“First come, first serve” household?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think this is an only child thing per se, but I understand - and I happen to be an only child. I didn’t grow up with a formal dibs system, but from the time I was a teenager my relationship with my parents was more like roommates than parent/child. Similar to my later communal living situations, there were some things that were considered “house” goods and some things that were assumed to belong to specific people. With my parents it was probably 80% communal and 20% individual while later with friends in my 20s it was more like 20/80.

Even now in my house with 2 elementary age kids, there are certain foods or consumable goods that are purchased with a specific individual in mind. One child eats Brie cheese. One child loves dried mango. Other people can eat the Brie, but no one would ever eat all of it without asking the kid who packs it in his lunch. I love dried mango, but my kids love it more and I prioritize making sure we have plenty before I snack on it. No one calls dibs, but everyone is aware of what other family members prioritize and try to be thoughtful.

To use the pizza example. If we ordered a bunch of pizza, no one would count slices and everyone would eat what they want. Leftovers would be finders, keepers - unless husband and I agreed to save some to reheat for the kids on a specific day/meal. However - we have 1 kid who loves Hawaiian pizza and two adults who like it just fine, but are happy to eat other toppings. Everyone would eat the last slice of cheese pizza without mentioning it to anyone or thinking twice. No one would eat the last slice of Hawaiian without asking Hawaiian pizza kid. We would eat the leftover Hawaiian pizza, just not the last slice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bizarre people on this thread!

Exactly!! And a lot of bean counting and keeping track to make sure everything is equal. Bizarre!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I have the same issue with my DH, OP, and I'm not an only child. My issue with DH is that he will simply eat all the food because he eats more food, and this means that often DD and I don't get as much of "special" food in the house because he was more hungry.

So yes, if we get special takeout, he'll eat all the leftovers without asking if anyone else wants any, meaning he gets twice as much as anyone else did. It is rude and annoying.

However I have gotten him to stop doing it for specific things, by just doing fewer communal things. So now DD and I both have foods and snacks that are "ours" and no one else can have any unless they ask. This has finally allowed us to have snacks or leftovers around the house that don't get vacuumed up by my voracious DH before we have a chance to eat them. I used to have to label them but I'm starting to not do that and DH seems to have internalized, for instance, that he can't eat up all of DD's favorite crackers that I buy explicitly of her lunch, or eat the leftover Thai food that I ordered extra of specifically so I could have leftovers the next day. It's taken years to get this through to him though. He used to just wander around the kitchen eating whatever he found without thinking for a second whether it was being saved specifically by a family member. So weird!

This is incredibly rude. Does he eat your leftovers, too? Like if you ordered the kung pao chicken and he ordered the Mongolian beef, he would eat his beef AND your chicken? I would rip him a new one.

Yes, he absolutely used to do this. He'd open the fridge and see a takeout container and he'd just eat it even if it was a dish someone else had ordered and then packaged up. He just viewed it as collective food and therefore fair game. It has taken years of labeling, reminding, etc., to get him to stop so that if I purposefully save a portion of my meal (which I do a lot, I love leftover Thai or Chipotle for lunch the next day, to me it's one of the primary draws of getting takeout), that means I'm going to eat it.

He still does it with communal foods like pizza though. If I want to reserve a few slices of pizza for myself or DD to eat, I have to go out of my way to either hide them or label the crap out of a separate container so that he won't eat them.

If you get mad, he'll just say "What? I was hungry!" like that's an excuse.

He grew up in a house with two sons, a doormat of a mother, and a father who I think encouraged crap like this. He also doesn't know how to clean at all and hasn't touched a vacuum in like a decade. I love him for other reasons but I do curse his parents periodically for raising him like a neanderthal in some ways.

You need to order more pizza so that everyone can have leftovers to just you or DD. WTF?

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand this dinner thing. 4 people in the family, cook enough for 4 people. If one is out of the house, there will be leftovers. The leftovers are there for whoever wants them. Missing kid might eat them when he gets biome. Or maybe he ate already or wants something else. The next day, anyone can eat those leftovers. The food in the fridge belongs to the household, unless someone bought something specifically for themselves (very rare). We still waste too much food but if we’d saved Monday’s leftovers for the kid who wasn’t there on Monday and he never feels like eating it, it will be wasted. Better for the other kid to eat it on Tuesday or for me to take it for lunch. If it was missing kid’s favorite meal, maybe he’ll ask me to make it again on Thursday. No big deal!

[Anonymous]

pp said, "crap like this" ... as if it's important. It's not important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is with all of this food scarcity? If you're not making enough food and everyone is arguing over it, make more.

This! Make more food and order another pizza, folks. Most of the people posting here earn enough money that we shouldn’t need to fight over the last slice of pizza.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if your driving and you have a kid who gets to the front seat first, Dad will sit in the back? I suspect these rules only come out when they don't involve him.

Lol! My teen jumps in the front seat if I'm driving and he beats dad out the door!

Seriously? Your husband prefers the front seat but doesn’t get it if the teen gets there first? That’s even crazier than some of the other crazy things on this thread. The people who paid for the car get to sit where they want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care how you were raised, I can't imagine gobbling up all of dinner knowing that my teen is going to be hungry when he gets home.

Yeah, I mean, don't you make enough food for 4 (or whatever number of people)? And so if the 3 people at home eat the food for 4, aren't they overeating? That sounds greedy.

I do think this is, at least partly, a family size thing.
I have 4 kids, including 2 teens. If I make enough food for 6 of us, 5 people can eat all of it pretty easily.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Some of this could be solved by making more food for meals so there's plenty for everybody to get their fill at mealtime + leftovers that can be first come/first serve.

In our house, family-style takeout (pizza, Chinese) is fair game. We order plenty of food for whoever is home at mealtime and then any leftovers are first come/first serve. It's not like, there are 4 of us and 16 slices of pizza so each person gets 4 slices to eat now or later. Nope, eat however much you want now, and the rest is fair game.

If there are leftovers of individually-ordered items (like we all go out to dinner and DD brings home half her pasta dish) it belongs to the person who ordered it.

Totally different in my house. If my husband eats 3 slices of pizza and I eat 2, then I have 2 slices coming to me and he has 1. He would never eat my leftover pizza. He knows it will not end well for him.

This mentality is so strange. People eat different amounts. You expect the same exact portion for each person.

I will say, though, that since my DH and I were not raised by wolves, we always ask each other if they wanted more of something before we finish it. when a household gets big it's not always feasible to check with everyone, and it should be considered fair game unless you yourself set aside a porch with your name on it.

People eat different amounts at one time, but given enough time, I can eat the same amount of pizza as my husband. Why should he get more of that cheesy, tomatoey goodness just because he has a bigger stomach? I can have my two leftover slices for lunch, he can have his one leftover slice and a side salad for lunch.

DP with a question: Say it's the day after your pizza dinner and those 3 leftover slices are in the fridge. It's lunchtime and you are out of the house grabbing lunch with a friend. He's home and hungry. Can he eat the leftovers or does he still have to save 2 of them for you?

He would ask me and I would answer depending on what I was feeling like.

So weird.

[Anonymous]

Op here. I did not expect this thread to hit 5 pages so quickly .. or ever 😂

Food scarcity for instance isn’t an issue in our home, unfortunately when I make too much it does go to waste or as one PP noted the person who saved the plate forgets about it or doesn’t eat it and then typically DH eats it. He doesn’t mind days and days old leftovers. I will also admit to not minding McDonald’s that’s hours old.

For the parties, yes if I am late I am that person asking if someone can save me a plate sometimes people do, other times no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care how you were raised, I can't imagine gobbling up all of dinner knowing that my teen is going to be hungry when he gets home.

Yeah, I mean, don't you make enough food for 4 (or whatever number of people)? And so if the 3 people at home eat the food for 4, aren't they overeating? That sounds greedy.

I do think this is, at least partly, a family size thing.
I have 4 kids, including 2 teens. If I make enough food for 6 of us, 5 people can eat all of it pretty easily.

Op again. I think or what I have noticed is, if you have a family of 5, you make enough for a family of 5 and everyone may have two or three servings and all has been eaten. Maybe a small portion for leftovers. If you cook enough for 5 but 3-4 people eat, those eating will eat more than they would in the 5 setting. Then who’s responsibility is it to save for the people not there or in DHs case it becomes fend for themselves as there’s usually another meals leftovers in the fridge or they would eat wherever they are at meal time.

[Anonymous]

Make enough food. I can’t stand gate keeping food. If people are eating it all and others are still hungry, YOU DIDNT MAKE ENOUGH. please make enough food.

As for birthday cake, I was raised birthday girl/boy always got first piece of their choosing. Then I start cutting the cake and you get what you get. No special requests bc someone always gets their feelings hurt. So no I want that flower or I call the corner. No. Birthday kid is only one who gets to pick, then I cut and hand it out.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don't care how you were raised, I can't imagine gobbling up all of dinner knowing that my teen is going to be hungry when he gets home.

+1 We always save food for a family member if they're eating later. It's so rude not to.

Although my sister and our brothers used to get so annoyed with each other because she would save her dessert or part of her meal, then expect it to be there the next day. Of course they would eat it. I kind of see both points of view on this. She preferred to eat her portion at a different time, and they were hungry teens who wanted another helping at dinner that she wasn't eating. I guess it depends whether you're a "here's your share" kind of person vs. a "it's dinner time everyone eat your fill" kind of person.

I feel like this encourages strange eating habits--it's not really fair if someone isn't super hungry right at that moment to insist that they eat all their portion right then, otherwise it's open season for others to grab. Especially if it's dessert. It would just cause a scarcity mentality and overeating in some people.

I guess we were raised differently. Culturally in my family if it’s dinner time and everyone is eating, you eat. If you’re not hungry, eat less. Later if you want to scrounge around fine, but you can’t be upset that nobody saved the main dish for you. If you don’t want dessert now, cut yourself a slice now when it’s out, and wrap it up and tell the family that it’s yours.

So if you ate half your meal, wrapped up the other half, wrote your name on it, and told everyone you were going to eat it in two hours, in your family's "culture" it would be fine for anyone to go into the fridge, take it, and eat it?

I mean… tbh in my culture (Korean) I would never eat half my meal. Maybe if I were sick. If I did wrap it up and ask others not to eat it, I think they would honor that.

I hit post too early. If there were a big pot of chicken soup or braised beef or something, I couldn’t expect someone to save “my share” out of it if I had declined eating “enough” of it at dinner. But if I wanted to eat the dinner beef, I feel like it would be fair to take responsibility to tell someone or set aside my own bowl. I wouldn’t expect others to read my mind and save “my” fair share.

This is how it is in my family too.
If you don’t want something at the mealtime, then it’s fair game for others to take it. If you want something set aside, then you need to set it aside yourself or tell someone that you want it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make enough food. I can’t stand gate keeping food. If people are eating it all and others are still hungry, YOU DIDNT MAKE ENOUGH. please make enough food.

As for birthday cake, I was raised birthday girl/boy always got first piece of their choosing. Then I start cutting the cake and you get what you get. No special requests bc someone always gets their feelings hurt. So no I want that flower or I call the corner. No. Birthday kid is only one who gets to pick, then I cut and hand it out.

It’s not an issue with enough it’s are you saving food for the person not there or is it fair game for everyone there to eat more than they normally would if they desire.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Some of this could be solved by making more food for meals so there's plenty for everybody to get their fill at mealtime + leftovers that can be first come/first serve.

In our house, family-style takeout (pizza, Chinese) is fair game. We order plenty of food for whoever is home at mealtime and then any leftovers are first come/first serve. It's not like, there are 4 of us and 16 slices of pizza so each person gets 4 slices to eat now or later. Nope, eat however much you want now, and the rest is fair game.

If there are leftovers of individually-ordered items (like we all go out to dinner and DD brings home half her pasta dish) it belongs to the person who ordered it.

Totally different in my house. If my husband eats 3 slices of pizza and I eat 2, then I have 2 slices coming to me and he has 1. He would never eat my leftover pizza. He knows it will not end well for him.

This mentality is so strange. People eat different amounts. You expect the same exact portion for each person.

I will say, though, that since my DH and I were not raised by wolves, we always ask each other if they wanted more of something before we finish it. when a household gets big it's not always feasible to check with everyone, and it should be considered fair game unless you yourself set aside a porch with your name on it.

People eat different amounts at one time, but given enough time, I can eat the same amount of pizza as my husband. Why should he get more of that cheesy, tomatoey goodness just because he has a bigger stomach? I can have my two leftover slices for lunch, he can have his one leftover slice and a side salad for lunch.

DP with a question: Say it's the day after your pizza dinner and those 3 leftover slices are in the fridge. It's lunchtime and you are out of the house grabbing lunch with a friend. He's home and hungry. Can he eat the leftovers or does he still have to save 2 of them for you?

He would ask me and I would answer depending on what I was feeling like.

See, I think it would be courteous of him to ask (and I'd think the same if you had eaten more of the pizza the first time around as it's always courteous to ask before finishing the last of something), but I can't imagine saying no!

Courteous, maybe. But overkill. Team DH here.

The only thing killed would be my husband if he touches my pizza. And he knows it.

Ok pizza lady, you may think you're being cute, but it's really not.

This level of slice counting would never fly in a family with more than 2 ppl.