How much would you accommodate sibling?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not accommodate this nonsense at all. She is a grown woman.

+1 (kind of)

I'd give her the menu and tell her she is free to order out, if this doesn't work. Mitigate the cooking mess arguments. Your parents sound like enablers and will probably try to drag you into her mental health problems. Don't go down that road; it will never work out for you.

This!

[Anonymous]

Have a few basic things on hand she can eat and whip up herself that require minimal effort. Is there a grocery store she can walk/uber to? Then she'll be fine. Or she can pack her own snacks/meals.

Other than that, don't accommodate her at all. She is a fully grown adult. Don't enable her food aversions. You can't manage or fix another person's ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of my siblings had a pretty bad eating disorder among other issues like anxiety. She is 26 and still lives at home, but my parents walk on eggshells with her and have never forced her to get help.

My parents, siblings and their families are all coming to visit next month so there will be 14 people that we are responsible to feeding and entertaining for a few days. This is totally fine, but my sister with the ED has. Very restrictive diet and my parents have asked me to try to accommodate her for all meals so she has something to eat.

Given the number of people, we wanted to keep things easy and were planning to order pizza and salad for one meal, grill burgers and hot dogs, etc. My sister doesn’t eat any of those things - no bread, no red meat, no dairy. She really only eats things she cooks herself so there is no oil or anything she won’t eat. I am really not sure how I would accommodate this unless I let her cook her own meals, but not thrilled about that either since she always makes a humongous mess that she never cleans up.

How accommodating would you be here? Don’t want to encourage her not to eat the entire weekend, but always don’t want to make things even more complicated and messy.

OP, I assume you'll be serving sides with the burgers and hot dogs. So just include a big green salad (spinach, carrot, cucumber, tomato, etc.) with every meal, have some nuts on hand for protein and include some fresh fruit as a dessert option. You could also make a four-bean salad and leave an undressed portion on the side for her that she can dress herself. If she'll eat canned tuna, you could get a few cans: it would take her no more than two minutes to mix some up with mustard, and rinsing out the can for recycling/rinsing out her dish and placing it in the dishwasher would also take minimal time. For three days, that should be sufficient.

[Anonymous]

I'm amazed at all the nastiness. Email, call or text her asking what she'll eat and incorporate it into meals. Simple and done. Get her a few non-stick pans just for her at home goods, marshalls or walmart.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Aluminum-7-9-11-Non-Stick-Skillet-Pack-3-Piece/55322858?athbdg=L1103&from=/search

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm amazed at all the nastiness. Email, call or text her asking what she'll eat and incorporate it into meals. Simple and done. Get her a few non-stick pans just for her at home goods, marshalls or walmart.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Aluminum-7-9-11-Non-Stick-Skillet-Pack-3-Piece/55322858?athbdg=L1103&from=/search

Let me guess: you've never had to deal with long-term dysfunction or are completely co-dependent.

It would be one thing if the sister's food preferences were simply limited to no dairy, red meat or bread: grilling some chicken and veggies along with the burger and hotdogs would be an easy, no hassle accommodation. But since this person has a serious ED, we can infer that, reading between the lines, she would refuse to eat anything cooked on the same grill as the meats or drizzled with olive oil to prevent it from sticking or burning. Also because of the oils, easy, conventional sides such as pasta salad and potato salad would be a no-go. And to top everything off, unlike healthy people who, having stringent food restrictions, would do as much as possible not to inconvenience a host who will be cooking for 14 other people, the sister would not only insist upon taking up and time and space in the kitchen but also would leave a huge mess for the OP to clean up. So on behalf of intelligent, reasonable people with healthy boundaries everywhere, the answer to the OP's parents' requests is hell no. It sucks for the sister that she's mentally ill, but it's an explanation, not an excuse.

[Anonymous]

You should let her cook meals at your house.

I think it’s weird you have an issue with that. You sound very controlling and unsympathetic.

I do not think you have to cook her exact meals yourself, but if there are ways to accommodate her quirks by making a few simple accommodations please do so.

[Anonymous]

Why can't she bring her own food in a cooler? I know 2 people who would rather do this then figure out they've eaten something bad. I have fresh salad and veggies but they insist due to their allergies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why can't she bring her own food in a cooler? I know 2 people who would rather do this then figure out they've eaten something bad. I have fresh salad and veggies but they insist due to their allergies.

*than

[Anonymous]

I think the hang up here seems to be emotional and not logistical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You should let her cook meals at your house.

I think it’s weird you have an issue with that. You sound very controlling and unsympathetic.

I do not think you have to cook her exact meals yourself, but if there are ways to accommodate her quirks by making a few simple accommodations please do so.

THAT'S what you got from OP's post, lol?
You've got it all backward -- the sister is controlling, selfish, apathetic toward others and doesn't accommodate anyone else but herself.

Would you want your nice pans trashed, and then have to scrub them for hours?

Her sister isn't a toddler... she's a grown adult.
It's high time she started acting like one.

OP, eventually you're gonna have to have the tough talk with your parents, because they created this monster by enabling her for so long. This is their doing and they need to know that.
What exactly did they think was going to happen with her when they pass away?

Do they think she'll come live with you??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm amazed at all the nastiness. Email, call or text her asking what she'll eat and incorporate it into meals. Simple and done. Get her a few non-stick pans just for her at home goods, marshalls or walmart.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Aluminum-7-9-11-Non-Stick-Skillet-Pack-3-Piece/55322858?athbdg=L1103&from=/search

Let me guess: you've never had to deal with long-term dysfunction or are completely co-dependent.

It would be one thing if the sister's food preferences were simply limited to no dairy, red meat or bread: grilling some chicken and veggies along with the burger and hotdogs would be an easy, no hassle accommodation. But since this person has a serious ED, we can infer that, reading between the lines, she would refuse to eat anything cooked on the same grill as the meats or drizzled with olive oil to prevent it from sticking or burning. Also because of the oils, easy, conventional sides such as pasta salad and potato salad would be a no-go. And to top everything off, unlike healthy people who, having stringent food restrictions, would do as much as possible not to inconvenience a host who will be cooking for 14 other people, the sister would not only insist upon taking up and time and space in the kitchen but also would leave a huge mess for the OP to clean up. So on behalf of intelligent, reasonable people with healthy boundaries everywhere, the answer to the OP's parents' requests is hell no. It sucks for the sister that she's mentally ill, but it's an explanation, not an excuse.

So you agree that you would have a salad and grill some protein, assuming that was something that worked for sister?

Also, why not HAVE A CONVERSATION with both sister and parents in advance about needing them to clean up any extra mess, and then sticking to it at the time? Jumping right to "NO I will not have any food prepared for you/ger to eat and no you cannot prepae any food that you will eat" seems like it is at a minimum skipping several steps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the hang up here seems to be emotional and not logistical.

+1 Very concise way of saying what I have been trying to say.

I said it on page one- treat this situation the exact same way you would any other guest with dietary restrictions, even extreme ones.

Any other choice is not about logistics/hassles, it is about exercising control and making a statement about how others live at a time when presumably you want a fun family gathering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm amazed at all the nastiness. Email, call or text her asking what she'll eat and incorporate it into meals. Simple and done. Get her a few non-stick pans just for her at home goods, marshalls or walmart.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Aluminum-7-9-11-Non-Stick-Skillet-Pack-3-Piece/55322858?athbdg=L1103&from=/search

Let me guess: you've never had to deal with long-term dysfunction or are completely co-dependent.

It would be one thing if the sister's food preferences were simply limited to no dairy, red meat or bread: grilling some chicken and veggies along with the burger and hotdogs would be an easy, no hassle accommodation. But since this person has a serious ED, we can infer that, reading between the lines, she would refuse to eat anything cooked on the same grill as the meats or drizzled with olive oil to prevent it from sticking or burning. Also because of the oils, easy, conventional sides such as pasta salad and potato salad would be a no-go. And to top everything off, unlike healthy people who, having stringent food restrictions, would do as much as possible not to inconvenience a host who will be cooking for 14 other people, the sister would not only insist upon taking up and time and space in the kitchen but also would leave a huge mess for the OP to clean up. So on behalf of intelligent, reasonable people with healthy boundaries everywhere, the answer to the OP's parents' requests is hell no. It sucks for the sister that she's mentally ill, but it's an explanation, not an excuse.

So you agree that you would have a salad and grill some protein, assuming that was something that worked for sister?

Also, why not HAVE A CONVERSATION with both sister and parents in advance about needing them to clean up any extra mess, and then sticking to it at the time? Jumping right to "NO I will not have any food prepared for you/ger to eat and no you cannot prepae any food that you will eat" seems like it is at a minimum skipping several steps.

PP, you're asking very reasonable questions. But that's precisely the problem: what makes perfect sense when all communicants are psychologically and emotionally healthy unfortunately doesn't work and often makes things worse when one party (sister and co-dependent parents) is not. I can pretty much guarantee that the OP can't initiate such conversations because they quickly descend into defensiveness ("I always clean up/she always cleans up" from the sister/parents) and/or gaslighting ("why can't you be accommodating for once?"). That the parents already called with requests knowing that the OP would be hosting and cooking for 14 people tells us everything we need to know about their co-dependency. Similarly, and again, dollars to donuts, what the sister perceives as reasonable accommodations when it comes to food are not anything of the sort (e.g. no oil on the grill; cleaning the grill completely after cooking burgers and hot dogs before cooking more chicken).

[Anonymous]

For gods sakes. Tell her and your parents that they can use the kitchen to cook whatever she wants, but that she or they need to provide the food and clean up after her or their cooking.

"Hey Mom and Larla! I know Larla has some dietary restrictions. I just wanted to let you know that you both are welcome to bring food and cook in the kitchen to help meet those needs - just please clean up as you go since we will have so much going on in the kitchen! Also you are ok course welcome to eat whatever I prepare if it works for you. Look forward to your visit!!"

Done.

[Anonymous]

It’s not that hard to throw a veggie burger on the stove when you order pizza, and she can eat the salad. It’s also not that hard to grill a portobello mushroom, when grilling burgers. Ask her what you can get for her from the store. Thankfully my family and in-laws always manage to do this with each other without feeling put out.