AIBU to not compromise on my daughters birthday dinner for the sake of my niece and nephews

[randomcar1990]

My DD is turning 12 tomorrow, I also have a DS. Me and my DH have decided to let our daughter plan the entire day. She is having a birthday party with her friends next week, so on her actual birthday she wants to spend time with her cousins. So the whole family is coming over for the day. We are all going to the cinema and then we are going to dinner. My daughter loves seafood, and there is this one restaurant she wants to go to for her birthday. The restaurant is a bit more fancy than where we would usually go with the whole extended family, but it's her birthday and I'm willing to pay a bit more money for dinner because it's her birthday.

I did send my family a text and I told them about the restaurant. I also told them that I don't mind helping pay if some people think affording this restaurant would be difficult for them. Because I don't expect everybody to be able to afford the prices. Everybody was okay with the price and they were excited to go. Except for my brother, he told me that he looked at the kids menu and he said there was nothing in the menu that his kids would like. To be fair, the kids menu is more limited, there are options on the kids menu but because the restaurant is more fancy the kids menu is basically just smaller versions of the main dishes. The few non-seafood meals on the kids menu are also foods my brothers kids do not like. His kids are 11, 9 and 6.

So I did ask my daughter if there was any other restaurant she wants to go to. She said no.

I told my brother that I'm sorry but it's my daughters birthday and this is the one restaurant she wants to go to. I told him that his kids can eat something before we go to the restaurant but I also told him that surely there has to be something his kids like at the restaurant. I've looked at the menu and the kids menu still has things like fish and chips but his kids don't like fish. So I told him that his kids can have chips. But he is telling me it's not fair that his kids only have have the option of eating chips at this restaurant.

However, I am not changing the restaurant, my daughter wants to eat dinner at this place so that is where we are going to eat dinner

It's your daughter's birthday.she gets to choose what she's doing! If her picky cousins won't eat at the restaurant then they either eat before as PP have said, they eat a dessert only or they don't go and they miss out on that bit. Why should the birthday girl have to compromise? Why doesn't the brother and his kids? It's only one meal out of the whole year and it seems the rest of the time they go places the cousins will eat

I love reading the primary school menus posted outside the schools in France. OP's brothers children would go home hungry most days.

Not everyone wants to be faffing around with sandwiches in the backyard.
Some people like to go out and enjoy a meal.

op she can’t have it both ways, neither is wrong. But she stands to lose out more if she insists on the restaurant.

Everyone (including other extended family and cousins) stands to lose out more if they pander once again! They actually want to go to that restaurant and are excited about it.

Maybe. But equally, best for DD to learn now that: a) you can’t make your relatives do anything they don’t want to do. B) birthdays are disappointing as is Christmas, anniversaries, holidays and everything else. C) you can’t please everyone d) eating out is over rated. D) in the scheme of things it’s not a biggie. If she accepts this now it’ll save her a lot of angst and MM posts later on!

You don’t like your life much, do you?

What a drama about nothing.

Whenever you pick what you want to do when you're hosting a party, you have to accept that it won't be to everyone's taste. This will happen throughout her life.

When I went clubbing for one of my birthdays I accepted that my friends who weren't into it probably wouldn't come. When one of my friends went glamping for her birthday I'm sure she didn't expect me to go. It didn't affect any of the friendships.

The compromises you make are up to you ultimately. On the one hand, trying to please everyone all the time is a mug's game so you should really just pick the restaurant you want for your birthday. On the other, when I had a small birthday dinner for close friends one year, and I knew one of those people didn't like spicy food, I opted not to book a Szechuan place and went for an Italian instead.

But none of this was actually an issue or caused any drama. The most baffling thing about this thread is how big of a problem it seems to be for OP's family. If the fussy cousins don't want to go to the restaurant then that's OK surely. No one needs to change anything.

And if she didn’t want Italian either? Or any other restaurant that wasn’t her specific 3 restaurants?

Well... she did want Italian, which I knew already, so it's a moot point. She's not a fussy eater. It was easy to find somewhere that would please both of us.

If I was friends with a super-fussy eater I would just not invite them to a restaurant (and a super-fussy eater probably wouldn't mind, as restaurants are presumably not their thing).

Why didn’t you just go to the restaurant with your own family after the cinema with cousins? Have a nice time then wave them off. Some things are best saved and special for you, your child and how your family unit likes it.

So much hassle and complication.

Given that the only reason to go is the 12yo birthday and she wanted her cousins there, then she does stand to lose out the most.

my opinion is let the 3 cousins miss out. They need consequences for the fussiness.

She has some cousins there and picky eater cousins can eat chips, which is probably what they eat at their ‘safe’ restaurants.

I have looked at the menu and prices. It is not an expensive restaurant at all. It is normal prices. Agreed it is not cheap, i.e. McD's, KFC etc.

The ones that grow up being pandered to like the cousins are, absolutely would mind! Trust me!

Fussy people who manage their fussiness without making it other people’s problem, absolutely can socialise , have fun and enjoy an outing even if the food isn’t an option, so don’t assume they automatically should be excluded.

French school menus are very good,
and all DC are strongly encouraged to take them up with generous financial aid provided.

Educating children’s palates is taken very seriously there. New foods are discussed in the early years classrooms then introduced in small steps during successive lunches. The French educational system is far from perfect, but they do food right.

If you’re fussy (and I mean fussy not allergies or vegan or anything) you don’t understand what an impact it has on everyone else when you go out for a meal. The face pulling at anyone eating something you wouldn’t eat and then the comments, looking like you’re going to throw up when you put the smallest bit of plain chicken on your fork, the stress about ordering said plain chicken off a very unadventurous menu. I’ve got some picky extended family members and it doesn’t matter how plain or safe the food is, it’s never plain or safe enough for them. So the brother should graciously decline and let the rest of the family enjoy a meal out for once imho and the consequences of being a picky fucker should be on the pickers and not on everyone else for a change.

Maybe the cousins need to learn to ‘go with the flow’ and not have everything tailored to their needs. Their parents also need ti work on expanding their food tastes .

That behaviour is a choice and nothing to do with the fussiness. The only time I pulled faces or made any kind of noises was when a “i know better than you “ fucker secretly served me lamb in a curry. In her opinion, my issues were because I never had lamb “the right way”. So she decided to “fix” me. Nope , I reacted the exact same way I always did (feeling queasy/actually being sick) and I had told her in conversations. The irony is , SHE was the offended one. Ex friend after that, obviously.

My eldest GC loves sushi, snacks on seaweed etc. Her younger sibling has a restricted eating pattern. We'd go with the eating before we went, chips and desert. It's your DD's birthday, she gets to choose.

I wouldn't ask anyone to go to a restaurant and sit there watching everyone else tuck in while they picked at some chips. I can hang out with them at other times and in other places.

A super-fussy eater who expected to be pandered to would not be a friend of mine, I don't have the energy for that in my life.

You know that for many children this isn't a choice? For some it might just be fussiness for others a medical condition. ARFID is a recognised medical condition.

Can you ask the restaurant if they could do something they would like? Or if it would be alright to bring something to go with chips, if you are a big party spending lots of money they may be happy to help.

I think if the cousins are important, she should have picked a restaurant that accommodates them and wider family and then done the fish restaurant as a smaller family outing. You have to learn that when you’re dealing with a larger group, you have to compromise a bit for harmony.

What if they enthusiastically eat the chips?😬

Even for ARFID, the advice isn’t avoid exposure to all foods other than safe food forever. It is positive exposure, without pressure. Like a nice day out with cousins and family, chatting, joking, having fun, and picking the one safe thing off the menu(or even nothing at all and they can eat before or after) while no one bats an eyelid or makes a fuss.