To expect the adults to eat with us

[princesspadam]

Happy to be told AIBU but this is driving me & DP crazy.

my DS (21) has a girlfriend and has now stopped eating with us as a family most of the time

either me or DP will cook every nite so there’s always a meal for both of them if they wanted it (they don’t)

him and his girlfriend sit upstairs and wait for dinner to be over, kitchen tidy, everything away, then come down and cook for themselves

this pisses DP off as we have an open plan living area and after dinner he will chill & watch tv but they’re cooking & talking & generally making mess / noise

AIBU to ask them to eat with us? Or eat out?

@princesspadam

why not? Why wouldn’t you move if it would make your children happy?

21 is not a kid 🤣

Don't be so daft 🤣 this cant be a serious response.

@Cherrytree86the ‘children’ in our house are 22, 21, 18 & 17
so no I won’t be moving to make them happy —you absolute loon—

The poster had the option not to do that and chose not to, it doesn't make them childish

Regardless, why the need for this twee "aah, they're playing house". No one at 21 wants to "play house". They want to have fun and be aware from their parents. Nauseating that the parents are so desperate to push kids into settling down so early.

I wish it was still a low bar but these failed to launch young (and sometimes not even young) adults are commonplace now. I think that OP needs to find a way to have some ground rules but ultimately put up with it and focus on the fact that her 21 year is showing some signs of wanting to live like an adult.

Because he’s an adult who will be moving out within no time and it’s not her job to move house so that her adult DS and his GF can cook in the evenings. Obviously

yes, it is his parents house, but it is his home.

And you have to be considerate to those that you share your home with – especially when you don't own the house.

Maybe they could cook for you all!!

And you have to be considerate to those you share your home with, even if they don’t own the house.

How is OP not being considerate?

I don’t know? Why are you asking me? I don’t live with her

No point commenting if you aren't prepared to explain why your posts have any relevancy.

I don’t think their cooking is the issue. It’s the open plan of your downstairs.

Finishing dinner and washing up at 9:30pm is a perfectly fine time. I could understand 11pm being an issue but if sometimes you’re getting off work at 7-8pm then you’ve not got long for dinner and a time becomes your routine.

They are adults and don’t have to eat with you. However, they also don’t get to disrupt your peace and make a noise/mess in the kitchen after you’ve tidied away.
They either eat what you cook or get something away from the house. That’s reasonable.

It's OP and her DP that decided they wanted open plan living.

Trying to stop them doing very normal things like cooking, eating and chatting and cleaning up in that space is completely unreasonable. There's 4 mostly adult children living there, if you want some peace and quiet you need to carve out some private space for yourself, not expect everyone to tiptoe around you because you made a poor choice.

"sometimes they’ll be frying a steak & veg at 8pm …..then they eat & chat at the table …… then they clear up and wash their dishes so might be 9/9.30 before DP gets any peace"
I do kind of think that they sound pretty lovely - I mean, this cooking and eating and chatting at the table together and then washing up... I feel like I'd be proud of my dc being in a good routine like this.
I do realise that it might be hard to hear the TV, and perhaps it just is hard to relax with other people moving about... but it doesn't sound like the sort of behaviour I'd be in a rush to shut down...
(Maybe I'm a softy)

They are adults, they can decide when they want to eat and whether to eat with you. They are not cooking at midnight.

I'd have a lot more sympathy if they were trashing the kitchen and not tidying or making a racket late a night. There's nothing wrong with what they are doing, it's the way the house is set up that's causing issues.

We have the same scenario here, adult DS and gf plus open plan house. Really doesn’t bother me. As long as they clean up after themselves which they do then that’s fine. It’s my DS home too and he should be able to cook when he wants (as long as it’s reasonable ie no Sunday dinner at 11pm) imo.

We have open plan (which I love btw after having “rooms”) and I can understand why the kitchen noise would be disturbing.

im still keen to understand why they won’t or don’t want your meals. I would have thought having a cooked meal waiting back home would be comforting and one less thing for them to worry about, esp if they are getting home later.

There is this thing with public forums, you don’t have to justify your opinions, it isn’t a debate.

And if you must know, my comment was in response to you acting as though adult children have no say in a household and exist only to shrink behind their parents. Or that somehow they were not being respectful by wanting to prepare their own meals.

There’s also this thing about comments needing to make sense to be taken seriously.

I never said that adult children have no say in a household. I also never insinuated in anyway that they ‘exist only to shrink behind their parents’ (genuinely never read anything so bizarre).

Also never said there was anything disrespectful about wanting to prepare their own meals.

Now we’re done with the fiction …

What is the case here is that it’s disrespectful to, by choice, cause disruption and inconvenience to those you share a house with for the majority of the week. Especially when your parents are subsidising you living there as an adult.