To be irritated by my parents always expecting dinner?

I don't understand begrudging feeding your parents, you know they come over Saturdays late afternoon so make sure there's enough food. If you're on the bones of your arse and counting every penny tell them that, but that doesn't appear to be your gripe.

Coming up with dinner every night for the rest of your life is one of the worst things about being an adult ........ Me thinks your mum has discovered a short cut.

Snaffling your birthday chocolates was rude. I would have said 'no you don't, they were a gift'

Time to use your words OP.

If they're coming at tea time, as them to bring something, or "can you stop at the chippy on the way and get us all something?"

Re the chocolates, just say “sorry no they’re my birthday present and I’m not sharing them with anyone else”
Is it a British thing that we don’t say “if you would like to eat dinner with us in future, I’ll need to know beforehand so I can make sure we have enough for you. It’s really annoying to have to rustle something up every time you drop in Unexpectedly. Let’s arrange it once a month in advance thanks.” It sounds easy but can be uncomfortable to say in practice.

I am surprised that you wouldn't normally offer your parents food at meal times. Would it be less stressful to just make it a weekly invitation?

Presumably your parents fed you often enough? I wouldn’t begrudge them a bit of quiche or a chocolate tbh

Not just British. I can think of a fair few cultures where expecting your parents to book one meal a month with you in advance would raise eyebrows!

I agree with pp's. YANBU about dinner. I would be really irritated by that and might make a point of having an early dinner at lunchtime a few times, to break the cycle. Even if it meant having to swap my usual weekend schedule around a bit. It's not that I wouldn't want to feed my parents from time to time, but the relentless expectation of it would niggle at me!

But you were definitely in the wrong about the chocolates. It is incredibly rude to eat a chocolate and not offer them around. You could have waited and had a chocolate later, after your parents had left, if you didn't want to share them.

I hate comments like this. You don't have to put up with behaviour you dislike just because the person in question will die one day.

I would quite like it if my parents did this, but could see that a couple of times a week, or even every week, could be too much. Would it help if you planned in advance, eg if they normally come on Saturdays, buy extra for them and say, would you like to come over for tea? Also make sure some weeks you have other plans / stay out all evening so they don't expect the same thing every week.

Exactly this, if I didn’t want to give up one of my last three favourite chocolates I don’t care who you are you’re not having one.
OP you’re someone who probably has a good home and work life, responsible and respected by your peers and yet you can’t address this issue with your parents. What is is the worst that could happen?

Well stop feeding them then if it annoys you so much. If they say they've already eaten just say "Oh, sorry, we dont have enough and you said you've eaten already". They keep doing it because its working isnt it?- you do keep feeding them, albeit feeling resentful. You cant change them but you can change how you respond to them. Once they realise their strategy isnt working they'll stop doing it. Otherwise, why would they just stop?- they're getting exactly what they want.

"hey mum, yeah come over at 5pm. If you have dinner before you come that would be easier if you don't mind".

"We'll see you at 5pm, I'm serving lasagne, please bring the garlic bread!"

"Sorry mum, I only have 3 chocolates left, hope you don't mind!"

"Sorry, I don't have enough tonight, do you want another cuppa and a biscuit before we head out?"

You need to put yourself first, that's what she's doing! And there's nothing wrong with that either. When you let other people dictate what you do (however much you love them), you get resentful.

I dont just drop in on DS and DiL and expect to be fed. It's rude and they are not made of money. I'll go if I'm invited or just have coffee.

Don't have them over at mealtimes?

These are not random people dropping in, they are your parents. I would assume that if mine are visiting that I would feed them and would be happy to do so.

You brought it on yourself with the chocolates as that was rude to eat one knowing there wasn’t enough to share or you didn’t want to share

I thought exactly this same thing. Was furious for you about all but the chocs - I was brought up never to eat sweets/chocolates in front of others without offering them around, so even now, if I'm not prepared to share I have to eat them when I am alone (or keep sneeking into another room to scoff one! (That said, in the position your mum put you in, I would probably have lied and said there were none left, that I was eating the very last one, and not felt any guilt.)

Presumably, your parents fed you every day while you were growing up, is it really that much of a ball ache to make a bit extra when you know they're coming?
This place gets weirder.

They are your parents, I presume with the exception of this issue they are decent people? If it always happens on the weekend I would just make a bigger portion of whatever I had planned. If they don’t turn up then you have leftovers

Absolutely this. No idea why this has become the drama it has.

These are the people that housed you, educated you, clothed you and loved you to get you to the functional adult/parent you are, and you bitch about providing some food once or twice a week! Wow.

My parents lived a plane flight away so I never had this ‘problem’ but we did take them on our ‘family’ holiday every few years (we only had one every three years due to work schedules). Always swanky, all expenses paid and would have been mortified for them to put their hands in their pockets for any aspect of it. Before people say this means I couldn’t possibly understand OP’s situation, we had exactly the same when I was growing up. My grandparents would visit on a weekend and my mum never knew if they would be coming/staying for lunch or dinner. So, she just factored extra in for each meal. That meant extra’s for lunches at the start of the week. It was in years gone by when my DF would come home middle of the day expecting a hot meal (was the times folks, before anyone jumps in this), and meant mum didn’t need to cook at least Monday lunch. Way before the time of microwaves, so you had to reheat food plates over a boiling pan on the stove but still more convenient than cooking a hot meal from scratch. She didn’t crack it about parents staying for meals, just found a way to happily work it in.

I don’t know why this is such a drama. Factor it in as standard, and what is extra can just be used Mon/Tues for lunches. Workplaces have microwaves in break rooms now so worse case scenario if having to reheat hot meals isn’t exactly a horror story.

As for not wanting to share chocolates with your mum. Okay, but so sad.

I have the opposite problem, my parents will bring random food with them - usually something half cooked which then needs to be finished and then an appropriate side dish - which sounds like a nice thing but they never tell me in advance so it throws out my meal plan.

I would suggest being a bit less passive:

Proactively invite them to things and then you know if you are or aren't cooking

Ask if they can bring a meal or part of the meal

Suggest they join you for your day trip rather than come to yours

Suggest you go to them

Basically shake it up

I'd just make sure I had enough in to feed them. I can't imagine begrudging my parents, who were visiting over a meal time, a portion of food. TBH, I'd be going out of my way to provide a extra special meal for them. I do it for anyone visiting over or near a meal time.

You have a choice - tell them that you can't afford to/don't want to feed them all the time, or make sure you have a lot of very boring dinner prepped for them when they do this. I suspect the 5th time having spaghetti bolognese or chicken noodle soup with cheap supermarket bread would probably solve the problem (unless your spaghetti bolognese is super delicious that is, you might want to make sure it's jar stuff, possibly padded out with red lentils to go further.)

Oh and tell her "mits off, these chocolates are an expensive special treat for me".

I'm shocked by some of these responses.
This is your parents, who I presume fed and clothed you for the first approx 18 years of your life.
I would just plan ahead and cook for them.
If it's a pressure financially, then have an adult conversation with them or when they offer to come round ask them to contribute something to the meal.
Also it's incredibly rude to get nice snacks out and not offer to share. Your Mums probably wondering why you don't just offer instead of having to ask all the time.