Unreasonable to ask spouse who is not a planner to meal plan?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think this is a meal planning issue, it’s a not having dinner ready when everyone gets home issue. Doesn’t matter if he shops daily or weekly if he’s ignoring hangry kids when they walk in the door.

+1. His ignorance and selfishness is deafening

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"On Tuesday and Thursdays, it is your responsibility to have dinner on the table by 7 PM"

Ignore the how.

Have apples if he's late and everyone's dying of starvation.

Have you ever had a Pre-K kid? Feeding them dinner at 7 pm and offering them an apple if they're hungry? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like you and your H need to reassess the division of labor in your house so you're handling dinner and he's handling tasks that are less time-sensitive.

OP here- yes, I agree and keep suggesting this. Spouse doesn't have any ideas about what they can take over and says they still want to do this task. The only thing I can think of is both taking and picking up the kids from school- this would save me an hour a day and leave me plenty of bandwidth to meal plan (though meals may not be to spouses liking).

Then your spouse can make their own meals. Seriously, if what you're making is healthy and nutritious and delicious (or even 2 of the 3), and your kids will eat it, then your spouse can either accept that this is life with children or they can make their own meal.

[Anonymous]

As someone who hates meal planning, yes, this is unreasonable. Now I do think the spouse should have their own system. I buy what's on sale at the store and then make meals from it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"On Tuesday and Thursdays, it is your responsibility to have dinner on the table by 7 PM"

Ignore the how.

Have apples if he's late and everyone's dying of starvation.

Have you ever had a Pre-K kid? Feeding them dinner at 7 pm and offering them an apple if they're hungry? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Agree, poor parenting. Ignorant responses like that really devalue themselves and this thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone who hates meal planning, yes, this is unreasonable. Now I do think the spouse should have their own system. I buy what's on sale at the store and then make meals from it.

That’s half the problem.

The other half their problem is they have hungry young children who are at day care all day until picked up at 5 or 5:30 or wherever.
So No Plan Dan can’t get home from pick up and then start his two hour adult ritual of grocery shopping, smelling fresh parsley, returning home again, rinsing and chopping and cooking, then finally eating way later.
Poor kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who hates meal planning, yes, this is unreasonable. Now I do think the spouse should have their own system. I buy what's on sale at the store and then make meals from it.

That’s half the problem.

The other half their problem is they have hungry young children who are at day care all day until picked up at 5 or 5:30 or wherever.
So No Plan Dan can’t get home from pick up and then start his two hour adult ritual of grocery shopping, smelling fresh parsley, returning home again, rinsing and chopping and cooking, then finally eating way later.
Poor kids.

NP here. I think it's unreasonable to ask spouse to plan, but not unreasonable to say that the kids need to eat when they get home. If dinner isn't ready, the kids can have leftovers, a sandwich, ramen (with some vegetables and a boiled egg!) or something instead, and then just chill at the table when the adult dinner is ready. And of course it'll be OP's spouse who needs to take care of that. It'll be more work, so hopefully spouse will realize it's better to get things ready sooner so there aren't two separate meals.

Yes, it would be definitely better if OP's spouse planned or managed things differently, but there are a lot of things about the world that could be better but that we can't do anything about. You need to solve problems by meeting people where they are, not where they should be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who hates meal planning, yes, this is unreasonable. Now I do think the spouse should have their own system. I buy what's on sale at the store and then make meals from it.

That’s half the problem.

The other half their problem is they have hungry young children who are at day care all day until picked up at 5 or 5:30 or wherever.
So No Plan Dan can’t get home from pick up and then start his two hour adult ritual of grocery shopping, smelling fresh parsley, returning home again, rinsing and chopping and cooking, then finally eating way later.
Poor kids.

NP here. I think it's unreasonable to ask spouse to plan, but not unreasonable to say that the kids need to eat when they get home. If dinner isn't ready, the kids can have leftovers, a sandwich, ramen (with some vegetables and a boiled egg!) or something instead, and then just chill at the table when the adult dinner is ready. And of course it'll be OP's spouse who needs to take care of that. It'll be more work, so hopefully spouse will realize it's better to get things ready sooner so there aren't two separate meals.

Yes, it would be definitely better if OP's spouse planned or managed things differently, but there are a lot of things about the world that could be better but that we can't do anything about. You need to solve problems by meeting people where they are, not where they should be.

That’s oxymoronic: “It’s reasonable to say the kids need to eat something nutritious and filling at 5:30pm, but unreasonable to say make a plan so that the young kids can eat at 5:30.”

lol. Dad sounds clueless and self-centered. This will only get worse done the kids are in school and have activities after school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who hates meal planning, yes, this is unreasonable. Now I do think the spouse should have their own system. I buy what's on sale at the store and then make meals from it.

That’s half the problem.

The other half their problem is they have hungry young children who are at day care all day until picked up at 5 or 5:30 or wherever.
So No Plan Dan can’t get home from pick up and then start his two hour adult ritual of grocery shopping, smelling fresh parsley, returning home again, rinsing and chopping and cooking, then finally eating way later.
Poor kids.

OP said that the kids get home at 5:30 and eat at 6:30. Plenty of kids get a snack at daycare pick up, and then wait for their parent to cook a healthy dinner. OP is preventing that by refusing to let them have snacks, and then blaming her spouse because the kids are hungry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am the organized one / planner in the
marriage and take on the lions share of laundry, tidying, kids logistics, financial planning, scheduling repairs, etc. I care more about these things and making sure they get done right so am fine taking these on. But I also have a big job and can't do it all. I hate grocery shopping and cooking and my spouse likes to cook so agreed to take this on. The problem is spouse prefers to shop a little bit at a time as they go / as it occurs to them and there is never any plan for meals for the week and it's always a surprise whether there's any food in the fridge. Our kids come home hangry from aftercare and I'm hangry after a long day of work, and spouse will just kind of improvise dinner. This is stressful to me and I've asked for a more regular routine- plan out meals for the week, substantial grocery run once a week with opportunity to add things to a list before, clean old food out of fridge once a week. I recognize cooking is HARD so I don't care where meals come from - all prepared food? Fine. Meal delivery? Fine. The current (lack of) system is just too chaotic for me. Spouse seems to think this is an unreasonable ask - is it?

I think your request is unreasonable. You have food on the table, he cooks it’s just not predictable for you. I think if you want him to cook and shop, then you should not micromanage him on how he chooses to go about grocery shopping and cooking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who hates meal planning, yes, this is unreasonable. Now I do think the spouse should have their own system. I buy what's on sale at the store and then make meals from it.

That’s half the problem.

The other half their problem is they have hungry young children who are at day care all day until picked up at 5 or 5:30 or wherever.
So No Plan Dan can’t get home from pick up and then start his two hour adult ritual of grocery shopping, smelling fresh parsley, returning home again, rinsing and chopping and cooking, then finally eating way later.
Poor kids.

NP here. I think it's unreasonable to ask spouse to plan, but not unreasonable to say that the kids need to eat when they get home. If dinner isn't ready, the kids can have leftovers, a sandwich, ramen (with some vegetables and a boiled egg!) or something instead, and then just chill at the table when the adult dinner is ready. And of course it'll be OP's spouse who needs to take care of that. It'll be more work, so hopefully spouse will realize it's better to get things ready sooner so there aren't two separate meals.

Yes, it would be definitely better if OP's spouse planned or managed things differently, but there are a lot of things about the world that could be better but that we can't do anything about. You need to solve problems by meeting people where they are, not where they should be.

That’s oxymoronic: “It’s reasonable to say the kids need to eat something nutritious and filling at 5:30pm, but unreasonable to say make a plan so that the young kids can eat at 5:30.”

lol. Dad sounds clueless and self-centered. This will only get worse done the kids are in school and have activities after school.

Can you never find something nutritious and filling to eat on the spur of the moment? Making sure you have emergency stuff around like ramen, eggs, and a bag of broccoli is much different than making and executing a weekly meal plan.

I agree with the poster who said that the problem is that he's ignoring hangry kids, not that he doesn't meal plan.

[Anonymous]

Keep some quick and kid-friendly things available so that you can make something when you get home.

[Anonymous]

It won’t kill the kids to be hungry for an hour. No wonder Americans are so fat.

[Anonymous]

I am a single parent who works outside of the home. I can’t imagine how the expectation that a parent picks up their kids from daycare and walks in the door and dinner is immediately on the table works. Making fresh, healthy, varied food takes time. Kids benefit from fresh meals. They benefit from variety. They benefit from seeing food prepared and participating in the preparation. The fact that OP says she doesn’t care if her kids eat processed crap as long as she can control everything is telling.

They also benefit from shorter days in childcare so waiting for them to be picked up at daycare until food is cooked isn’t a solution.

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's unreasonable, but I see how this plan could be undermined by a partner whether through weaponized incompetence or otherwise.

What I would do is stick with letting them plan dinner, but spend a few minutes creating a standing Sunday delivery of snack food (fruit, veggies, whatever) for you and the kids. That way you aren't hangry and DH still is on tap for dinner.