Did your mum stop cooking when your dad left?

[Staybymw]

I don’t mean full stop but like home made dinners.

I remember when my step dad left (my mum asked him to)after a few months my mum stopped cooking home made meals and we would have a frozen ready meal or a pot noodle, something like that.

I didn’t notice it at the time and quite liked having the option to pick which ready meal to have. But cooking back I do think I missed the family meal vibe I also can’t remember what her roast dinner tastes like anymore.

I’ve only just remembered this as my MIL is doing similar now that she is no longer married. She will make a big pot of lentils and it will last her a few days. She seems quite happy with it.

No because I used to make a 3 course fancy meal to appease my ex. I was also a food influencer (I worked with Tesco/waitrose/asda etc) but I went into survival mode as I had a severely disabled son. Both kids eat anything and everything. We’ve moved on from that time and now our kids love cooking the fancy meals!

Thanks for the reminder about findus crispy pancakes! Cheese ones were the best, then chicken and bacon. Always gutting to discover they were mince ones 🤮. Staples in our house late 80s / early 90s. One parent house. Very few home cooked meals.

My kids are now at uni and I cook very little. DH will make us an omelette sometimes or we will eat a sandwich. Sometimes I’ll put salmon in the air fryer or a jacket potato in the oven but I am SO bored of thinking about meals I’m not doing it any more when the kids are away.

it means when they do come back from uni I’m happy to cook as I’ve had the first break from it in over TWENTY years

My mum was not inclined to cook meals, she could bake very well but not meals. It was nearly always an oven meal and as a kid I really couldn't stand any of it, smelt like dog food to me especially those crispy pancakes so I frequently went hungry and survived on cereal, marmite sandwiches and fruit.

My nan taught me how to cook, she used to feed me up when I stayed with her.

I could quite happily live on sandwiches now tbh, porridge, sandwiches and tea.

Mum and dad split up in the late 60s. At the time, mum was very clear about the fact that she would never again need to have dinner on the table at 6pm.

Meals definitely became more erratic, she still cooked, but only things she liked and nothing that took too long.

When our local supermarket started cooking roast chickens, I think that was pretty much the death of roast at home. Mum was completely over the drudgery of cooking. By the early 70s, there weren’t the choice that we have today, but I’m pretty sure we ate more take away than the average family.

I'm not sure how the reasonable / unreasonable fits into this so I won't vote, but, when my husband passed away I stopped cooking for myself.
Very occasionally I will make a large pot of stew or a large pot of chili or a large casserole and that is all I will eat for the entire week until it is gone,
I don't even care if it's fully heated up.
I don't eat at the dining table, I usually eat standing up by the counter,
it just doesn't feel like a meal.
It doesn't feel like a homey enjoyment signaling the conclusion of the workday,
a shared meal with a loved one...
It's just enough nutritious sustenance so I can keep going for another day.
More likely than not the only time I will cook anything will be when I have family/friends coming for a dinner.
Otherwise, a bowl of cereal is fine for dinner.
Sad thing is, I used to really love to cook, I made everything from scratch, it took hours, but I really enjoyed doing it.
I do cook for others, and when they enjoy it, that gives me happiness.

This has taken me back in time - the Dark Ages, before the invention of those Findus pancakes! My mother got us fed, through her misery, with Vesta curry. Fray Bentos pies. Frozen peas. On repeat until the arrival of boil-in-the-bag fish. I quite like all of the above 😁

Kind of, when my Dad left there was more stuffed pasta and ready made lattice pie, when my brother left for uni it was lots of ready made meals from Marks and sometimes Waitrose which I was happy about but still loads of fruit to eat.

There was more convenience food definitely which I made myself. I do remember her still cooking sometimes but I think that was when she had another boyfriend.

Lots of other stuff stopped though instantly. We never had breakfast together, I never had another birthday party or even acknowledgement, I had no proper bedtime, I was left alone many nights while my sister babysat the same age child next door - the parents said I was welcome too but my sister said no and my mum went along with it, I sometimes woke up in the middle of the night and realised I was all alone, my older brother's friends were constantly in the house drunk and smoking, I couldn't do my homework as the place was always so noisy.

If I sound bitter it's because I am. My mum thinks to this day that I am upset she left my dad but I'm not. I'm upset she stopped being my mum.

DB / SIL split up and since then SIL doesn’t cook at all. Her and the DC eat out a lot, and the DC use deliveroo a lot too. It’s very odd going round there, lovely house, lovey kitchen - which has no food in and is only used to socialise!

I go through phases of cooking and baking and then being burned out and not doing anything.

Sourdough bread, pastries, fermented foods, cakes, puddings, all kinds of things. Sometimes I will eat a crisp sandwich.

I spent over 20 years cooking for my kids, now they've moved out I love not having to cook 'proper' meals everyday! I still do a sunday roast & feed whoever turns up but if its just me I enjoy the leftovers for a couple of days as it means I get a few more days off from cooking lol

I’m don’t think parents realise that child notice even if they don’t say anything. It is quite sad looking back and I think I would keep on cooking for my children if my dh left

I'm so sorry for your loss xx

I cooked for years and for a lot of those years I enjoyed it.
I gradually got bored of it, drudgery every single night, so I stopped, under the guise of dieting, my husband gets his own food now, and so do I drudgery over!

My kids would be disgusted with my "cooking" if my husband left us - I can't remember the last time I cooked anything as he does it all! 😀

I’ve given up cooking. Only my 16 year old DD still at home who is autistic and only knows what she wants to eat at the point of wanting to eat so family favourites are now not acceptable. So she makes herself what she fancies in the moment. I live on Frive meals (she likes one miso tofu poke bowl they do so will have that too sometimes). Lovely fresh meals with lots of veg delivered weekly, heat in microwave.

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it is hard to cook for one

There really is! A couple of nights a week I don't even bother with dinner, and just have a yoghurt and some fruit, or porridge. I do live on my own though, I would still cook for children!

i have strong memories of findus crispy pancakes and boil in the bag fish - i tried to feed dc boil in the bag fish when a toddler and they threw the plate on the floor!

Yes but my mum just became a worse mum all around.

No, she carried on dolloping out the same dubious Cranks Cookbook type meals untill she died.
Now I'm a mum I understand the mind numbing grind of What's For Tea when you are already running on vapours. After years if awful family meals when I was married, with multiple dietary requirements and timings to cater for, we now only sit and eat at the same time once or twice a week, it isn't less tiring but it is a lot less stressful for all of us.

No difference what relationship my DM was in bcoz she has always been just a godawful her whole life 😂 I started cooking at about 16 as I was so sick of her cooking and I love good food. I still enjoy cooking now, the only difference is when DH isn't home I make the most of having one of the meals he doesn't like. He isn't actually picky and eats most things, just doesn't like sushi or smoked salmon so if he's having dinner out with a mate I usually have sushi or a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel for tea lol

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After cooking for 20 plus years for the family (lazy exH) I stopped. NEVER WANT TO COOK AGAIN DAILY
It was exhausting
Now I will cook here and there and freeze in small portions then have with various veg
Adult children then returned from uni. I introduced a strict rota. I said everyone does 2 nights a week. If you don't cook you don't get cooked for. Simple
Son soon realised how serious me and his sister were that he had to pull his weight