eating food without permission

[thecatswhiskrs]

This is a long-running argument in our house and I'd love to get a sense from others of whether I (and my kids) are just being unreasonable....

DH has a habit of mooching around the kitchen looking for food. He feels that anything in the kitchen is (and should be) fair game. He gets very upset when we shout at him for eating something that we feel he shouldn't have or something that we feel he should have checked first.

Examples:

• A child will have cooked some cookies for themselves and others to eat. The leave the tray on the counter to cool anticipating that lovely treat later and then come back to find their father has eaten a third of the tray before they've even offered.
• A child will have made some food for their lunch. There will be leftovers and they will have mentally allocated these for their lunch the next day in school. They leave it in the fridge or somewhere to cool, come back and it's gone.
• I am making dinner. It's nearly time to eat. I've planned the meal so that everyone has (for instance) 3 sausages and two bits of bacon. He comes in and nicks two bits of bacon from the pan right before we are about to eat.

He argues that he has paid for the all of the food in the kitchen and shouldn't have to ask for permission to eat it. If we have plans for some of it and haven't allowed enough to share then it's our fault for not making enough (we should just make lots more of everything to allow for others having some). He feels that we are not being generous and that (in spite of his best efforts to model generosity) we are all just being mean.

Are we being unreasonable (or just plain miserable!) to want him to at least check whose food it is and whether it has a destination before just eating it??

Two slices of decent bacon = 12g protein.

In my house, food is for anyone that wants it....🙄

Lots? The foods on your plate and you’ve popped to the loo in the middle of eating is only 1 example and silly one at that.

@L3ThirtySeven. The way I read the OP's posts, the children probably don't need to ask - they apparently understand and respect the implicit norms around food and food sharing which apply in the OP's house. The husband is the only one who (arguably knowingly) tramples over them and leaves others short.

I can think of many other examples - cakes for bake sales, food for entertaining, snacks for friends - where this would also be the case. If you can't, then you must lack imagination.

Ive not said that at all. I think it is outrageous to control food to the point that family members think they own certain bits of food, and that the DH, and only the DH, must ask his wife and children for permission before eating food.

That’s what the thread is about eating food without permission and what the OP wants want him to at least check whose food it is and whether it has a destination before just eating it??

There are better systems to ensure fair sharing than to require one family member to ask permission of all other family members.

Well, that’s already been covered earlier in the thread and they also do not need a system that requires anyone asking permission.

You've answered nothing. You've said you sometimes eat it all and get feedback of 'more next time' but are refusing to say how the amount that there is, bearing in mind it's not enough, gets allocated. But I give up. You can't get blood out of a stone and I don't think you're really interested in discussing. Otherwise you'd answer the questions.

Maybe the reason the husband and no one else is expected to ask permission is because the rest of the family don't go around NICKING EACH OTHER'S FOOD.

I read the OPs posts very much that she thinks it is her house her rules and she has set up an us vs him dynamic along with showing signs of food control that are, in my opinion, toxic and dysfunctional.

I read her posts and it shows that her and the DC thinking that they don’t need to communicate, that it’s all on him to ask them each and every time. To go bowl in hand and beg, essentially.

It is equally his house, and so any rules regarding food are fair game for negotiation. I wouldn’t say he is trampling and leaving anyone short. From the Op he ate 1/3rd of one tray cookies. He ate his 2 bites bacon from the pan (stayed within the bacon limit his controlling wife had put on him). He ate leftovers that a child had not communicated with anyone that they wanted them for their lunch.

Hes not the problem. It’s the lack of communication to effectively share that is the problem. The OP thinking that she needs to control food further by making herself and the children gatekeepers of all food (DH must check with them first..) is not a good solution.

You can’t nick food, that’s disordered thinking to my mind. How does one “nick” the two bits bacon your wife was going to put on your plate by eating it out of the pan? How does one “nick” leftovers that a child had merely thought they might like for their lunch? How does one “nick” cookies that were literally cooked for you and everyone else?

I havent refused, I’ve said truthfully there is no allocation of food at the individual level. There simply isn’t. You just don’t like my answers, you can only conceive of one way of thinking, one way of problem solving. You have a one track mind.

Tw@ behaviour
If he eats 2 pieces of bacon and he was getting 3 he then only gets 1 if he gripes and if he gripes remind him he already ate the other 2 he would of had and you won't be taking food out of the children's mouths or making yourself go hungry because he's a greedy POS .my partner will always check if something is spare before eating it as do the kids and eating the cookies the children have made without being offered them is just plain cruel

You've said you sometimes eat it all and get feedback of 'more next time'
Actually, I haven’t said this. I’ve said there has always been enough for all, even when we eat all the food made for a meal. The feedback has been more of this/less of that when it comes to specific dishes within a meal. Like more sausages or less broccoli. Balancing the meal. No one eats less than they need.

Your obfuscation are genuinely hilarious!!! Say you cook 12 sausages. There are 4 people. Person 1 to 3 take 4 each. What about person 4? Don't hide behind 'I always cook enough' cos you've already said sometimes you get feedback that more is needed. Sure next time you might cook 16. But what about this time? How did you .are sure everyone got some? Basically if you don't formally serve up, it's because you've taught people tp be considerate. That's all OP is asking.

Girl, sounds like you need to bake some cookies with some chocolate ex-lax in them... then when he eats 1/3 and is in the bathroom... tell him he really shouldn't have eaten those cookies and had he asked you would have warned him. But I'm a Southern American woman, we get payback.

I’m sorry you are having trouble understanding the way things work in my family. Truly.

That scenario you posit is not going to happen, or at least has never once happened in my 50+ yrs on the planet, because we already know that my family tends to eat 12 sausages or less as a whole group. The extra hungry are offset by the less hungry. There is no way the first 3 people will take all the sausages because we just don’t eat that much, not even on our hungriest days. We just don’t. So no one is consciously holding back to leave sausages for others behind them and we do not run out. The feedback of a bit more of this/less of that is more when trying new meals or when the household size changes- visits or a DC going off to Uni. There is a learning curve where we adjust and usually the default is to make too much food and the adjust downwards. And as I said, the left over food is never wasted.

The OP isn’t asking for her DH to be “considerate” she is asking Are we being unreasonable (or just plain miserable!) to want him to at least check whose food it is and whether it has a destination before just eating it??

She is asking whether it is reasonable for her and their children to gatekeep the food from her DH/their father.

*please note that “12 sausages” is just a illustrative example.

Eating it out of the pan: rude. Sit down and be served/be passed the dish. It’s nicking.

Leftovers: literally leftovers of food the child themselves made. So not last night’s dinner, up for grabs by anyone. Not ingredients that anyone could use. Something someone made for themselves. Nicking.

Biscuits: on a cooling rack so not yet up for grabs, child who baked them may well have wanted to present them, invite people to eat them, show some pride in their achievement. He denied them that, and took 1/3 of what was there when there are four people in the house. Nicking part of someone’s share and robbing a kid of the opportunity to go “Look! I made this!”

We are less formal/more relaxed when it comes to food. The OP’s DH may be from a similar background to mine. It’s an approach that deserves fair consideration by the OP.

His excuse for eating his children's lunches and bakes, plus from the pan was he's paying for the food and therefore entitled to eat it. Simply not on.

For goodness sake! Leftovers! Where are the leftovers from? A previous meal presumably, so unless told that the child was going to eat them, and that doesn't seem to have been conveyed, up for grabs for anyone. No one in this family seems to communicate, and no one is a mind reader.

If the roles were reversed and the husband made all the food and required his wife to ask permission to eat anything, we'd call him controlling. She's controlling. Why is she dictating how much food each person is allowed to eat? He shouldn't have to ask to eat anything in the house, just like she shouldn't. If she made something that's specifically for the kids' lunch or treats to take to school/work or whatever, then she needs to communicate that to him. If he still eats it, then yes he's being a jerk. You can't "mentally allocate" food for lunch the next day and expect everyone else in the house to read your mind. No wonder he's upset with you.

That's why everyone's so slim and gorgeous.

Yanbu op 👍 , hope it all goes well, I'm unwatching this thread now as it's been completely derailed by one prolific poster.