Who makes packed lunch?

[Icantremembermyusername]

Hi! Looking for your thoughts because I am either the worst mum in the world, or just have average expectations.
DD (yr10 / 14 years old) asked if she could change from school dinners to packed lunches last September. I agreed, but only if she was responsible for washing her lunch box and preparing her meal. I buy all the ingredients but after years of packed lunches preparation, I’m done. She’s been having packed lunches since September.
She’s really pissed off. She thinks it’s too hard. That I should make her lunch. Also, I don’t make her breakfast unless it’s a special occasion.
(Single parent, produce tea every night, clean and launder, iron, provide mum taxi, spending money…)
I make minimal effort for my lunch. Half a tin of soup and 2 slices of bread. It’s not as if I’m making amazing lunches and excluding her!
Am I being “cruel” expecting a 14 year old to make her own breakfast (I do pancakes, etc, on weekends and for special occasions) and packed lunch without a fuss?
YABU - you should cater lunch
YANBU - she needs to make her own lunch

YANBU. Rule when I was growing up was that we had school lunches until secondary, when we could choose to make ourselves a packed lunch if we preferred, but the choice to take a packed lunch meant making the choice to get up ten minutes earlier and make it ourselves. Naturally the moment I said I was going to make a packed lunch all my siblings decided I could make theirs too, but that's a different problem....!

She’s really pissed off. She thinks it’s too hard

Well it very clearly isn’t. If making a sandwich was physically or mentally too hard for her, she wouldn’t be in mainstream education. She certainly wouldn’t be capable of Spaghetti Bolognaise, so acting like you’re sending her up chimneys is a bit much.

In your shoes, I think I’d agree on the basis that she takes a daily chore from you. Like hoovering or doing the dishes. And the first time she doesn’t do it properly, she’d get a tin of peas and a Birdseye trifle mix in her lunch box, to show that there are consequences when people don’t do their chores properly.

Of course she is.
If to lazy she will do school dinners.

Aw. This makes me a bit sad. I used to like making DD’s packed lunches for her. Maybe she was younger though.

Yanbu. My teens have been making breakfast for themselves for years - how hard is it to pour a bowl of cereal or toast a slice of bread and spread some peanut butter etc on it?!

She’s also perfectly capable of making her own lunch - ask her why it’s “too hard” for her but not too hard for you. My answer would be you make your own packed lunch or you don’t get a packed lunch.

I made my eldest's lunch through to end of GCSEs. I still reckon YANBU and 14 is absolutely fine to insist she does it. I carried on because she ate a lot more fruit &veg when I packed it, and she has a sibling with SEN which makes it a bit more complicated.

I don't think it's made much difference in the long run. At uni I suspect she is living off pain au chocolat for breakfast and sausages rolls for lunch.

Ask her what’s hard about it. If she says it takes too long tell her to do it the night before, if she says it’s too much hard work for her list to her everything that you do. I know exactly how you feel, sometimes I feel like going on strike and not doing a single thing! You’re not being unreasonable, she is being unreasonable and I hope you manage to get her to help you more

Not cruel but tbh kids need less physical work from us as they get older so I'm more inclined to indulge.

Maybe do the lunches and she can do the laundry? Or make them together or alternate weeks?

YANBU. Especially with the attitude.

But I must confess, my dad made all our packed lunches every day till I left home. And it was really nice having them made for me. BUT, we had two parents at home, dad had plenty of time in the evenings, and just made them alongside his own packed lunches. Even so, it was entirely his choice and I was grateful (at least I am in retrospect, I have no idea if I was sufficiently grateful at the time, though we did do plenty of meal and food prep for family in the evening so I think I was).

Our kids made their own packed lunch if they want to take it. If my DH is making his own and knows they want one, he’ll usually offer to do theirs at the same time, but it’s not that frequent.

And I’ve got NO time for someone wanting breakfast made for them. Ours have got their own breakfast for as long as they’ve been able to wield the milk bottle without spilling it. And we almost never make breakfasts like pancakes at the weekend. She’s lucky there already in my eyes!

As a teen me and my sister would get dinner started most nights, mum would get in 5.30 and dad at 6, and we’d be eating at 6.30. Mum would leave instructions on the notepad and we’d grumpily get on with it. We’re both great cooks now though!

YANBU to ask her to make her own lunch (assuming there are sandwich things or left overs etc readily available to chuck into a tub to take with her)
YABU I think to get her to wash it up - surely that’s simple to do along with all the other washing? For the same reason I do all our washing (rather than my teens/adults doing their own - which might not be a full load anyway) but everyone helps to hang it out and also fold and put away.
Plus make sure to have 2-3 lunch box options available. We have a variety of of shapes and sizes depending on what the lunch option is - that way no drama if today’s box isn’t totally dry and clean tomorrow.

We put stuff out on table for breakfast everyday - as we tend to eat together in the morning, So they’ll serve their own cereal / juice / hot chocolate while we mill around the kitchen (putting a wash on / getting dinner out of freezer/ stacking dishwasher )
Then while they are upstairs getting dressed we’ll make them a butty / shove a variety of fruit / crisps / cheese / frozen frubes/ biscuits/ sausage rolls etc out on the side for them to put into their pack ups. I usually shove a bagel / crumpet in for them to eat on way to school too. They are capable of doing it themselves- but it’s no skin off my nose to help out.

I always did breakfast, nothing fancy on weekdays, because it’s too easily skipped and I liked to bookend the day with two provided meals and companionship. I also think it helps to model the fact that people have to get up and organised in the morning (rather than shouting at their kids to get up and get to school from the comfort of their own double bed as I was shocked to read happens in some families)

I think it’s entirely reasonable and probably good for her to be doing her own packed lunch at her age. If it’s such a ball-ache for her to do it then why does she think you should do it on top of everything else you do?

My 15yo DS has a packed lunch which I make (the night before). He doesn’t have breakfast on school days but he makes his own breakfast / lunch / snacks on non-school days. I will make the evening meal.

Tell her to piss off! She’s old enough by far to make her own lunch.

There was a similar thread on a topic like this a few weeks back. And just like then, I am taken aback that a 14 year old doesn't get a packed meal for school and is expected to make one herself. Especially at an age where school/exam pressures are higher too. Surely you would rather your daughter have a healthy lunch, rather than some crap snack? Perhaps you can have an agreed menu for the week and you both can decide who prepares the lunch each day. This way she is also contributing.

That is so rude! Telling your own child to piss off because they want home made food. Gosh!

Mine made their own packed lunches from year 4!

Me too. I also grow up with a DM who never even got up for breakfast. I like making lunches for my kids. OP is also a bit hypocritical calling her DD out when she doesn’t even want to make her breakfast.
maybe they can find a compromise especially at the beginning. Maybe her child just would like mum to do something nice for her. It’s not that strenuous to make her a sandwich & add a
piece fruit. It’s only one child.

Yeah tell her to go and work in the mines. Ungrateful brat.

🙄

My kids started packing their own lunches when they were 8. We’d keep an eye on it when they started and ask them regularly if they needed anything, but now they’re 13 and 9 and it’s almost entirely on them. I make sure my son has the stuff he likes to pack but my daughter does it herself and adds to the grocery list if she’s out of something or wants something new.

They sort their own breakfasts during the week too - weekends we usually do eggs or pancakes and my husband will get my son’s started in the weekdays but my daughter hasn’t wanted us helping for quite a while now.

So no, you aren’t being unreadable at all but appreciate it’s hard to go from everything to nothing and 14 is a dramatic age.

My kids (8-15) make their own breakfast mostly unless I’m doing porridge or pancakes at the weekend. I do make my 15 year olds lunch 😳 It’s not because he is incapable / expects me too but rather than I’m normally making the younger ones lunch anyway so not much extra work. Also, he leaves early for school (bus at 7.30) so not much time in the morning for him but I’m an early riser. Thinking from 6th form, he can do it but for now, I don’t mind and one less thing for him to worry about. He washes up every day and makes dinners etc so does contribute in other ways!

Mine also were doing their own lunch from about 7. I was rushing around one morning trying to get their lunches sorted when I looked over and they were both sat there chilled doing nothing and I thought what am I doing? They’re more than capable of making a sandwich/wrap and then grabbing some fruit, a yogurt and spoon, a drink and putting it in their lunch bag. From then on they sorted themselves, takes 5 minutes.

Aww this makes me a bit sad. My mother would have written that I was ungrateful and lazy for not wanting to make a lunch for myself. But. While she said she provided food, this wasn’t great. EG bread was often mouldy, there wasn’t ham on a regular basis. Cheese and lettuce on mouldy bread…? Would you eat that as an adult?

When I complained she suggested that she do what she did for lunch - take a tin of tomatoes and eat it cold from the can with a spoon. As a result I often went without entirely (school lunches were not an option) and it did affect my ability to learn and my relationship with food (and with my mother).

I’m not saying that’s what’s going on here, but I would gently encourage you to look at what supplies are laid on, especially if you’re an eat-to-live person which unfortunately not all of us are!

My brother was born when I was 7. I also switched to doing my own breakfast and lunch at that age. I was in the era when that was a sandwich and some cereal though so it might need to be older if things are now more complicated than that.

Mine both made their own packed lunches at that stage.

I asked them what they wanted to eat, I provided the food and they prepared their lunches.