My children are teenagers. The older one - 16 - is the age I was when my mother said “I’ve raised you, good luck.” I ask them EVERY WEEK before they come back from their dad’s house weeks “what can I make this week that you will eat?” They never respond. They’re both in sports, and I don’t want to eat out every evening, so every Sunday, I cook all the meals for the week.
Then all week long, I hear, “there’s nothing to eat here. Why can’t you go get me McDs/The Lord’s Chicken/Taco Hecc/etc.?” You spoiled rotten butt heads; at your age, I was cooking for my siblings meals (the only way I was allowed to eat what was served) if I wanted to eat and if I wasn’t cooking, I was scrounging up money to maybe get a dollar menu item. (It’s my own fault they’re spoiled, I’m aware. I’m a far less permissive parent than I used to be, trust me.)
One part of me is like “woo, glad my kids aren’t like me wondering where my next meal might come from” and part of me is like “how in the blazes dare you?”
It’s mildly infuriating. 🤣
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Edited to Add the following:
- Predominantly, thank you to everyone who has been kind or nonjudgmental in your comments. It is very much appreciated. I was just mildly giggling about how my plight as a parent is, "Here's all this food, you gremlins" and they complain "But there's nothing here!" My plight as a parent isn't extremely infuriating: I'm not fighting a losing battle in court (I have friends who are); I'm not deciding what bill gets ignored while I choose to feed my children; I'm not sitting at a sick child's bedside begging that medicine works. Thank goodness for the gift of perspective.
Now, onto the less kind humans:
- "Where are the fruits? The vegetables. This mother is terrible." There are vegetables, fruits, dairy, and whole grains. What I write on the fridge is what's available that I have cooked, not the entire inventory. The food is in there from Sunday evening to Wednesday evening. And fun fact, pasta heated up 24 hours after it was cooked has a lower sugar/glucose spike, so I like to do this for my husband, too, who has insulin issues.
- "The meals are so unhealthy. You're a terrible mother." Okay, I hear you. I make everything from scratch (except the hot dogs, I'll explain that in a second). The spaghetti is whole wheat and a sauce based on my Sicilian grandmother's recipe and full of blended veggies. The pot pie is loaded with carrots, peas, corn, and green beans, as well as (white meat) chicken. The reason the options are on the side in green is because those are what they typically request when I say, "Alright, no meal ideas. What snacks do you want?" The complaint is that they want fast food all the time; I'd rather buy them their preferences and have them on hand so they can't be like, "There's nothing here!" That's where mildly infuriating comes in: they still complain.
- "Goddamn, teach your kids to cook/you're enabling bad behavior/omg you are a terrible mother." Y'all. This is only during the fall that i do this. Because our days run from 7 to 7 with practices, etc. We send my children to high- and middle-schools across the city from us because they're academically advanced and focused on college prep. That means I meal prep on Sundays because I can't also cook full meals and maintain my job and maintain my house. Holy moly. Both of my children also cook for themselves from time to time, but I like to cook for them.
- "How dare yo complain about the children you created? You are a terrible mother." I'm not complaining about my kids. I'm mildly vexed at the audacity they have to say there's nothing to eat when there's this whole ass list. Ultimately, I'm mildly annoyed; not lamenting the situation and pretending I didn't get myself here in my own car.
- "You are a terrible mother." No. My mother was a terrible mother. Her mother and stepmother were terrible mothers. I'm a full-time working, constantly present, taxi-like driving mother who is doing the best she can. I wasn't given any kind of foundation or example of what a parent should be. Did I mess up as a newly single mom when my second child was only months old and my older child was three? Yes. OMFG yes I did. I'm reticent to believe all these commenters being hateful have never made a mistake, but who knows?
- Honorable mention for: You're a part time parent. Kindly, whoever you are, no I am not.
- Honorable mention for: "That's what you get when you raise kids in a broken home." Kindly, whoever you are, you don't know me or how hard I have worked for the stability and life I have.
About the goddamn hot dogs: My kids' schools are academic focused, so they don't support sports like other schools might. For us, that means the parents of the football team, for instance, get together to feed the team before games. This week, we did a tailgate theme, and I brought the hot dogs. We had like 20 left over, and rather than just throw them away, I brought them home so the kids could eat them if they wanted between Friday and Monday. It's rare I have nitrite-heavy meats in my house. But the hot dogs themselves are beef and kosher because we have one child on the team who does not eat pork (and we don't know if it's a religious or food preference - and it's not our place to ask; we just want to honor and respect the boundary).
And here are the white boards: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CMHMTMHW?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1 At the time of this post, they are $9 for two.
I am probably done responding to comments; may you all have the day you deserve. xoxoxo
