Exhausted feeding my family

[winterrrain]

It's not even a large family.

2 children and two adults. My Husband, my son aged 10 and my youngest aged 2.

My eldest and husband eat three cooked meals a day. Every day. They also expect a plate of fruit and a plate of salad to be out in the evening to snack on.

They all eat at different times and won't eat the same food. My Husband only eats his own country's cuisine and my Son doesn't like spicy food.

They reject any ready meals or processed food (I guess in a way that's good but he odd cheat meal I'd like as a break).

My Husband also likes a drink of tea made with milk and Cardamon in which is a faff to make and he has a few times a day. He also has a milkshake which contains banana and nuts in the morning.

My Eldest has a hot chocolate in the evening and water throughout the day but brings me the glass each time to refill as he will only drink it with ice and lemon in which he apparently can't make himself 🙄

They're both quite fussy and don't like a lot of food which can be batch cooked but my Son will eat spaghetti bolognese and shepherds pie but only the meat can be frozen he won't eat the mash if it's been frozen and he can easily tell.

I'm spending all day cooking and cleaning up after the family.

I work three days a week from home. Husband works full time from home.

My Eldest has a cooked meal at school.

They both like an omlette for breakfast. No toast and butter or cereal for these two 🙄

They have hot meals for every meal of the day.

Since I had my youngest I'm struggling with energy to do it all to be honest.

AIBU?

I don't think there's a solution unless I tell them to get their own food 😂 But wanted to know I'm not being unreasonable.
Any tips to make things a little easier?
Any batch cooking recipies I could think of?

Maybe you need a compromise? So your son has a little snack after school and you all eat at 6pm. Your DH can adjust his schedule so that he’s hungry…it can’t be that difficult!

if it was to be totally fair, you’d share cooking for five days a week and you cook on the two days you’re not working. Or you could do all the cleaning and share the cooking equally. Your DH can get his own drinks! I wonder if he’d actually drink his faffy drink if he had to make it himself…..?

I think (many) women go too far in trying to be fair and men take advantage. Yes you choose to work but there’s good reason for that….why shouldn’t you have some financial security?

With regards to your son, he can get his own drinks and snacks but it’s not normal for a ten year old to be cooking an omelette and soup. I’m not saying it’s wrong and not a good thing (it is!) but you’re obviously trying to work out what is fair and what most families do.

I’m someone who does too much for my DS although he’s perfectly capable of looking after himself. There’s nothing wrong with doing some things for him and wanting to look after him in that way although as he gets older he should start being more independent. Why not slice some lemon and leave it in the fridge for him?

@WestHamAreMassive I love this. I cook a lot of tioli!

gosh, sounds like my household. I'm pretty 'fussy' too with what I eat so that compounds the issue. The fruit salad, the veg salad, all need to be there along with 3 cooked meals. And I just can't have batch-cooked food. My family helps somewhat, but DD has decided to go Vegan, DS has wheat and nut allergies. DH basically has what ever given. And I'm a stickler for nothing processed, all made from scratch so much so that we don't even use tomato sauce. And I work full time. So its all quite busy and I'm exhausted. didn't realise others don't do the same.

And no you don't "choose"
To work anymore than your husband choses to work

If he wants a full time housekeeper and cook he can take the role and gender roles can be stuffed up his backside in the process

You chose to work for some financial independence? What t does beg the question whether you had free rein over the household money before that or you were forced out to work to have ass was to some funds?

Theres obviously a cultural mismatch here between what might be considered normal in Pakistan and what is considered normal in the U.K. Yes there are lots of Pakistani families in the UK where the wives dedicate themselves to cooking, cleaning and raising children and consider it their duty. Many of those women would have been raised in households themselves where the women and girls catered for the men and that was completely standard.

However for women like me there’s no way in hell I would be providing home cooked food across the day alongside hand crafted drinks and working. Honestly FTS. So if you want to do it I wish you well. But please don’t force your two year old into early servitude as she grows. She deserves better than that.

Surely you must realise others don't do the same, since if you acknowledge you are fussy you must realise others are not, and those processed foods exist because most people us them?

How old is your eldest? This is a really unhealthy dynamic and no way to teach your DC how to treat women. You're allowed to say no and for your DC it is healthy to be told no. Your husband can grab himself a sandwich or whatever.

I should say my elder two are sons. The greatest gift I can give them as their parent is making sure they are capable adults who are talented at cooking and capable at cleaning and generally self aware men who pull their weight. Gives them a much better chance of attracting and keeping a wonderful partner! I have 3 brothers who all fit this description, no excuses made for boys in this family.

Solution is to provide one cooked meal each evening. Same thing for everyone, just extra spice for your H. They eat what's offered when it's ready or they do without.
Cold breakfast and lunch foods given to DC. H sorts himself out.
Faffy drinks requirements ignored.
You're not a servant and you're not running a cafe. You're indulging a grown man's exploitative behaviour and raising your son with unrealistic sexist expectations, so that in future another woman will reap what you've sown.

For fuck's sake. This is beyond ridiculous. Their expectations are completely unrealistic, even taking cultural differences into account.

My eldest and husband eat three cooked meals a day. Every day. They also expect a plate of fruit and a plate of salad to be out in the evening to snack on

Three cooked meals a day is not necessary. They can get their own plate of fruit and salad in the evening if they are hungry.

They reject any ready meals or processed food (I guess in a way that's good but he odd cheat meal I'd like as a break)

Then they go hungry on the day you want a break with an easier meal or they cook for themselves.

My Husband also likes a drink of tea made with milk and Cardamon in which is a faff to make and he has a few times a day. He also has a milkshake which contains banana and nuts in the morning.

Why the hell are you pandering to this? He gets his own drinks. End of. Stop making drinks immediately.

My Eldest has a hot chocolate in the evening and water throughout the day but brings me the glass each time to refill as he will only drink it with ice and lemon in which he apparently can't make himself

Send him away every time when he appears with his glass. This is beyond ludicrous that you are tolerating this. What the actual fuck?? Why would you want to bring him up to think this is acceptable behaviour? No reason why you can't make him a nice hot chocolate in the evening, that's a lovely thing to do for your 10 year old. But the water?? No.

They're both quite fussy and don't like a lot of food which can be batch cooked but my Son will eat spaghetti bolognese and shepherds pie but only the meat can be frozen he won't eat the mash if it's been frozen and he can easily tell

I can't bear fussiness like this. They eat it or go hungry or make it themselves.

They both like an omlette for breakfast. No toast and butter or cereal for these two
Again, they can get their own breakfast. Omelettes are easy to make and if they can't manage that, then they will have to have something else. I would make an omelette a couple of times a week for the 10 year old but not the massive manchild.

I don't think there's a solution unless I tell them to get their own food 😂
That is the solution. Why the laughing face?
You make one cooked meal a day for everyone taking some preferences into account. If they don't like the meal then they put up with it or go hungry or make themselves something.
They can get breakfast themselves.
Son has lunch at school so that's that solved. DH can have sandwiches or soup or something for lunch.
They get all drinks and snacks themselves.

Are you a wife and mother or a servant . Why on earth do this .
Husband and eldest need to put together a list of meals they enjoy and you cook one family meal . Only one . Anything outside this they get themselves .

Weetabix and toast for the 10 year old after school to see him through till dinner time

As an adult it is your husbands role to adapt his diet to the child , not yours to make different meals - children have more sensitive taste buds so will tend to like less spicy foods

He can have a bottle of Tabasco sauce to add at the table or he can cook his own dinner

You know processed food, tins etc exist.

You go to shops.

Who did you think is buying the produce you aren't buying if you had no idea other people don't behave the way you do?

Oh no this has been taken out of context.
I mean in the cultural thinking. Not mine.

Apologies for missing the irony, OP. Right, how about:

1. Say to DH that you've realised your kids will become comically incapable young adults, if they don't begin now to acquire a UK-normal level of self-sufficiency.
2. Enlist his support in helping them learn to make drinks, prep omelette, etc.
3. Big DH up, for progressive and proactive parenting.
4. When the kids point out "But Dad doesn't..." then decide between yourselves what he can do "to give them the right message".

I realise this totally ignores how he's been treating you, but that's a different battle.

Some are saying that the son will be a dreadful husband.

He will be, but I think that is the best the op can hope for if things don't change.

Most parents are teaching their girls nowadays to not tolerate this shit.

So I really hope very few will in the next generation.

The ops son won't get to be a husband, albeit a shit one, because no woman would have him.

Eh? 🤨

I have Indian heritage. This is not normal. At all.

People who work down coal mines and in the steel factories don't need three cooked meals a day. A man sitting down working from home certainly doesn't. What with all the milky tea and banana milkshakes he's going to have weight problems.

By sticking to these misogynistic cultural norms you are perpetuating them, OP. You are part of the problem, alongside your DH.

Hopefully by the time your sons grow up they will have shifted.

I disagree, I think OP's son diet is fine. So he eats:

Breakfast: omelette for breakfast. No toast and butter or cereal
Lunch - hot meal
Dinner - hot meal
Snacks - plate of fruit and plate of salad
Drinks: water with lemon
Supper: cup of hot chocolate

That seems a good diet to me. He just needs to start helping himself.

This is absurd, plus it's perpetuating the misogyny for another generation.

OP, this isn't standard even for Indian families now. It may have been 50 years ago, but not anymore.

Your husband needs to start cooking.

Stop serving your child water.

Urgh this is how entitled lazy useless boys grow up to be entitled lazy useless husbands & fathers. Stop this horrible cycle. Your ‘d’h is treating you like a slave which you’re happily accepting and your boys are learning this is how wives & mothers are treated.

Let me pile on too. Yeah, this is nuts and unacceptable and this is how your son learns women are treated.

OP, you must stop this before your eldest grows up to be someone completely obnoxious, helpless and unappealing. Nothing worse than a grown person used to mummy doing literally everything for them, and believing they are entitled to have their every whim answered (won't get his own glass of water because he wants you to put ice and lemon in for him?!).