to expect my DD (21) to eat meals outside of her bedroom

[TheLastTimeEver]

....is this a battle worth having? My eldest DD is a student and home from uni. We have had an ongoing battle over the past few years about her always wanting to eat her meals in her bedroom. Due to the shifts she works & fussiness with food she prepares her own meals by and large.

I made it clear that on this return from uni I was enforcing the house rule that no one eats meals in their bedroom. It can be kitchen table, island or living room if she wants. Her two siblings 17 and 14 do this.

She has just had a massive strop and left her prepared food uneaten in the kitchen as she claims it is just not enjoyable to eat other than laid out on her bed with her laptop watching something.

By way of background she has suspected ADHD and also previously had bullimia/ED. The latter is why in the past I've let this slide as I wanted her to eat and she found eating in front of other people made her anxious. But she is well in this regards tho I know that EDs can be ever present to some degree.

My objections are - hygiene. She is slovenly in any case and her room fills up with plates and so on (no matter hpw much she promises to clear as she goes). Also mental health - I don't think its great to be holed up in your room which basically she is for the entire time unless at work or socialising.

YABU - let her eat where she wants
YANBU - eating all meals in your bedroom is grim and its your house

Op can you agree a compromise? I understand some ppl say let her eat in her room due to past ed but that doesn't mean she should develop another unhealthy habit which i think is what you may be worried about.I would suggest asking dd to have one meal a week downstairs as you want to see her and you want a family meal once in awhile.

She’s 21…an adult…if she lives in your house then you can tell her she eats in kitchen/living room or she can move out then eat wherever the hell she wants.

Not everyone is looking for an excuse to boot their young adult children out ffs, especially vulnerable young people with eating disorders. It's a plate of food in a bedroom, not bloody napalm.

Because of the eating disorder I'd let her get away with it. Having said that I have friends with children with eating disorders and those children often rule the roost in many ways.

There are a lot of control issues going on with that sort of disorder.

My dd similar age works shifts. I ‘let’ her eat in the bedroom if she wishes.
wouldn’t be my choice however like many young people of her age her bedroom is more like a mini flat. 10-20 years ago she’d probably be living in a flat share but that now costs more than our entire mortgage…
She is working hard and saving as well as studying so I want to encourage that and not get into small tussles about the odd plate etc.

I’m also not a big fan of ‘my house’ ‘my rules’ type attitude. Imo it is the family home and when I chose to have dc it became their family home too, not just mine and dh’s. Yes at times I have to remind about plates upstairs etc but she is naturally quite untidy. I’m quite tidy but I choose to accept that others in the house may have lower standards…

(I also wonder if some of the posters who give advice about throwing young adult dcs out if they don’t comply with the ‘my house my rules’ have teens or early twenties adult dcs themselves?)
When my dcs were younger I was always saying I would expect/demand various things but my viewpoint has changed. My priority now is to maintain fairly good relationships with them but of course as they become adults this brings its own joys and challenges!

I think people are getting carried away with the ED element. Not all EDs are the same, not everyone suffering with one suffers the same way or has the same post-recovery situation. Only the DD and OP know this.

One of my siblings had a pretty serious ED in his mid-late teens. He’s in his 40s now, never relapsed, very healthy man. You’d never know.

I think you need to establish rules that work for both of you. The ED isn’t the be all and end all, given she’s in recovery. If this were about eating in private, she could sit on a chair, sit upright on something, eat at her desk. She could bring her dirty dishes down and wash them. She could not be on a screen (but this is whatever, she’s 21 now). This to me sounds like a stroppy teenager wanting to assert her independence. But she’s still at home, parents still paying her bills. I get it, it’s difficult. But the solution isn’t one way only, especially not when there are younger siblings to take into account.

Fine, she may not want to eat in front of you every night. But neither does she have to lie on her bed in her room every night with a plate of food. I mean, come on.

Glad you've seen the best approach after reflection.

I had an ED 20 years ago and i still struggle with eating "in public". I would insist on room hygiene though as that's my main issue with people eating up stairs. She'll need to clean it regularly

Do you actually think this? Do you think that ownership of a property allows you to dictate the moral laws that govern all of the inhabitants while they are in it?

So if the owner of the property wanted, for examples to beat his wife? That would be fine with you?

"Your house, your rules" - I just can't understand why anybody thinks this is a reasonable maxim to live by?.You must know, surely, that is has been used to justify abuse for many centuries.....

Oh, and OP, obviously leave your daughter alone - it's just her eating - can't you see how you are upsetting her - do you really want to fall out with her over this? Seriously?

Well yes OP of course can - if she is willing to render her daughter homeless over a disagreement about where she eats her dinner.

Do you know what it feels like to love your own child? Does it feel like this, to you? Seriously?

@Ilovelurchers
great posts totally agree

OP, you are treating her like a child by trying to dictate where she eats her meals, because of some preference of your own.

My husband, my daughter and I eat our meals in our beds sometimes, if we feel like it, out of our own free choice. It's not some weird, disgusting, depraved practice. When I stay at my mom's house she is perfectly fine with me having meals in my bedroom there too if I want to.

Not everybody has strong preferences about where their family member's eat. I seriously couldn't care less, as long as they are happy.

@TheLastTimeEver what sort of meals does she like to eat?

Given the background I'd let her eat in her room but ask her to bring down plates/cutlery afterwards.

All these "my house, my rules. Do it or move out"... as if its so easy now to move out. As if millions of young adults (and by that I mean well into their 20s) aren't stuck at home because even the cost of rent on a basic flat share is extortionate (and that flat share can be the pokiest little room).

She's also off at uni, so will be living by her own rules there (and, yes, that probably includes eating in bed watching Netflix) and then coming home (because no kid at uni rents TWO accommodations BTW, if she was renting accommodation she can stay in over the holidays, so privately, she could just stay there and the Mummy would never get to see her) for the holidays/weekends to spend time with family. It can feel awkward and disjointed to suddenly have to follow different rules.

Seriously …If I didn’t want my child to eat in their bedroom then I don’t love them? Really?

More the fact you're willing to throw them out over it...

@Ilovelurchers at no point I have I suggested I’d make my daughter homeless over a preference she not eat in her room! Calm down 😂

very early in the thread I took on board posters suggestions (the point of AIBU!?!?) & said to her she could but I’d like her to bring down her plates and join us for family meals. She agreed to that and was happy.

We don’t have food upstairs. All meals take place at the table in the kitchen. It always has been the case and it would be a hill I would die on: I can’t stand good upstairs