To take DD 5 to McDonald's every other weekend?

[quincyquince]

She's gluten free, so has a portion of small chips and either a small mcflurry or orange juice or sauce with the chips.

We go after swimming.

This is ok, right? My friend thinks it's awful that she goes twice a month. But it's not like she's having the processed bread and cheese and stuff all the time?

We went every week for a happy meal as kids, after swimming class. It’s fine!

You can do all those things and still shit and life happens.

People die, insurance companies don't pay up, people get sick and insurance doesn't cover it, people get sick and have to take leave from work and insurance only covers part of it, people get cancer for the 3rd time and because its the 3rd time insurance doesn't cover it, savings get eaten up, houses burn down, houses flood, businesses fail, pandemics happen

We went full Maccirs every single week after swimming lessons when my kids were small. They are still alive!

I don't see the problem.
Many children have things like ckicken dippers, fish fingers, a packet of crisps in their lunch box more than once a fortnight.

And a McFlurry isn't unhealthier than standard store bought ice cream or pastry from a bakery (which is most often mass produced anyway)

Just because you take your child to a higher priced restaurant does not make the food healthier. Chips are chips no matter where you eat them.

Being given the information to make those decisions is privilege. Having the money to purchase insurances is a privilege.

But by your own logic, if you die and the insurances don't pay out, that's poor parenting on your part.

If you die and the person you've chosen to continue raising your child chooses to take them to McDonald's, that's poor parenting on your part.

so you should only have kids if you have a spare £100,000 saved up per child in advance, to cover you for the next 18 years if you are in a serious car accident or develop a life limiting illness. Okay...

Not to mention the most common - people in committed partnerships plan their lives around 2 incomes. If their household income is suddenly cut by half or more (whether because of circumstances beyond their control or because one parent decides to opt out), most people would struggle. If you think you should only have kids if you can guarantee your partner won't ever leave, nobody would ever procreate. You can try your best to pick your child's other parent to be someone you can trust as much as possible, but you can never be sure.

This is from the perspective of a person who grew up with privilege. And by that I don’t mean someone who is wealthy, just that you have had a good education, most likely a stable family life as a child, and access to jobs that pay more than the minimum wage.

So basically you're saying that people should just procreate freely with no preparation, no contingency planning, living to the hilt of their incomes, partner or no partner, etc. because poor widdle women can't control their fertility until they can provide decent conditions for childrearing?

God forbid a woman use contraception until she has a stable career, a stable partner, savings and insurance. Because some combination of job loss, economic downturn, illness, disability, divorce, SEN, eldercare and other challenges happen in each and every life.

But why acknowledge that and prepare for adverse scenarios. That's just asking far too much, apparently.

Just mate willy-nilly and let the taxpayer pick up the slack.

Hogwash. My family is very working class, and not privileged. But we were raised to be frugal, self-disciplined, cautious and self-reliant.

Okay love, if you say so

It is 2 meals out of 42 meals she will have in 2 weeks (if you class just chips as a meal - maybe you still have lunch too after) - it’s fine! Funny because some of the righteous parents on here probably feed their kids food from the supermarket that are full of hidden crap much worse than McDonalds fries, UPF etc. but don’t realise it!

Not sure why the gluten free info was relevant as surely your question is just whether it's reasonable to go to McDonald's every other week?
Personally I think she would get bored of it eventually. What's the reasoning behind going? (Not sure I could find one). Is it meant to be a treat? Is it that is more convenient than having to cook later?

We went through a phase where DS had a happy meal most Friday nights. He’s grown up just fine, strong, healthy, exercises etc. As I think of it, I used to get a happy meal too - one of us would have fries and one a fruit bag and we’d split them. Used to collect the little toys .

I did all that. We still thought that because of a run of bad luck our entire household income was going to vanish AND we had the worry that DH might have something that would kill him off. And I'm talking about all of that kicking off on the same day.

If things had gone the opposite way, because we were both on a 50/50 for keeping our jobs in the restructures, we would have burned through our savings and some of the insurances might have paid out a bit but we'd have had to stop paying premiums and then later on we'd have not had them anymore.

Then we'd have been looking for two jobs. Going through chemo. With a 3 year old, who we wouldn't have been able to afford to keep in nursery while we were looking for jobs. So that's her place lost.

Money will only last a finite amount of time. You cannot plan for every eventuality. You can't even fathom some of the shit life might throw at you to be able to have a plan for it.

I asked you earlier and you didn't reply to me, probably because you haven't got an answer. What would your contingency have been here? Send DD back? Because we were very prepared to have her, we can survive on one (either) full time salary, albeit too tight for some of the things we would want, but having everything wiped out at once in a fluke, how do you plan for that?

my cousin was married for 8 years, owne other own home, good job, they had kids 4 years later her husband died, she lost her job and struggled.

How could she have predicted that?

Just peeked at some of the previous answer here - this thread is completely mad - MN at its worst!

No that can’t be right, according to PPs if you forbid these foods in childhood then your teens will boak at the sight of takeaways or McDonald’s, opting for cucumber sticks rather than a kebab after a night out 😅

I do wonder if McDonalds started this thread
Get them all talking and the defiant will defiantly get up in the morning and go out for a McDonalds…..In defiance 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Unfortunately it’s not a big UK thing anymore.
Look at how prepared we were for Covid.
Meanwhile far more people in other countries were more likely to have savings to get them by for a while.

Where they? Any evidence of that?

And psychic?

Parents should always carry enough life insurance to sustain their families if they die. Can't afford the rates, can't afford the family.

People who make ad hominem insults are just proving that they have nothing substantive to continue to the discussion.