I told my family that I refuse to make more than two meals at our weekly family dinner...AIBU?

[waterbottle1988]

DH and I moved into our new house about 4 months ago now. We have 2 DC. For about 10 years now my extended family has all had dinner together almost every Sunday. My DM and DF have hosted for the past 10 years. But when I moved into my new house, we invited everybody over for dinner and we realised that there there was a lot more space at my house for the weekly family dinner. So my DM asked if I could start hosting the family dinner every week. I agreed.

In my family one person is vegan, one person is vegetarian, multiple people have cut out certain foods (no medical reason, they just are on a diet). 5 of my nieces and nephews are picky eaters but they will still eat a decent range of foods. 2 of my nephews have autism and will only eat a handful of meals due to their sensory issue. Then everybody else likes a wide variety of food.

So every Sunday me and my husband end up cooking multiple different meals. The main meal mostly everybody loves, a vegan version of that meal, multiple dishes for some of my adult family members who are on certain diets, a completely separate meal for my nieces and nephews who are picky eaters and another completely separate meal for my nephews with autism. Hosting has become so difficult, and I am also a mum of 2, my kids are 7 and 3. I am starting to dread Sunday's now.

So yesterday I sent a text to my family. I said: "Hi everybody, I can't wait to see you all on Sunday. I just thought I should let you all know that me and DH have decided to only make two meals this Sunday. Shepherds pie and a vegan Shepherds pie. Unfortunately I have started to find Sunday's very stressful because I end up cooking multiple different meals all day long. You are free to bring your own food, that is perfectly fine. But from now on, I am only cooking the main meal and a vegan version of that meal. This is nothing personal, and I am not angry at anybody, but I am just trying to decrease my own stress level."

I sent that text and got a private message from my mother. She said that I am being being an impolite host, and that it is rude to invite the whole family over whilst not being willing to accomodate everybody's food preferences. My DM said that she managed to make multiple different meals every Sunday for 10 years, which means I should be able to make different meals too.

AIBU?

no, as in "I've realised how much work this was for Mom, and is for your families having to navigate so many different meals in your own homes". but that was also when I thought one was medical needs. I feel for the parents of the autistic boys because it's so hard. the picky eaters, it depends what kind of picky eating
sometimes it's beatitude, sometimes it's the first signs of ND or sensory stuff kids don't understand themselves etc.

Well she needs to shut up then IMO. Two dishes with some extra sides or something is fine. I would try and get rid of this burden now if I were you though and use the excuse that they can do better / more.

And in my defence your post is loonnnnnnnnnggg.

Definitely YANBU to stop cooking all these different meals. Everyone paying towards the dinner is the only thing that makes it a bit tricky. People might not want to pay if they know they/their DC won't eat it.

Moving towards some kind of buffet where everyone brings something might be a compromise.

Christ, so every Sunday is spoken for with a family meal? Time to dial the whole thing back to no more than once a month. The number of meals is the least of your worries here

Is your mum retired by any chance?

Any chance you could move away from weekly? Maybe every other week? This is just madness. Does this mean you do Christmas and Easter too?

For the other eaters one option would to to batch cook their safe meals and freeze them. Just defrost or put in the oven every week!

Every single week? Fuck that.

My husband’s family is replete with vegans, vegetarians, pescatarians, coeliacs, and an attention seeker with a new self-diagnosed intolerance a month. There’s a reason we only host them about twice a year.

Not unreasonable at all. You’ve given them an option that works - they are free to bring their own food!

I have two autistic sons and routinely take packed lunches of their safe foods everywhere we go, them’s the breaks.

Make sure their is space for them to heat up/plate up their kids’ food though.

Yanbu. I couldn’t be bothered to feed the 5,000. Give them a fish and bread 😂
I invite fil over most Sundays as he’s on his own and is helpful in emergency situations with DDs so I give him a good feed and beer.
It must cost loads every week to feed everyone. When we lived in Oz we had bbq’s on Sundays, it really did tot up.

There's such a thing as being a polite and gracious GUEST.

OP do you enjoy these meals? are they important to you?

I ask only in response to the posters telling you you don't need to see your family weekly, only eat together once a month, tell people they aren't invited if they don't eat exactly what you cook etc.

would you prefer to not be having these meals regardless of who's cooking?

Do you not have lives on a Sunday, so see other people, hobbies, go to attractions etc? Do family never move away? Where do in-laws fit in? Never mind all the different meals

Ignore your mother, don't say any more to her.

The rest of them probably deep down realise how much you have been doing already for all of them, and fair is fair, you have now said no to any more pandering for twenty different orders! Honestly I doubt any of them will complain, why would they? And if they do that's tough they get what you are providing or bring their own from now on. I think they would be very unreasonable to say anything negative at all IMV, so if they did I'd ignore them too.

On another note, EVERY SINGLE WEEK?? Ah no. It sounds like the Royle Family. Have none of them anything better to do on a Sunday every week themselves? Weird that.

Stick to your guns girl. You've done your bit, and I admire you.

Stop the weekly family meal altogether and do your own thing. It’s become a burden now.

Every week?
I don’t want to see my family that much. You are not being unreasonable.

Or you could put all the different likes/needs into chat GPT and get it to write the meal plan 🤣

I actually do enjoy these meals. Cooking millions of meals isn't fun but I enjoy family meals. As does everybody else.

OP your mum wasn’t hosting each week with two small, school-going children. She may even be retired? Hosting is a very different matter when you don’t have kids to worry about.

Anyway, the fact that she was willing to do it doesn’t mean you have to be too. We all have different capacities and realities.

Maybe Sunday needs to become takeaway night

"I'm not you. I could stop inviting everyone over instead, but I thought we all enjoyed getting together?"

I feel claustrophobic reading this, OP.

Every week you all get together. Does this suit you and your partner? Could it be dialled back a bit?

As a PP suggested once/twice a month and then everyone brings a dish so you have a buffet type meal.

We host fairly often as we have the big kitchen/diner/lounge area that accommodates the most people but there’s no way I’d be hosting weekly (even if only cooking 1 meal at a time) as it’s such a big amount of my free time in the week.

I suggest OP’s mother goes back to hosting if she wants to accommodate every person’s preference/requirement.

YANBU - but that is actually batshit crazy to have prepared so many different meals in the first place!

I would say that your whole extended family is far too enmeshed. I could not commit to hosting weekly. There are so many other things to do. If it continues then why not do a buffet and everyone bring a couple of dishes.
As pp said. This is your Mums family, not yours, and she wants this to continue.

It's ridiculous to do all that once a week. I'd switch to doing it once a month. It must completely dominate the weekend.

How often do you see your in-laws? What happens if one of your DC has a sports club on a Sunday?

When we host extended family we usually have 10 - 12 different sets of dietary restrictions to deal with, so we’ve got pretty good at cooking the kind of meals that have lots of different component parts that all go together, so hopefully everybody gets stuff they like and it feels like we’re all eating the same meal.

So if you want to occasionally make the different meals for everybody (eg for Christmas/easter) then you could try that approach

eg for our last big family meal we went Italian - chicken Milanese, aubergine parmigiana, pasta that could be plain or with bolognese or with roasted veg or with cut up sausages, garlic bread, caprese salad, a white bean and courgette salad, plain green veg, focaccia. A lot of it could be made in advance or bought. Everybody got at least one protein, one carb and one veg that I thought they’d eat and everything went together.

We’ve also done Turkish, Mexican, American, etc.

Just throwing it out there.

You are being more than reasonable. Two versions of a meal is enough. Fusspots and those with particular needs can bring their own.