DD with friend’s family for 8 hours only ate crisps

[Z0rr0]

My DD was invited to an activity with friends today. She ate a toasted English muffin before she left at 8.15. By the time she came back at 4pm she’d only been offered some crisps to eat. I’m grateful the family took her out (I paid for her ticket which was less than a tenner) and hosted her at their home, but I just can’t fathom not offering her some lunch.

I think at 17 yr12 you need to step back. My dd woukd have been mortified if I’d shouted them down for pizza and smiley faces like they were 7. I was always happy for dd to have friends over and would get food in but would leave them to it.

Well, that’s very unusual.

Most people buy several days or a weeks’ worth of food at a time and have cupboard staples in regardless - we always have pasta, beans and bread in, for example, as well as crisps, cereal bars, biscuits and other basics.

I am not as bad now as I have food in the fridge but would still be pissed off at being asked for something if I hadn’t offered.

Like I said I would offer tea, coffee or water to an unexpected visitor but would have to specifically buy the biscuits etc.

But what you have in is not the definition of normal.

It is normal to have bread and biscuits in a UK household.

Exactly - pretending as though it’s normal to only have mustard and salad cream in the house and absolutely nothing else 🫣😂

You must realise you are very unusual not to have anything in your home to offer guests.

I couldn’t do that when I lived alone. I would just eat what was there usually on the day I bought it. I’m ND so wouldn’t know from one day to the next what I would want to eat and couldn’t afford to have cupboards full of stuff.

I don’t eat most of the ‘cupboard staples’ in any case - at best I would only have had the foods I ate if I didn’t know they were coming.

I’m ND too but still keep basics in the house in case I’m unwell or can’t get to a supermarket for whatever reason. We were snowed in for several days in 2023 and if we’d not had anything in the cupboards we’d have been very, very hungry!

I didn’t say I still only have that. I have a range of food now. I was going through some fairly severe mental health issues, paired with not having much money.

As for it being ‘normal’, I clearly never got the memo. If there were biscuits I probably would eat them, why would I keep them on the offchance that someone would be impolite enough to just turn up?

I have a 17 year old. If they had invited a friend round for the day and I’d gone out for a few hours, it wouldn’t occur to me to ‘make sure’ they’d eaten. I would presume they could manage that by themselves, them being nearly 18!
If your daughter was hungry, she needs to say, to her friend, ‘I’m hungry, are you…what shall we do for lunch?’

Tbf I lived in an area with shops etc close by so I guess I would have managed somehow

Two 17 year olds and all they ate all day was some crisps?!

Even from a much younger age me and my mates would raid the kitchen ourselves (led by whoever's house it was) and make a sandwich/toast if we were hungry! We were all very independent latch key kids though. Did her friend not eat anything but some crisps too?

From your initial post I thought you were talking about a MUCH younger child children. And I say this as an autistic woman with an autistic child. I can't fathom how they both just went all day with neither of them saying they were hungry and going to the kitchen. 😳 kill

So do I, but you couldn’t buy anything as there were no deliveries.

See the idea of people helping themselves is just 😳

The parents went out it seems leaving the teens behind. Id Imagkne they assumed their daughter ( whose friend or is) would offer foid

Even the teenager who lives there?

Why wouldn't a 17 help themselves in their own house? I find your perspective on this whole situation very difficult to comprehend.

In their own house, of course. I misunderstood and thought people were saying they would help themselves in other people’s houses

So yr12 nearly at the end doing mocks, going on holiday with mates ? C'mon OP surely they can fend for themselves ?

I think it's completely normal for the teenager whose house it is to make lunch for their guest/s and they all raid the kitchen. But equally, it's completely normal for 17 year olds to think a bag of crisps is lunch if that's all they fancy.

If your teenage kid is home over a meal time without you, wouldn't they "help themselves" and if they had a friend round wouldn't you feel it was pretty normal that they mucked in with your child and made a sandwich/toast together, being as they'd be in the kitchen at the same time?

My youngest is 7 and him and his friends know they can go in the kitchen and get a drink or a snack. I also have a grown up one who had the same.

Personally I want my kids to feel able and comfortable to fix themselves and their friends some lunch.

My eldest is an adult with sen but even he will fix his own sarnie/toast.

so now you insult us

your daughter is not a ‘kid’ but a young lady and as has been pointed out,
possibly away to University next year

no one needs to see themselves as a generous person by making
a cheese and lettuce sandwich for your 17 year old ‘kid’s’ friends
when at 17 we have an expectation that your daughter would be
more than capable of doing this herself

you misrepresented your interest at the beginning by subtly
implying that your daughter was a child and not 17 years old
17!!!

we are not vipers but exasperated, in the main

Fix their own food of course and something for a friend if they were having something. I wouldn’t expect someone to ask for something though.

I just don’t know how a 17 year old could “ sort themselves out” when they are a guest in someone else’s house. Jesus some of the standards are so low and mean.

You’ve also said your dd doesn’t make food so it’s not fair to criticise the other girl for not making lunch for your dd when if your dd had been hosting at your house she wouldn’t have made her and her friend lunch.
I do think from your language and expectations you see your dd as a much younger child. Babying does no favours longer term.
At 17 some friends will be driving, some working pt, they make their own arrangements and meet up. Parents aren’t involved in the same way as with younger children.