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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

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.

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.