Can't be bothered to cook for son

[palmtreesands]

We only have limited fridge and freezer space so him buying his own shopping is not an option.
Dh eats at work and I like to take a massive salad to work among other things and pick so don't eat again in the evening.
Ds comes home from work expecting a home cooked dinner and I find it such a headache, if I haven't cooked or we've eaten I out as we sometimes do he expects their to be ingredients to make himself something to eat.... their often isn't and I am racing up the shop to buy him something to make but as I said food has to be included in his monthly contribution otherwise he'll come back with shopping that we don't have room for.
Aibu to let this stress me out so much, I'm hot and bothered and don't want the headache of feeding him but he pays £400 a month to live here so expects there to be food to eat and I can't be bothered with the hassle of always making sure there's something in when we don't have family meals.

This is a weird one. Why a fridge in the conservatory full of frozen meat if not anyone is cooking in a regular basis?

Also where are you based OP - I hope not the U.K., or your repeated references to the heat as an excuse are just even more laughable.

Sorry can’t sympathise with this post - it just doesn’t make any sense to me to have my son arriving at home after work/school/ whatever and don’t have food for him to have if he wants! you might feel tired after a day of work and don’t feel like cooking for him but at least you have to reduce the £400 and let do his shopping/cooking . You can’t really expect an adult young man as I’m assuming he is to live out of crackers, nuts and picky bits.

It sounds miserable no one eating at home or cooking. He needs to eat! Cook for him or make sure there's space for him to buy food and cook. If his beer is in the way and you have a normal sized fridge (if you don't buy one) then explain not all the beer needs chilling once. Also why is there a freezer full of meat when no one cooks?

In Summer we avoid having the oven on for prolonged periods (so no roasts) but cook stuff on the hob, pasta, stir-fry etc or if it is mega hot use the oven for short periods for pizza or a pasta bake. We also barbecue.

Me too!

I’m feeling a bit confused by this thread.

OP, could the three of you sit down together and problem-solve this? What do you each want/ where can you make compromises and be flexible, etc.?

When your son is hungry, he needs some means to buy and make food for himself, I’d say this is a human right.

Also it sounds like maybe him and his dad have some ways of doing things (beer and take away) which are different to how you like to live?

How can you all adapt and figure out a way to get different needs met? You can’t expect him to eat and live in the same way as you.

Also, £400 a month seems really steep! Whose decision was it to charge him this? I’m guessing that he may want to move out at some point, but how on earth will he save enough to do so if he’s paying £400 a month!

Give him a shelf of his own in the fridge.

Too many beer cans.
🤣🤣🤣

In the same post (or couple of posts) we also had picky bits and wanting to “just pick”.

Horrendous - I was surprised no one mentioned it earlier.

👆This.

For goodness sake @palmtreesands … by all means don’t cook for him. But you have to allow him to store food that he can cook for himself. Sort the fridge situation out and sort out a weekly online order. Job done.

Congratulations OP!
Jolly well done.
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This is so weird. You don't have to cook for him, but you do have to have room in the fridge for food either he buys, or you buy. Invest in a beer fridge. This thread is making me hangry.

Either you need to provide food for your son or you need to give him the ability to provide his own (fridge space). He has to eat.

There's no room in my fridge either so my son has his own small one. I'd drop what he's paying you so he can buy his own food to cook. No reason he can't cook for himself, but you have to be fair and make that possible.

The arrangement we have is that the grown children contribute something and they can use milk, eggs, bread, fruit, anything that is a common item really, which is most things. The only things off limits are things bought personally for myself and the things I buy for meals I cook for the family.

How old is DS? Is he still in school? How much is he working? Also, how much beer is being consumed on a daily basis? It seems worrisome that so much beer must be kept cold that there isn’t room for food in the fridge. If money is tight, why buy so much beer?

I agree with PP’s that at minimum, DS needs fridge space for food he can prepare for himself. This thread reminds me of when I was in high school. I had to work an after school job because I had to buy and prepare all of my own meals. My parents both worked places that had cafeterias that served huge breakfast and lunch plates. They weren’t hungry for an evening meal and usually ate snack foods in front of the tv. Meanwhile, I had to sort all of my meals, including buying the ingredients. My parents even fussed at me about using their pots, pans and appliances.

Just get another fridge freezer there must be somewhere for it, even if it's not in the kitchen then he can at least buy a week's shopping and cook his own meals.

But you don't have any dinner at all, and don't keep any of your own food in the fridge apart from apparently yoghurt, that sounds like very disordered eating.

If he's working, drinking beer and paying rent I'd say he's old enough.

It's probably both of them that are charging him, and not just the OP.

The son has lived with the the dad since he was small, since before the OP was on the scene, and it seems that he didn't cook for him as they lived off takeaways. It's obviously never been a house where there was a hot homecooked meal provided but the father and son had that set up since before the OP came on the scene.

The DH is far more to blame than the OP yet there's been a huge pile on the OP making out that she's caused this situation.

She's moaning about it, yet she's still doing it.
The DH could do the cooking and the planning what to eat and the shopping, or even bring him home some food when they eat out, he could prioritize food in the fridge or buy a new one but it's all put on the OP like it's her responsibility.

Either reduce his keep (quite a lot) and provide him with some storage space etc. to do his own meals or cook for him - at the end of the day, while you may be content with 'picky bits' or salad, I know of very few people (and certainly my own four boys and husband) who'd be happy and healthy living like that. It sounds like you like your step son, which I'm glad about - but this attitude towards his eating sounds contrary to that, which I'm sure you don't want him to feel.

And my point still stands… the DS is paying £400 per month to her/ DH/ both - whichever! And according to op, some of that money goes towards his food. Op said that when he comes home from work, there’s no ingredients in the fridge to make himself something, yet op said herself that money is taken from the £400 to pay for food - yet there’s no food in the fridge for him! She said she then goes to the shop to buy him something because if he goes himself he will buy a load of stuff and there is no space in the fridge for it.

People are ‘piling on’ the op because despite her claiming that she treats the DS like her own, she seems to not actually give a shit about how/ when/ if he eats, neither does his dad for that matter! But op is quick to come on here and turn the DS into some sort of inconvenient scapegoat! And that is WHY I feel sorry for him, regardless of the beer situation, which is 50% down to the DH (and has now been done to death already on this thread)!

"picky tea" "picky bits" and a "massive salad"

Loving your work OP!!😂

Yes and then she goes out and she gets the food and then she cooks the food, then she came on here for a moan about it. Big deal.

An inconvenient scapegoat? For what exactly? 🤔

All your points have been done to death also.

All credit to whichever Tattler thought this up.
🤣

Just on here to snigger at the perfectly placed mention in your OP of the ‘massive salad’ - a Mumsnet classic 😂😂😂

EDIT: I missed ‘picky tea’ and ‘picky bits’ hahaha

Well maybe if they she actually allowed him to buy his own food (yes allowed him rather than making some bullshit excuse that there is nowhere to store it if he does buy it) then she wouldn’t need to go to the shop to buy it for him would she!!

An inconvenience to her and making him into a scapegoat by coming on here writing threads moaning about him when she seems to be actually contributing to what she’s moaning about - apart from the beer of course 🙄

I have no sympathy for the op!

I'm taking the OPs post as she wrote them that there is no room in the fridge and that she's not just making up some bullshit reason about why he can't store food.

She's allowed to have a moan for gods sake, that doesn't mean she's making him into a scapegoat, and she only 'seems to be contributing' because you've decided that she's just lying that there's no fridge space for him to store the food, and then going off out playing the martyr in the shops every evening.

Why? I make massive salads too