Child responsibilities.. Should dinner be made or even started when the first parent gets home from work?

[Playinwithfire]

Last night I get home, it was around 7.30 and my youngest said mummy I'm hungry. I was confused DH had been home since 2pm and sorted HIS stuff and then he headed off to his hobby. I checked to see if they had enough dinner, then the child says we didn't get any dinner! I'm furious...

There has been a few changes and I have been very understanding that DH is trying to adjust. However, for f"*k sake... I feel like I need to still manage everything and ensure things get done. I'm asked a 100 questions daily. An I snapped last night...

I just don't get how you can go off to a hobby knowing that your children still haven't eaten however, you've made sure all the stuff he had to do was priority and very much completed.

Yes I would expect your husband to sort out dinner for his children. A slow cooker is your friend here as your dinner could have been ready for you too. I just can’t imagine pissing of to a hobby and not making arrangements to feed my children.

I didn't support authoritarian parenting at all. But I would expect a 15 year old to do what his parent asked, and would be cross with them if they didn't. Siding with a child against a parent who is pulling them up on their disobedience isn't good parenting.

Siding with a parent who was in the wrong and tried to deflect his failure onto a child is worse parenting. OP has her children's back. Their father doesn't.

Ridiculous. If this was a mum who asked their 15 year old son to make a simple dinner for himself and his siblings and he just ignored her, the replies would be very different.

Yes, the Dad here is useless, but the 15 year old's behaviour is also bad, and he needs to be pulled up on it. Mum is undermining Dad and teaching son he can just ignore any of Dad's requests if he feels like it. It's really not good parenting from either parent here.

I think if she told the 15yo to make dinner as she was on her way out the door to a discretionary activity, well after dinner time already, without checking whether it was done or going to be done, she'd get her arse handed to her.

I give up. All the wrangling around to justify man always bad, woman always good narrative.

I've been very clear that Dad was pretty useless, but Mum undermining him and sanctioning the 15year olds disobedience is a far bigger, more far reaching parenting fail.

If the dad had said to the 15yo at 6pm, or even 6.30 "hey, I got caught up in a thing, I've messed up dinner time, do you mind doing it" and the teenager agreed I would completely be on your side.

Ignoring it until 7pm, when the kids should already have eaten, and tasking a teenager with it on the way out the door is this bit whee the bloke loses any sympathy from me and should lose any expectation that his wife will back him up in his attempt to deflect his low standards.

But the fact that Dad fucked up doesn't make the 15 year old any less disobedient or the Mum undermining Dad and sanctioning the 15year olds disobedience any less poor parenting.

ALL of the following are true:
Dad was useless
Teenager was disobedient
Mum handled the situation badly.

We've had this exchange and I think we're going to have to continue to disagree. Dad should have no expectation that mum is going to back him up after expecting a teenager to immediately drop everything, not get distracted and do instantly what dad had failed to do in the hours running up to 7pm, and just gave an instruction on his way out the door.

Unreasonable behaviour begets an unreasonable response. I'm another who thinks your characterisation of this as "disobedience" by the teen given the circumstances isn't appropriate, and the response from dad is much more about his own behaviour than his son's.

Where, and be precise, does OP even say she undermined her husband? Nowhere has she ever said that her frustration with him was expressed in front of the teenager. You have made that up to fit your version.

I can only assume you must have had incredibly compliant teenagers, given how vehemently you feel that one not cooking for the others is such bad behaviour and wilful disobedience. God help you if you had one who actually pushed boundaries and didn't jump to comply at your every command.

She said that her DH got cross with the teenager and she got annoyed at him for that. Presumably the teenager was there when Dad was getting cross with him and witnessed mum getting annoyed at Dad and undermining him. And OP has repeatedly stuck up for her disobedient son, and doesn't seem to think he did anything wrong, when he absolutely did.

As I said, all the below are true:
Dad is useless
15 year old was disobedient
Mum handled the situation badly.

Bit of a fuck up all round to be honest.

I hear what you're saying, but I think it depends how you parent your teenagers. I'm not a big fan in ruling 15-year-olds with a rod of iron unless there's no other way - mine are diligent about doing chores, cooking, cleaning and so on with no arguments, because they're reasonable human beings and understand that everyone in the family has to pull their weight.

I don't, however, expect them to be blindly obedient to me for the sake of it - they're people too. So when my eldest teen had a really bad day at school, was late home and then discovered his homework was going to take three hours instead of one, he politely asked to be let off some of his chores. Which was fine, because that only happens once in a blue moon. Just as sometimes, I ask the kids to give me extra help and they willingly do.

Without having witnessed what happened or having a better understanding of the family dynamic, I don't think it's fair to vilify the teen unless you believe they should always obey without question in all situations (which I don't, but I suspect you do). So imagine two different possible scenarios.

The 15 year old might have come home late from school knackered and had loads of homework and other chores to do, seen Dad sitting around scrolling on his phone and only sorting dinner for himself. In that case the teen might have been so cheesed off with Dad's uselessness they decided to sort their own stuff out instead of sorting out Dad's failure. If this is part of a bigger pattern, I wouldn't tell my teens off for disobedience as it's sending the message it's their job to compensate for a useless father. That's not the the message I want my kids absorbing, particularly if they become Dads themselves.

Alternatively, Dad might have been doing some urgent jobs before he went out. He might be an equal parent in the relationship, consistently pulling his weight and doing his share of caring for the kids, and the 15 year old might have been lazy and uncooperative. In which case, I agree the teen needs picking up on their failure to do something that was expected of them.

The updates from the OP suggest the first scenario is more likely.

"DH said he asked the teenager to put food on at 7pm for the younger two!" .

Forget the sex of the parent. Do you think this was appropriate at 7pm? Bear in mind the younger two are primary children.

'Presumably' doing the heavy lifting for you there.

He didn't do anything wrong. That is an opinion, not a fact. Which is out of step with most others on the thread. In my opinion, and many others here, he was not disobedient.

How does the Dad get cross with the teenager if the teenager isn't there?

No he should probably have asked at 6, or even 5.30. He's pretty useless. No-one is debating that.

Did you consult your oldest child before you had any more kids? You know as you are expecting them to cook and clean up after the younger ones?

I expected my children, all of them, as part of the family, to give some age appropriate help in the family from time to time. Stuff like unloading the dishwasher, laying the table, bunging a pizza in the oven etc. That's pretty normal, no?

It doesn't immediately follow that OP expressed her frustration immediately. I know I am capable of raising something later on.

wrong thread

It is pretty normal to expect your children to tidy their rooms and maybe a few other chores. It isn't normal to expect them to cook or look after younger siblings. That is the parents job and while they can ask their older child to help as a favour the child is not disobedient to refuse. It's not their job.

I follow this Facebook poster. Maybe he gets his ideas from MN!

Really? That's a pretty low bar for the teens/young adult children. No wonder there's so many useless adults (usually men) around.

Why would it lead to them being useless as an adult? What skill do teenagers learn by being told to cook and look after younger siblings because their parent wants to do their hobby?

Children being taught to help out occasionally as they are part of the family is a great thing, and helps build responsible adults. Who'd have thought that a 15 year old being asked to bung a pizza in the oven or knock up some beans on toast for themselves and their siblings would be seen as tantamount to child abuse on Mumsnet. Weird. It's just normal in my world. And now they're adults and back from Uni, they still happily knock up dinner for everyone from time to time. Maybe I should be careful, can 21year olds report their parents to Childline for this awful child abuse? (Not even going to start on the fact that they'll ask if we have any washing and put it in when they're doing theirs, something they've done since not much older than OPs son).