue to get pissed

THIS THIS THIS

I would go further than 'not reasonable' I would say completely unacceptable.

The few takeaway places around here were all shut.

Guess you're not in the UK then and no Just Eat type services available either?

@OMGitsnotgood this really is my pet hate.

People who have absolutely no understanding of rurality. "I live in a town where I can get anything I need 24 hours a day therefore the rest of the U.K. must be exactly the same as my little world!"

People always miss the actual points of threads where clearly the poster is rural and instead focus on the fact that they just can't believe there are no shops open/ no deliveroo/ no taxis on a Sunday etc etc

I live in a large village, big primary school and lots of families. we have one shop/ post office, and one takeaway. There is a garage, and a few small businesses run from peoples homes. No delivery service of any kind. Nowhere was open on Good Friday.

Or that adults- including your own parents and/or their friends- will sometimes prioritise alcohol and chatting over meeting their most basic needs. Seems like a shitty ‘lesson’.

not just massively off topic but a bit creepy to ask where the OP lives!

Did anyone offer to help with the cooking of the kids lunch or the adult meal? Did someone help serve them/ clean up/ load the dishwasher etc? Also it says you all brought a dish for the adult meal? So couldn't someone have suggested putting the dishes in the oven if you were getting hungry, rather than waiting for the host to do it all? They were probably wanting a break to chat to you after just getting the children's lunch done. Or are they not close enough friends that you could take it upon yourself to help?

After cooking and clearing up for 9 children and then serving a full meal to 8 adults, I'd be wanting a sit down and a glass of wine. I'd expect my mates to bring their own snacks for their children.

It might also teach them an even more important lesson: they are not the centre of the fucking universe.

Your children's wellbeing is your responsibility OP ultimately.
You are to blame for your children's hunger in this scenario.
The host is a red herring here. It was up to you. You are where the buck stops.

Yes.

There's a word for leaving children of that age to go hungry for 4+ hours because the adults are drinking, and it's not a positive one.

Wow. Small children SHOULD be the center of their parents universe. Especially when it comes to providing for their most basic of needs. Like food and drink.

You were not prevented from leaving? You had lunch and then people stayed on longer. I assume she thought as parents you could decide if your kids needed more food and take your leave and go home to provide that food?

This is such a disturbing response.

Feeding your hungry children instead of getting pissed out of your face is not “spoiling” them, it’s literally keeping them alive, and not doing so is neglectful.

I hate the drinking culture in the UK.