Cooking for visiting family awkward

[Anonymous]

Your menu sounds great for adults but my kids don't eat seafood or steak. We've sure tried but they just don't. My DS didn't eat vegetables for years (although now eats them all the time). Some kids are just picky at certain stages. Your version of family friendly isn't everyone's version. You don't need to make it awkward, just offer something they will eat. It sounds like that got solved so no problem.

[Anonymous]

I'm all for kids having to eat what is served buuutttt.... my kid wouldn't eat that stuff either and she'd be hungry. I, on the other hand, would love it! Better to just have some buttered noodles or a little dish of mac and cheese as others have said. Just a little something the kids can have so they don't whine. Better to keep the peace.

[Anonymous]

I would say that's true for a dinner party, where people can nibble at foods they dislike and then get something more to eat at home, but the rules are slightly different when someone is staying in your home for several days, and especially when there are children involved. (Food is all tied up with comfort, and children generally need more reassurance/comfort than adults.)

My parents taught me from a very young age that it was rude to not at least try to eat food that someone else prepared, even if I didn't like it. I'm talking like, age 3. I know some kids are picky, but I think a 3 or 4 year old is old enough to realize how rude it is to whine and fuss about food. I think you should certainly keep snacks to eat later if they don't like what is prepared, but I don't see why the "rules need to be different." You can also serve bread and fruit at the dinner table, which even the pickiest of kids will probably eat.

My SIL has kids who are picky with very typical american kid palates (chicken nuggets, cheese pizza, hamburgers, fries, no vegetables but fruit is ok). She handles this situation by feeding them beforehand. I have also noticed that my older niece (who doesn't have any health issues leading to her pickiness...my younger niece has feeding issues from medical problems, but my older niece is just used to being catered to) will sometimes branch out if she is outside of her home setting and has gentle encouragement from me.

I don't see any issue with your approach and why you consider it awkward, honestly. I also don't understand why people on this board think that is is the host's duty to serve boxed mac and cheese and buttered noodles.

[Anonymous]

I would avoid seafood...I'm an adult and wouldn't eat that. The pp who Greece the taco-lasagna option was spot on...give people the option to customize it how they like it. I'm not going to eat something I don't like and wouldn't expect anyone else to either.

[Anonymous]

I know it is impossible for parents are easy eaters to understand having a picky eater. I have 1 of each. I did nothing different to make #2 picky..she just has been from the first taste of food. I also think having the others contribute some favorties to the meal is a great idea since you cook differently. I would not have forbidden your son from having it however..maybe he prefers your cooking but let him chose for the few times this comes up.

[Anonymous]

I would avoid seafood...I'm an adult and wouldn't eat that. The pp who Greece the taco-lasagna option was spot on...give people the option to customize it how they like it. I'm not going to eat something I don't like and wouldn't expect anyone else to either.

I think this is incredibly rude, barring allergies and religious restrictions. I am no huge fan on my MIL's greasy Southern cooking where everything is covered in a gooey white sauce (white gravy and biscuits, chicken and dumplings, etc.) and is salty and fatty and there are no green things (everything is tan and white), but I eat dinner when I'm staying at her house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other than that, a good guest knows they should sample what is served, tell the host it's great, and thank them for their efforts.

I would say that's true for a dinner party, where people can nibble at foods they dislike and then get something more to eat at home, but the rules are slightly different when someone is staying in your home for several days, and especially when there are children involved. (Food is all tied up with comfort, and children generally need more reassurance/comfort than adults.)

You know it's really not. And the behavior is just rude. You teach kids when they are young to be gracious guest.

They don't need to like what is served but they don't tell the host.
They take a small serving, you encourage them to try. Some kids will eat at other's houses what they won't eat at home. if the kid doesn't, oh well, either the host will notice and offer something else or you can feed your kid later.

Lastly, the "picky eater". If your kid is going to be picky then you need to teach them from the beginning that means they will have to go, take very small servingsl serving, participate in the meal (talk, cut up there food, kind of push it around on the plate, etc), thank the host, tell the host they loved it and wait until home to eat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You know it's really not. And the behavior is just rude. You teach kids when they are young to be gracious guest.

They don't need to like what is served but they don't tell the host.
They take a small serving, you encourage them to try. Some kids will eat at other's houses what they won't eat at home. if the kid doesn't, oh well, either the host will notice and offer something else or you can feed your kid later.

Lastly, the "picky eater". If your kid is going to be picky then you need to teach them from the beginning that means they will have to go, take very small servingsl serving, participate in the meal (talk, cut up there food, kind of push it around on the plate, etc), thank the host, tell the host they loved it and wait until home to eat.

There's absolutely no indication that the kids who visited OP complained about the food to the host. They just didn't eat much, which apparently made OP self conscious. She told their parents (apparently without the parents bringing it up first, other than to ask "what can I bring?") that they could bring their own food for their kids next time and they did. Everyone was happy except for OP, who still seems to be hurt the kids didn't eat her food.

But in any case, your post is kind of idiotic. You're ostensibly responding to a poster who says "there's a difference between occasional dinners out and staying with someone for multiple days" by suggesting that the kids wait until they get home to eat. Are you serious? Your proposed solution is that picky kids just suck it up and go several days without eating?

More broadly, your post reads like self-righteous nonsense. My child, for the most part, eats whatever he is offered and seems happy about it. But I suspect this has utterly nothing to do with my good parenting, and 100% to do with the fact that he just happens to not be a picky eater. And the folks I know who ate virtually nothing as young children all now eat fairly varied diets and are gracious guests. If I did have a picky eater, I hope I would prioritize making sure that he gets enough healthy food when he needs it rather than making both of us miserable by trying to enforce social norms that he's apparently not ready for yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I would say that's true for a dinner party, where people can nibble at foods they dislike and then get something more to eat at home, but the rules are slightly different when someone is staying in your home for several days, and especially when there are children involved. (Food is all tied up with comfort, and children generally need more reassurance/comfort than adults.)

My parents taught me from a very young age that it was rude to not at least try to eat food that someone else prepared, even if I didn't like it. I'm talking like, age 3. I know some kids are picky, but I think a 3 or 4 year old is old enough to realize how rude it is to whine and fuss about food. I think you should certainly keep snacks to eat later if they don't like what is prepared, but I don't see why the "rules need to be different." You can also serve bread and fruit at the dinner table, which even the pickiest of kids will probably eat.

My SIL has kids who are picky with very typical american kid palates (chicken nuggets, cheese pizza, hamburgers, fries, no vegetables but fruit is ok). She handles this situation by feeding them beforehand. I have also noticed that my older niece (who doesn't have any health issues leading to her pickiness...my younger niece has feeding issues from medical problems, but my older niece is just used to being catered to) will sometimes branch out if she is outside of her home setting and has gentle encouragement from me.

I don't see any issue with your approach and why you consider it awkward, honestly. I also don't understand why people on this board think that is is the host's duty to serve boxed mac and cheese and buttered noodles.

But if you're at someone's house for several days, there is no "beforehand." You can't stuff the kids on Monday in case they don't like what's served on Wednesday night.

If you're talking *at the dinner table*, that's one thing -- I might tell my kid, "Take a bite or two, and if you don't like it, I'll fix you something later." But in order for me to do that, there have to be foods in the house my kid will eat.

[Anonymous]

13:47 again -- Also, making my kid something later is potentially an imposition if I'm staying at someone else's house -- I'm supposed to just barge into their kitchen and start fixing something?

We had a 4-year-old cousin stay with us for several days. There were meals my 5-year-old loves that her cousin would not eat -- not because of parenting or a superior family meal culture or because my daughter because has a more sophisticated palate, but because they are familiar, comfortable flavors to my daughter, and they were new to her cousin.

If the 4-year-old didn't like the pasta salad I made, I made instant mac&cheese for her.

Our situation was a little different, because she was staying with us w/out her parents and tended to get homesick at the end of the day, so it was more important to me to offer her comforting meals than it might have been if her parents were there. But still: She was a kid in an unfamiliar place offered unfamiliar food, and the lack of familiar food made her anxious. I think I'd be a pretty terrible hostess not to offer her a more comfortable option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do think you should accommodate your smaller guests the same way you accommodate the larger ones. A few nights of boxed Mac and cheese is not going to ruin your family's "meal culture." Unclench.

I disagree. Your sister is feeding her kids crap and teaching them nothing about decent food and nutrition. Why should OP stoop to this?

[Anonymous]

13:47, you have a monster of a picky eater, don't you? You do realize that you trained your DC to be this way...?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think you should accommodate your smaller guests the same way you accommodate the larger ones. A few nights of boxed Mac and cheese is not going to ruin your family's "meal culture." Unclench.

I disagree. Your sister is feeding her kids crap and teaching them nothing about decent food and nutrition. Why should OP stoop to this?

It's not her job to raise her sister's kids. If she doesn't want to be accommodating to her house guests, she shouldn't host.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:13:47, you have a monster of a picky eater, don't you? You do realize that you trained your DC to be this way...?

I don't actually -- she's a very adventurous eater, she'll try anything. Her dad, on the other hand, is truly a monster of a picky eater! And I'm a bit of a picky eater myself -- I love most foods, but when there is something I don't like, I Do Not like it and Will Not eat it. Eggplant? Awesome. Sea urchin? Love it! Carrots? I will leave a pile on my plate, no matter how fancy the dinner party.

I encourage my daughter to try all sorts of foods, but I don't insist she eat foods she has tried and doesn't like. I want her to trust her body to guide her eating, and I don't want to engage in power struggles over what she eats or doesn't.

So far I'm happy with how she eats. She loves things like kale, and olives, and I have not passed on to her my hatred of carrots. She went through a won't-eat-beef phase, but she got over it pretty quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids are the eat everything, adventurous foodie type, and I must say that is a very complicated menu for kids.

Most kids are very simple in their tastes. They like what they like, and don't want to eat many different foods.

It is really not your job to teach your family lessons on what to eat, especially when they are guests in your home.

I assume these are your inlaws...

NP here. I disagree. I don't think that's complicated at all. How old are the kids? At some point they need to learn to eat what's in front of them and not complain. I would share your frustration. It annoys me no end that I make a great meal and my SIL will get her 7 year old a PB sandwich instead of suggesting she eat what's in front of her. At what point will said 7 year old start eating normal food? How stressful must it be to be an adult who only eats PB sandwiches, chicken nuggets, pizza, fries and mac and cheese.