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??

He's paid for the food but not cooked it. These are all cooked food examples. I'd suggest he has free reign over raw ingredients and not anything else.

It does have the distinct vibe of a dog lifting its leg and pissing on everything he 'owns'.

Fuck him and his 'I paid for it' fuckery. He didn't plan it, or go to the shops, or measure the ingredients.

Do you work OP? I'd be getting out from under this misogynist.

Oh come off it, you never nick an Easter egg/ sweets... my children aren't that uptight over food 😂.. First world problems.

What a horrible man.

Nicking one cookie off a tray fresh out of the oven is a bit cheeky but fine.

Eating a third of a tray of something your child baked without even speaking to them is shitty behaviour.

What a grade A twat he is.

I thought the thread was going to be about the kids eating everything without asking. But no, it's about a selfish father and husband.

Yuk

So he is a selfish wanker basically with the entitlement hanging out of him. A proper parent puts the children first. He is literally taking food out of their mouths.

If he snaffled bacon in those circumstances around me, he would find no bacon on his plate. But actually, I would not cook for him.

this x1000

I would treat him like a child and get you and the children to put post it notes out.

'Dad - this is for my lunch tomorrow.'

'Dad - please wait for us all to eat the cookies together.'

Then I would buy a plastic box and label it 'Greedy Dad's box of snacks' and put biscuits, crisps and cake from somewhere cheap like Farmfoods and that can be his and only his.

I actually think you're being unreasonable. Your husband isn't a mind-reader. It's his home too so why shouldn't he eat something that he's paid for?

If food has been "mentally allocated", then you and your children need to actually communicate this allocation or leave a note out. He cannot be blamed for eating something that wasn't communicated to him that it was allocated for someone else. If he still eats it then, then he's being selfish and inconsiderate.

In terms of him eating two rashers of bacon before you've served up, then that's his allocation so he doesn't get any bacon when you plate up.

If your husband is genuinely hungry, then perhaps he needs bigger servings of food, so whoever is cooking can account for this. Whoever does the food shopping can also buy more to account for his bigger appetite. Unless he's obese, if he is, I'd be having a chat about adopting a healthier lifestyle but that's a different issue.

Or he could, you know, ask whether something is fair game rather than everyone else having to tell him every time?

@ReadingSoManyThreads He doesn't need to be a mind reader to realise that if he has 'kids' plural, possibly with visiting friends, and a wife, that by eating a third of cookies that have been baked by someone else, is probably taking more than his fair share.

Or that if there is ready prepared food in the fridge, that doesn't just appear by magic and unless someone has said 'there's some pasta in the fridge if you want some' then maybe it isn't intended for him?

Oh and lastly, you writing "eating food without permission", comes across very controlling. If a man had posted that about his wife or his children, you'd be getting comments about him being abusive.

He's a grown adult, and one who financially contributes, he does not need "permission" to eat food.

I've never seen a thread about a greedy woman doing this.

It's always the men taking from the family and leaving them the scraps, and then the woman is blamed because she didn't provide enough for her husband. She's starving him. He needs more calories (not that much more). Cook more food. Provide more snacks as if it is her responsibility.

Not permission exactly but he could have the decency to check whether something is there as part of a meal to be made or is someone else's food to take to work for example.

And yeah, I think most of us would think the same if was a woman, man or kids

Probably because it's up to most women to do the cooking, even in 2023.

The cooking, the buying, the planning. Yup.

In general I feel that food in the house should be family food but the first two examples are particularly shocking.

He wouldn’t have been unaware his DC had guests. A third of the tray is greedy pig behaviour. Then taking a child’s lunch, did he make them a new one to replace it?

Fair enough his portions of dinner might need to be bigger or it might be worth making sure left overs are generally available but he’s a grown man. If he’s hungry he can make his own extra food rather than taking what others have made for themselves.

he sounds like a dick.

Taking the child's cookies is the act of a child not an adult.

My kids knew from an early age what was allowed in terms of snacking and what wasn't.
This shelf in the fridge is food for meals. These shelves you can help yourself.
This cupboard is snacks. Anything open (eg biscuits) can be eaten.
Anything on this side can be eaten. If it is on THIS side, please ask first.

If you are not sure, check.
left overs were fair game though, so if you wanted it for yourself, put a note on it, or put it on the shelf for meals.

Plenty of food in the house,but not all of it is available. Some has been bought for specific meals.

It really isn't rocket science. And his comment about him paying for it, would infuriate me. That is nasty controlling attitude.

I hope you gave him less bacon on his plate as he had already eaten his?

Ugh. This would give me the permanent ick and I'd be making plans to move far away. I'm not being cute, I'm being deadly serious. Food is very personal and intimate. I DESPISE gut-stuffer men who can't stop thinking about food like a dirty animal.

Eating some homemade cookies that a child made? Low, low, low behaviour.

Even most dogs understand "no".

Found the handmaid!

I mentioned upthread about my ex, he'd help himself to stuff I'd bought for meals for us and the kids, then he'd expect me to split what was left between us all so we all got less. He'd also eat all the snack food I bought, including things I'd bought that he didn't particularly like, and including things for the kids lunchboxes....this would never be replaced. He'd tell me he didn't want to take leftovers for lunch so I wouldn't leave him any, instead freezing it, but he'd take my portion out of the fridge in the morning so I'd be left with nothing. Everything snack wise I'd bought would be eaten within a day or 2, this was on top of his meals plus things I'd bought for him only. I'd buy more, he'd eat more

He doesn’t need to be a mind reader. He needs to check with people ‘are these leftovers up for grabs?’ ‘Is this food in a lunchbox for anyone?’ etc. Not difficult. He just doesn’t want to ask because he knows people will say he can’t have it.

He's a selfish, greedy bastard.

I was going to suggest something similar. Have a shelf with favourite snacks, same in the fridge - a container that is fair game for everyone. If he is genuinely hungry have things in the container to make sandwiches/toasted sandwiches.

Eating the things kids have cooked sounds inconsiderate and greedy.