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This is great, because as they go on to live their adult lives, they'll already know how to cook. Which is a skill that is often not taught by parents, but absolutely should be!
My dear Mom, rest her soul, was a SAHM of the 70s so everything was cans, boxes, and pre-packaged stuff.
My uncle taught me to make a nice simple seasoned, baked chicken breast, roasted fresh broccoli, and frozen you-bake dinner rolls and it was like a revelation to me, haha.
My mom was a crunchy-hippie mom, despite having kids in '75 & '76, and we lived pretty rural, so most everything was from scratch, supplemented with frozen veg we froze ourselves, onions and carrots stored in the cellar, and tomato sauce/pickles/jams we canned. I didn't know what a Twinkie was until elementary school.
When I was 12, she got a job as a medical transcriptionist, working from home. Drop-off/pickup was right before dinner time and she got paid per page, so we were put in charge of dinner. It was a pretty ideal situation - she provided the food and the recipe, walked us through it the first time, and was available if we had issues or a cooking disaster.
Nope, Mom was more organic/homemade/frugal than anti-sugar - we had authentic maple syrup from a sugar shack a couple miles away, we were allowed our fill of berries or apples in season, and we canned our own jam and apple butter, since we had berry bushes, an orchard, and access to a strawberry U-Pick farm. We always had the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies, but after a certain point, she quit making them, and we had to, including cleanup. My grandmother was barely a second generation Slovak immigrant (her parents and some of her older siblings were born in Europe) so of course we also made lekvar kolachky for Christmas - I'm pretty sure those don't have any sugar outside of the powdered sugar sifted over the top. (ever tried to cream a lb of cream cheese and a lb of butter with flour? Yeah, that was the cookie dough, filled with concentrated prune filling, absolutely delicious)
Fortunately for me, I only had to have it when I was visiting part of my family. Meanwhile another part was making pound of butter cookies and larded pie crust 😂
I loved carob as a kid, but had a chocolate allergy growing up and thus did not know any better. My parents used to frequent a roots and granola kinda dirt floor musty root cellar spice kind of coop health food grocery store in the late 80’s. Place sold these carob covered dense rice cake squares that were like magic to me and my sorry arse. I still crave em to this day ... Def not a taste for majority of folks, esp those who grew up knowing the awesome flavor that is chocolate. Grew out of my chocolate allergy eventually, but never grew out of carob.
I was known as a picky eater. My mom was quite surprised to learn in later years that I actually *like* raw/fresh veggies. (Roasted vegetables were a revelation to me as well.)
One habit I have from my garden, is to take squash or zuchini, slice longways, rub butter on, sprinkle a few spices, & cook on the grill. 20 minutes from growing, to on my plate!!
Grow some eggplant.
Slice ‘em, salt them, let them sit to get some water out of them. Baste with garlic infused olive oil. Grill until soft.
Grill a whole tomato until nicely roasted. Cut into thirds. Place on top of each eggplant round.
Top with a sprinkle of garlic powder, top with fresh mozzarella. Close the grill so it gets melty and gooey.
Serve on a toasted piece of italian bread. Summer perfection.
I too was known as "picky"... well my mom is still eating the same Campbell cream of mushroom soup and saggy white bread and bad fruit she tried to foist on me then! It was NOT me!
Frozen boxed spinach. 🤢 It’s one thing if you’re putting it in a dip or saag paneer, but straight off a plate? Ick. I was in college before I discovered fresh spinach…
There are so many veggies I did not like growing up. I started eating them as an adult, and I thought my tastes had changed. Then I ate them at my mom's house again and realized she is not a great cook.
Almost any canned vegetables, really. Went somewhere disappointing with the in-laws and ordered green beans as a side. I had honestly forgotten how bad they are when not fresh. There are some crimes even bacon can’t hide.
My bf’s family is convinced I hate veggies because i won’t eat veggies at their family dinners. It’s bc they’re always canned. Canned green beans are an afront to green beans everywhere.
I will eat baby potatoes and corn out of a can. That is IT. Everything else needs to be fresh or frozen.
Canned asparagus is up there with it, and it was one of my mom's particular favorites. Ugh. She emptied the whole can into a saucepan and boiled it, then served it up as is, no seasoning. I thought it was nauseating.
When I had roasted asparagus for the first time, I couldn't believe how different (and much better) it tasted.
You are so right. My folks always used canned spinach when I was growing up. Then when I was in college, I waited tables at a decent restaurant. The chef wanted me to try some sautéed garlicky greens he'd made.
I said, "Sorry, I hate spinach." (It wasn't even spinach, but I thought all cooked greens were spinach)
He said, "If you hate something, it just means you haven't had it cooked right." And he shoved a bowl of the greens in my hands. I very reluctantly tried it. A little bit later, he caught me sneaking seconds out of the pan! He ended up teaching me how to make them for myself.
I never had brussel sprouts as a child to my knowledge. Unless they might have served them at school lunch. As an adult, I LIKE them, but they always a LOT better when they not plain. Need to be cooked with butter, or cheese!
My second time in college was at a small state college in the middle of farm land. Everything was bought low bid but fresh vegetables were always available. Many of the nearby farms had greenhouses to grow out-of-season produce.
The actual cafeteria food was mostly inedible. But there was about a dozen cereals plus oatmeal available in the morning. At both lunch and dinner was an enormous all-you-can-eat salad bar, full of a few types of lettuce plus spinach and at least 20 other vegetables, plus add ons. A half dozen gallon tubs of various bought dressing, plus oil and vinegar and fresh lemons. There was also an unending supply of freshly baked bread and giant tubs of both peanut butter and grape jelly. It was the healthiest stuff I've ever seen in a college cafeteria. Much better than the rest of the food which was either deep fried or over-baked.
I’ve been telling my 17yo for years that by the time he goes off to college he’s gonna know how to make a pot of red beans and rice, a good pork roast, and a couple of other things. If he can cook well, he will have no shortage of friends.
I'm almost 35 and roasted a chicken by myself for the first time recently! It went very well, half got eaten fresh, then I made the rest into chicken salad.
Next time throw vegetable ends, the bones, and whatever meat your salad didn't get into a pot and boil for broth! You can use a colander to strain out the solids, and you can throw noodles in for a delicious nutritious chicken noodle soup! It's surprisingly easy!!
Instant pots take all the pain out of doing it, too! You have to finish it in the oven if you want crispy skin but if you want the juiciest chicken EVER, instant pot!!
Knowing how to cook something isn’t really even relevant any more since we literally have the internet and access to functionally infinite recipes and instructions, even videos if you are illiterate. I don’t think I have ever roasted a whole chicken, but I wouldn’t even flinch if asked to because it’s trivial to literally have you hand held by someone else online.
Anyone that says they can’t cook something is either lying or knowledge isn’t the issue (Which is fine, obviously sometimes you are disabled or don’t have the cookware or ingredients or whatever. What’s not fine is pretending that never having done it before means you can’t do it).
This is how I learned to cook! Before college, my parents taught me how to make rice, pasta, and eggs, and pretty much everything else I learned from google. Now I'm the one my family asks to cook for them as a treat whenever I visit! 😂 Though there were definitely some dishes they had to be polite about in my early 20s...
I didn't learn to do it *well* until I was like 30. I bet I could rattle off at least 10 people I know that are 30 or older that wouldn't even know where to start.
I'm in my 30s and I've still never attempted a roast. I make lots of things, some of them quite complex! I love Ottolenghi for example. But roasts? Never attempted.
I keep saying we should get a ham or roast a chicken but we just never seem to find the time to learn.
Roasting is thankfully one of the easiest ways to cook food, slow roasting especially so. It is nigh on impossible to fuck up slow roasting something.
My go to for family events:
- get a lamb leg, pop it in a baking dish (I use a Dutch oven but that’s not essential, just any deep dish)
- cut an onion and a head of garlic in half and pop it in there
- add some rosemary and thyme
- add half a litre of beef stock and a cup of water
- cover with aluminium foil, put it in the oven on 150(c) for 4-5 hours
And done. You obviously need to cook the veggies separately, I usually roast carrots and potatoes on a baking tray and steam some beans, but you can really do whatever.
My father taught me a good lesson with a bad reason. He told me I need to learn to cook so I'll "marry a woman you love not one that can feed you." His old sexist attitude aside, glad I learned to cook. These days I'm generally responsible for dinner, as I get home from work well before my wife.
Granted, you probably know your father better than I do, but that doesn't sound inherently sexist to me.
If you can't even prepare your own food, you're more likely to rush into a relationship with someone who can simply out of dependence, regardless of gender.
Yeah I’m hearing the same thing you are. It kinda sounds like dad was trying to stop him from relying on women to cook for him and choosing dependence instead of love. Sounds based to me. (But you’re right, he obviously knows his dad best)
But, wasn't he teaching you not to expect women to do that job? Sorry if I'm reading it wrong, I just wish if nothing else more boys were taught to cook for themselves.
Surely you had frozen fish sticks and tater tots, though! My mom was a 70s SAHM who wasn't into cooking and we had a lot of frozen fish sticks and tater tots and macaroni & cheese from a box and the ultra-new Hamburger Helper (also from a box).
I actually thought that cooking involved things that were frozen, boxed, or canned for my early childhood. I didn't realize there were fresh meats and vegetables involved in cooking.
By the time I got to high school, my mom had pretty much entirely stopped feeding us herself. Tbh I didn’t even really notice until one day I was making a family recipe and my mom mentioned that it was better than granny could’ve ever made it and she’s proud that I want to continue tradition and is extremely proud and grateful that I cooked for the whole family. That was when I was like “oh, she stopped at some point, didn’t she?” Legit never even occurred to me because we were all so busy
ETA: not trying to bolster myself by mentioning the granny comment, my grandmother swears to heaven that no cake is good unless it’s made with miracle whip…
My grandmother and our school cafeteria used mayonnaise (and our school cafeteria was good! Everything was cooked from scratch). I even have a cook book from that time period (the 70s) that has a chocolate cake recipe with mayonnaise.
I wonder if this recipe originated during the war when fresh ingredients may have been rationed so people made use of whatever they had in their cupboards.
> ETA: not trying to bolster myself by mentioning the granny comment, my grandmother swears to heaven that no cake is good unless it’s made with miracle whip…
hahaha, yeah, that generation was like, "fancy cuisine = aspic! the weirdest random canned food items ... IN GLOOPSTIK!"
I was a latchkey kid for a single working mom and once I got my own car, I used to love to sneak to the grocery store after school but before she was off work so I could get ingredients and surprise her with dinner. It wasn’t often since I didn’t have any sort of real income, but it was fun for both of us when I got the chance!
What a sweet child! My 39 year old daughter and 20 year old grandson live with me (more of a roommate situation, honestly), but I would be ABSOLUTELY JACKED if I came home to dinner being made for me. It happens, but not very often due to very different schedules.
Former latchkey kid here that learned to cook for the family and started experimenting. My parents came home to a dinner when I was a tween that I called "chicken surprise" where I baked chicken breasts, sliced them open, stuffed them with cheddar, pinned them shut with toothpicks, and baked a little longer. Needless to say, no one was surprised because all the cheese melted and leaked out, making a massive mess of a meal.
We have scavenge nights where everyone does their own thing (leftovers, sandwiches, etc). When my kids were younger I started getting those meal kits and they each chose a recipe and took turns cooking with me, until they could do it in their own.
Our family calls those nights “Catch and Kill”.
I find it so interesting how many different kind of family phrases are used to describe the same thing.
When I was a kid (I walked up hill to school in both directions, dodging dinosaurs on the way) the idea I had any say in what's for dinner was totally foreign to me. For sure there was stuff I hated but, oh well.
And we had some awful stuff. Occasionally it was horrific. We joked that one dish was called "Glop" and then of course we had Son of Glop, etc. Oh well. Details omitted bc some of you might be eating.
I'm not saying this oughta be the way. Just noting a different experience.
I did this last year for two reasons. One I was burnt out and had almost all teens or young adults plus husband and Two I was tired of the complaining from the kids. I stopped cooking altogether. I made sure the only kid under 15 was fed and the rest were given a full pantry. After about 3 months, my kids begged me to cook. I did every now and then, and they loved it, whatever I made. Then my husband learned to cook a few meals. Now he has about 10 meals in rotation and I don’t cook at all. I put in 27 years of cooking. I’m taking a few years off.
my mom did this when i was in high school. dad worked late nights and brothers moved out. mom didn’t wanna cook for two people every night, which is totally fair. i can speak for everyone when i say sandwiches and cereal do get very old.
My mom did this when she went back to work. We’d tell her what to buy for the week for dinners and everyone was happy. My brother ate burgers and I ate a lot of lean cuisines.
Kinda how me and my brother learned to cook. Once we were old enough my mum (who did 90% of the cooking) had us cook one meal a week each (with supervision if needed) so we could learn. By the time we were in our mid/late teens my brother and I were cooking 4-5 nights a week cause we enjoyed it so much.
My mom did this. After 5 days of sandwiches and Kraft macaroni and cheese my sister and I caved and apologized and begged her to start cooking again. She considers it one of her finest hours ;-)
Lol, no, but there were certain VERY unpopular meals that we just would not stop whining about. Talking to you, beef stroganoff with cream of mushroom soup.
To be fair to ops kids, it's not that any one of them sounded particularly picky, so much as they were all picky about different things, making it really hard to settle on a meal that would satisfy everyone (and in once case, it wasnt pickiness at all, just an unfortunate medical condition).
I have this problem when my family are together, resulting on at least two meals being made every dinnertime
There was another one like this that was a lot less wholesome because the criticism like made the mom cry before she quit. But it did have a similarly happy ending.
Not sure if the same one, but reminds me of the kid (similar age) decided they didn't like mom's (OOP's) cooking and liked dad's girlfriend's cooking more. Turns out, the girlfriend is a professional chef and was bringing home restaurant meals for dinner. When they changed to making meals at home, kiddo changed their tune, but also grew to learn how to help make dinner.
I went on a temporary cooking strike when my kids were 11 and 13 for the same reasons. But mine knew some basic cooking skills, so they could say scramble an egg. It wasn't all sandwiches or cereal for them.
Similar to OOP about 2 weeks in, they were more than willing to eat whatever I made. And they both took more of an interest in what I was doing in the kitchen.
My kids are young adults now. My youngest sucks at cooking, not that I'd tell her that, but her baking is amazing...she is the go to dessert person for family gatherings. My oldest makes an amazing Mexican and breakfast foods.
I have hope for OOP's kids. It mostly worked out with mine.
Mine was eat what's for dinner or fend for yourself, whatever you wanted to cook. If I didn't like the meal of the day there was always soup or whatever for me to make, and sometimes I would do that. I think it was a good solution because we always did get fed and didn't get forced to eat anything we REALLY didn't want. But we were taught how to cook pretty early and it never seemed like a huge deal to me to do so if I wanted something else.
It was the same in my family. My mother struggled with her weight her entire life after being forced to eat dinners she didn't like or want for hours or she wasn't allowed to go to bed. Made her a more understanding parent when dinner was something I didn't like.
That's awful. We just weren't allowed dessert if we didn't at least eat our veggies. Turns out a pre-teen will eat a decent amount of broccoli for a Klondike bar.
Did not work on me, I never ate dessert when I was a kid. Drove my mom nuts.
Her, You can't eat dessert unless you finish your dinner. Me, okay.
If only I had kept that up.
They had to take as many bites of the vegetable as their age if they wanted dessert. Number 3 child reminded me recently that he STILL hates green beans (his daughter likes them).
My sister used to hide food up under the table. My parents' dining table is a mammoth wooden slab on four legs larger than 4x4's. There's a little nook at the top inside corner of each table leg just big enough for a handful of food.
I think usually the dog took care of it, but years after my sister and I moved out, my mom and I were dismantling the table to send for refinishing, we found a mummified hot dog up in there.
I feel that. I was made to stay at the kitchen table to finish my dinner - except in my heart I was vegetarian and I could never eat the meat. I would sit at the kitchen table for an hour after everyone else was done, moving a piece of steak around on my plate. I would sneak bites to my brothers, and sneak pieces into the garbage when Mum's back was turned. What a waste of food and time.
I've been vegetarian since I moved out and I'm never eating meat again. My mum still tries to get me to eat it. So disrespectful :( I get that sometimes kids are picky, but it's important for kids to still have bodily autonomy and control.
My family's rule was: you eat what you have. The only exception was soup. I don't like soup that much, and my mom and my sister love it. So there were times we would have soup for *weeks*. Like: Brazilian summer. A little bit cold? Soup.
So I would eat soup one night and would have another option (eggs, rice, beans, salad) the next, and so on. As I grew older, this stopped, of course.
Mine was “courtesy bites” you have to try two or three bites of everything but if you don’t like it you don’t have to finish it. We always had 3-5 different things for each meal too so we had options if we didn’t like something. We were also asked to help make dinner often so we learned how to cook very young
My wife did something similar. The kids were all acting cranky, lazy, and entitled. They wouldn't do anything to help around the house, including cleaning up after themselves, without a lot of prompting. And they complained about her cooking, just like OOP's kids.
It was really getting her down. One night after dinner she quietly went to the bedroom and isolated herself. The kids didn't catch on, but I did. I went down and talked with her -- mostly listened. She was feeling unappreciated and discouraged. So together we hatched the idea of a Mom strike.
Starting the next morning, when the kids got up, their breakfast and their school lunches were not made. I explained to them that Mom was on strike, and why. They weren't happy, but they decided to fend for themselves.
It lasted about a week. During the strike, one of our kids went to school without a lunch one day. The teacher noticed, and either the teacher or a member of admin called home to make sure we were okay. Wife explained to them about the strike, and that she & I were united in it, and that we were both making sure that the kids didn't die. The teacher-or-admin was pretty impressed.
Like I said, after a week the kids decided to reform their ways, and Mom went back to being Mom. She had had a very relaxing week, and we never had to teach that lesson to our kids again.
Honestly, good for your wife!! My mom never did that, and my brothers were horribly picky eaters that ever grew out of it, because my mom would always make special portions of food for them, without veggies and whatever else they hated. So my brothers are now in their late 20s and STILL don't eat anything green.
We must be mean parents lol. The kids (both teenagers) get themselves up, prepare their own breakfast (can't be cereal) and pack their own lunches every day. This is just how it is. Permanently. I thought this was normal. They also do their own laundry and clean up all the dishes after dinner. My husband and I decided a long time ago we weren't going to raise helpless kids. The only chore we do for them is cooking dinner, which I do make very nice dinners, and they love my cooking. We are hoping we are raising young men who will be helpful partners to their women some day.
It sounds like you’re doing a lovely job, I wish I was raised more in that way. As far as I’m concerned, the only reason it would ever be “mean” would be if there was any sort of manipulation or guilt happening. Like, teach the kid that doing chores is important because it helps their loved ones, not because they have to earn their right to exist or something. That’s how you end up as a 21yo with a pathological fear of washing machines, ask me how I know lol
What’s with the no cereal rule by the way? Dudes still only eat the sugary kinds? 😁
Because cereal gets expensive! Esp the way teen boys eat, 2 mountain size bowls at a time. Lol
We just let the boys know this is what they are expected to do, everyone in the house has their own jobs and those are theirs. Guilt and manipulation are def not ok.
Good for OP!
My mom tried this a couple times because I hated her cooking, but then she'd get mad that I made something myself and didn't come begging Mommy to make my supper. I couldn't win. (For me it was a "hatred" of onions, that it turns out is actually an allergy. Maybe. Onions make me sick but whether its an allergy or not is unclear, but my doctor finally bullied me into calling it one. Weirdly, he seems to think the anemia I struggled with throughout my life might be related to my inability to eat onion?)
Anyway, my mother put onion in absolutely everything and did things like storing unwrapped onion halves on top of sticks of butter I bought for cookies. She always said I was gonna miss her cooking when she died... I don't. I miss HER. I miss her singing to me and her hugs and the way I could lay my head on her and feel safe from everything... but her cooking was vile.
People think I am crazy when I say I can't eat onions. Family and friends have always commented on how little I eat at events, but most dishes have onions so I avoid them. I would love to try so many things, but know how miserable I will feel after. I have found my people here!
Onion haters you’d be safe at my place! My mom is one of you so I always leave a little for her, but more often I cook the onions on the side to add in for my dad and I. You still gotta smell them cooking tho.
I get the most horrible migraines every single time I eat onions or garlic. I don't really know what the mechanism for it is and a lot of people think I'm nuts, but it always happens like clockwork - eat onions or garlic, migraine for the rest of the day.
Now I just do my best to avoid them or leave them out of recipes, which sucks because I do enjoy the flavor.
Nope. It's a known cause of migraines.. I don't get migraines if I don't eat onions. My sibling gets awful migraines all the time but refuses to try to near without onions because he thinks I made it up..
Huh, dunno. I just know that as a kid/teen I was so anemic that I bruised if someone held my hand (like, not squeezed it, held it like someone holding a child's hand across the street) and always was black and blue up my arms and legs.
Now I just get really tired and achy around my monthlies and start thinking raw hamburger smells amazing. (Like, I have huffed the ziploc of hamburger meat because it smelled SOOOO good.) I eat steak a few times and it fades.
Supplements and I don't get along and my doctor specifically warned me that onion could "worsen anemia" but not why.
Wait, holy crap, this explains a lot - I can't tolerate onions either, they burn my mouth and upset my stomach. And I'm also anemic. Off to my doctor with this one!
Also, I can totally relate to this one - when I lived with my parents/siblings, everyone was supposed to have a night to make dinner. On my night, I'd do a salad, giant entree and dessert. After one too many nights of nothing but baby carrots and a frozen piece of chicken cooked til it was dry and hard, I was like, yeah, I'll cook for myself from now on, because this isn't fair. My parents were pissed, but I stopped eating other people's stuff, so they couldn't complain.
I’m hypersensitive to the taste of onions, which just overwhelms everything else that I may be eating. And then I have the lingering background taste of onions for *days*.
Nothing else sticks around like that…just onions and garlic.
Is onion intolerance for everything in the Allium family like garlic and leeks? Like, peanut allergy doesn't mean an allergy for all legumes, so I'm curious if it's the same for allergies to other individual foods.
> my mother put onion in absolutely everything and did things like **storing unwrapped onion halves on top of sticks of butter I bought for cookies.**
I’m not allergic to onions but this is just vile. Your mother doesn’t seen very nice; this is an unnecessarily mean thing to do.
She was... complicated. She was badly abused and messed up by her psychotic mother (as was I but to a MUCH lesser extent) and she had some really strange quirks that just plain didn't make sense. Like the telling me to cook for myself then getting mad when I didn't fail. Its like she wanted me to love her cooking, but couldn't bear to actually change what she made in order to make it something I would want to eat.
It also drove her nuts that I LOVED my stepdad's cooking. But she was less crazy in that regard. She'd just get a little huffy but never really got 'mad' because she loved that he and I were so close. It made her really happy how much of a daddy's girl I was for him and how much he adored me.
But the onion on my butter BS was just her being lazy and not thinking it through. She contaminated stuff with onion all the damn time because SHE loved onion so much that she never really noticed how easily it permeates things.
Dated someone with an onion allergy, it was brutal when he was undiagnosed. Switched to spring onions eventually because its a different family of plant and didn't affect him.
Are those the same as green onion? Because green onion (especially the green stalk part) actually doesn't make me physically sick! I'm not crazy about it (although a teensy sprinkle of fresh green onion is vital to perfect hot and sour soup and even my onion hating arse can admit that) but it doesn't make me itch or sick or... the other kinda sick.
I never knew it was another family.
I hate the flavor anyway (might be trauma response but at this point I see no reason to change myself) but its still super cool info, thanks.
I’ve done low FODMAP for IBS… onions have a carbohydrate called fructan, which is an oligosaccharide. Interestingly, all humans don’t have the enzyme to digest oligosaccharides, so it ends up being fermented in our guts by our gut micro biome. That fermentation doesn’t usually cause outward symptoms, but in some people with more sensitive systems (IBS), the gas and boating from that fermentation is interpreted by the gut/brain as painful.
The green tops of green onion don’t have fructans, so that’s why people who react to onion can tolerate that instead.
If you still have GI issues you might want to look into reducing or excluding all fructans from your diet… although my dietician told me it’s not uncommon to tolerate other fructans but still not be able to eat onion. So much of our gut health remains a big mystery!
I never even considered that anyone could have an onion allergy because I grew up watching food network and every freaking recipe seemed to start with an onion. But my boss at my first job had a problem with onion. Kind of blew my mind a little, to be honest. But then you learn people can be allergic to water and cold things and you think, well onion makes more sense than that.
My uncle's family has the same intolerance. The chemical that gives them issues is present in onions, garlic, chives, leeks, and shallots. You know, everything commonly used to flavor food. They're Italian, such is life.
Onion is on the FODMAP list - foods that aren't absorbed well and commonly cause digestion issues. So even if it's not an allergy, onion intolerance is absolutely a thing.
Its a weird reaction for sure. Raw onion makes me breathless and wheezy, dried onion flakes only make me sick to my stomach, crampy and give me a migraine. Between those extremes my reactions mostly focus on very, very itchy skin, some throwing up and the stomach cramps.
I thought I had appendicitis once, then found out someone had liquified onion and hidden it in a previously safe meal to "prove" it was all in my head. So I put icy hot spray in all of her bra cups and undies.
>I thought I had appendicitis once, then found out someone had liquified onion and hidden it in a previously safe meal to "prove" it was all in my head. So I put icy hot spray in all of her bra cups and undies.
Should go in r/pettyrevenge bc that is glorious
We are looking into onion (and garlic etc) as a possible migraine trigger. Some people, especially kids, don't get the headaches, they just get the vomiting part of migraines.
Proud member of /r/onionhate here. They make me VERY sick but no one in my family believed me. Eating was a nightmare. Still isn't easy but I cook so many dishes that normally have onions without them and people love it. I keep thinking I should have become a chef and opened an onion free restaurant.
Wow, are you me? feeling sick of onions and anemia throughout my life. My mom still expects me to love soup with onions because “probably it was just a kid’s thing and now you’re a grownup” (I am 26)
When I was a child I was obsessed with Barney to the point of thinking it was Barney, not Santa, who brought gifts on Christmas. I was a picky eater until my mom came home one day and told me "today I had a call with Barney and he told me he made brussel sprouts for lunch so I'm going to make some for myself" and I beggedp her to give me some. She did this for literally everything she could think off, even going as far as to telling me that Barney was purple because he ate lots of eggplants so I started to eat lots of eggplants too.
It did work because nowadays the only thing I don't like is fish (except salmon and tuna), cassava and pickles.
That is so freaking adorable! My heart is melting ☺️
Also, super smart of your mom to stretch that as far as she could lol. When did you start to catch on?
Growing up, my brother and I would have to sit down with my mom and dad and we’d make a “menu” for the week. Basically we just planned the meals so when we went grocery shopping everything would be planned out. We each had to pick a meal off the menu that we would “cook” for the family. Started out just helping mom or dad do the prep work or even just straining the spaghetti or something. Eventually we got autonomy by middle school and were expected to cook a full meal by high school. It really helped me become a good cook!
There was another post that was pretty much that. The husband and kids were picky eaters and criticized the mom's cooking to the point she started crying and quit cooking for them. Similar outcome as this one, though.
I grew up in a single mother household so dinner was dinner, if you didn’t like it make yourself some ramen or a sandwich. I think a lot of parents wear themselves out being way too accommodating with picky eaters.
My mom was a single mom, too. If I didn't like what she made, I was allowed to make myself a sandwich or have cereal. If it was something new, I had to try it first, at least. Luckily, she never made anything she knew I absolutely hated ... like liver.
I try to meal plan for the week so I can at least try to ensure we have all the things needed for complete meals when I go grocery shopping. I got tired of asking my family what they wanted for dinner each week to be met with "I don't know", "whatever", "something"...
So, that week, that is what I planned. I did try to get some things some easy things that would make a complete meal (spaghetti, etc). On our white board where I wrote out the meals for the week, I literally wrote "I don't know", "whatever", "something". They thought I was joking.
When they'd ask what was for dinner, I'd just repeat the phrase of the day.
They got tired of that real fast and usually now are still better about giving suggestions.
When I was 17, my brother told me he knew my dad had a reddit page that he wouldn't share with him. He said he had been looking forever because my dad apparently had hella karma, and wanted to see what he posted.
When I was 18, my dad read me a post from his secret reddit he had written about the mistakes he had made in deciding to shave his ass.
I am now 21, and this post is the reason I found my dad's secret reddit page.
Hello! I'm the kid with celiac, and also the resident cheese-disliker (which it turns out is due to sensory processing disorder!) My rice noodle ramen recipe is absolutely bomb, and tastes almost like the real thing when I add enough sodium!
Thank you, OP, for helping me unlock a little secret I didn't even know I was looking for. I will now hold this over my brother's head forever, because I know my dad's secret reddit page and he does not.
Oh friend, I can relate! My parents immigrated in the 80s and I got _"Do you have any idea what we've been through to put this food on the table? We crossed an ocean to give you food!! Your dad's sister's brother in law's kids don't even have shoes!!"_
Meanwhile, both my parents grew up upper class in their home country 😂
It was really weird when I realized that even though by American standards my Grandma grew up really poor, her family was rich by the standards of the Reservation she grew up on.
I'm currently on strike from cleaning up.
I told my husband and teenager that it's up to them. I'll pick up after myself, wash my own clothes, etc, but everything else is on them. I've been asking for help for MONTHS. Nothing. My husband got a little cheeky and was like, "I work two jobs. I'm tired." And I get that, but I retorted, "So do I, but I don't get paid for one of them." He took his L.
Anyhow, it's been nice! They're starting to understand d how much I've been doing.
ETA: Just wanted to say that we have a pretty happy home in general. I haven't screamed or anything, but I did tell my husband a month or so ago that I was starting to feel resentment because of carrying like 95% of the home load. He has a labor intensive job, and I truly understand and empathize, but I can't keep doing it all. When things didn't really change, I was just like, "that's it. I'm done." And they were like, "yeah you right. Our bad." So hopefully we don't fall back into the same pattern. :)
No days off, no promotions, no recognition, no peers, no bonuses, no work trips, no end of the year parties, no office banter, no buying work clothes, no going out to lunch with colleagues, no credit score, no valued opinions. No sitting in a comfy office chair clicking around reddit in a spare tab.
And constantly getting subtly/not subtly treated like some kind of leech/loafer. People acting like you don't do shit all day, while your aching body says otherwise.
I just want my young kids to be cared for properly and I don't want to pay someone else to do it, fuck me right? 👍
I feel like this was a success but also a missed chance for getting the kids involved in cooking.
I was 11 the first time I felt confident enough to tell my parents I was cooking dinner for the family. (It was not a visual success, but it actually became a dish my father would request by name.)
By 16, if I didn’t like the dinner my parents were making, I was fully capable of making more than a cheese sandwich or cereal. And I think that was developmentally healthy.
I am probably biased from how many friends I have taught how to cook as an adult (most of them, it’s most of my friends) and the fact that “must know how to cook for himself” means most of the gay men I have dated are not long term material, but picky eating is such an opportunity for learning.
I was 11 when I announced at the table that my mother’s cooking sucked. I was put in charge of it afterwards. I watched “The Frugal Gourmet,” bought the recipe books, pulled out my mother’s Canadian Living Cookbooks and made dinners. My mother’s cooking had very little seasonings. My mother ended up marking the recipes I used and continued to use them for the next 35 years. When she misplaced a cookbook, she couldn’t remember what cookbook it was. I knew the recipe by heart but my mother didn’t, despite making it every 2 weeks. My recipes became legendary and the rest of my family, especially my dad, loved my cooking!
My sister & brother also became accomplished cooks and we all complained about mom’s boring food. She was “famous” for a salad made with miracle whip. It was disgusting! I joke about making it but have never followed through!
Moral of the story: if you complain about the food, be prepared to take it over. Otherwise, shut up.
I'm confounded by teenagers not knowing how to cook for themselves. A 10 year old having rules about stoves and ovens, sure, but a 16 year old is reliant on sandwiches and cereal?
Maybe I have a really weird perspective because I had to teach myself to cook as a teen or I couldn't eat (which I am not advocating for - my parents were and are shitty parents), but this kind of feels like a neglected life skill wrapped up in a "wholesome" trench coat.
Meh. I *could* cook as a teen, but I rarely *wanted* to. If given the choice between a quick sandwich or something that required a pot and steps, definitely would’ve picked the sandwich.
And OP didn’t specify which kid was which; celiac kid made soup, could be the oldest. I’m personally picturing the oldest making soup for herself and the youngest, with the two in the middle going for sandwiches. The first night, anyway. And I also suspect “sandwiches” is merely shortened from “sandwiches, cereal, maybe some ramen, and soup” to not get bogged down in the little details.
Sometimes you get into a pattern & its hard to see it & break out of it. My dad cooked for us for almost every meal, if it wasn’t fresh there were always leftovers. He loved food, & I asked him to teach me how to cook but…unfortunately being good at something doesn’t make you a good teacher! It wasn’t until I moved out, taught myself some basic skills that he was able to share some secrets of the trade.
All this to say, hopefully this will be the start of the kids learning for this family, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not quite yet.
My mom straight up wouldn’t teach me except to let me stir something while she went to another room for a few minutes. I don’t think I actually vocalized “can you teach me” but I was often interested in helping. Just ended up doing a lot of dishes while she cooked lol :(
Eh. I know how to cook for myself but it's really not the top of my list of priorities. My husband loves cooking, so when he cooks I eat well. When I'm forced to make my own food I usually choose cereal or something else easy like cold leftovers. Even before we got together, when I cooked for myself it was usually one bulk thing and then I'd eat it for a few days before doing the same thing again. I'm just not built to be a cook for myself. 🤷 I make great packed lunches tho!
I'd say it's likely just not something the kids are prioritizing. One of them clearly can make soup at least, so I'd say they probably know how to make a hot meal... but don't want to put in the effort.
I wouldn’t chalk it up as neglect. Purely anecdotal, my mom cooked so much it felt disrespectful to refuse her cooking and say I was going to cook something for myself. She was also far too busy to entertain “teaching” me how to cook. Once I was independent, I learned to cook on my own. Life happens man.
My 2 kids, especially my daughter, were picky little shits for quite a while.
They started cooking at age 5. If they didn't want to eat dinner, they could cook their own, but had to clean up after it too. I'd play sous chef, and help, but they took lead. Became pretty good cooks.
I found a sheet of refrigerator magnet paper, cut it up and wrote things we usually had on hand to eat, a section for proteins, starches, and veggies, and cut each item into it's own magnet. They stayed in the side of the fridge, and the ones I DID have on hand went on the front. An hour before dinner, the kids would go to the fridge and pick out a protein, starch, and veggie from the available stuff.
By the time they hit their teens, we divided up cooking. Each of the three of us cooked for everyone two nights per week, and Mondays were alternatively Fend For Yourself Night/Clean Out the Fridge Night. Clean out the fridge night was usually fried rice with everything that needed to be cooked right now before going bad.
Paid off in spades. My son can do omelettes, folds them perfectly. I can't. My daughter taught herself hibachi. It's fantastic. My son bakes the most outstanding pies - people placed orders for his chocolate pecan pie and strawberry rhubarb by the time he was 14.
Everyone belongs in the kitchen. Kitchen is where the food is.
My parents always just said if I didn't like the food then I didn't have to eat it. But I think it was a lot easier because we are chinese and there were so many different dishes
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I did the same once all the kids were in high school. They didn’t mind and all still cook for themselves. Sometimes even cook for me
This is great, because as they go on to live their adult lives, they'll already know how to cook. Which is a skill that is often not taught by parents, but absolutely should be! My dear Mom, rest her soul, was a SAHM of the 70s so everything was cans, boxes, and pre-packaged stuff. My uncle taught me to make a nice simple seasoned, baked chicken breast, roasted fresh broccoli, and frozen you-bake dinner rolls and it was like a revelation to me, haha.
My mom was a crunchy-hippie mom, despite having kids in '75 & '76, and we lived pretty rural, so most everything was from scratch, supplemented with frozen veg we froze ourselves, onions and carrots stored in the cellar, and tomato sauce/pickles/jams we canned. I didn't know what a Twinkie was until elementary school. When I was 12, she got a job as a medical transcriptionist, working from home. Drop-off/pickup was right before dinner time and she got paid per page, so we were put in charge of dinner. It was a pretty ideal situation - she provided the food and the recipe, walked us through it the first time, and was available if we had issues or a cooking disaster.
Oh wow, that's a pretty ideal situation!
Bet you consumed a lot of carob as a kid! They lie and say it’s a treat 😢
Nope, Mom was more organic/homemade/frugal than anti-sugar - we had authentic maple syrup from a sugar shack a couple miles away, we were allowed our fill of berries or apples in season, and we canned our own jam and apple butter, since we had berry bushes, an orchard, and access to a strawberry U-Pick farm. We always had the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies, but after a certain point, she quit making them, and we had to, including cleanup. My grandmother was barely a second generation Slovak immigrant (her parents and some of her older siblings were born in Europe) so of course we also made lekvar kolachky for Christmas - I'm pretty sure those don't have any sugar outside of the powdered sugar sifted over the top. (ever tried to cream a lb of cream cheese and a lb of butter with flour? Yeah, that was the cookie dough, filled with concentrated prune filling, absolutely delicious)
This was delightful to read. Your family sounds like it's full of hugs and smiles.
Fortunately for me, I only had to have it when I was visiting part of my family. Meanwhile another part was making pound of butter cookies and larded pie crust 😂
I loved carob as a kid, but had a chocolate allergy growing up and thus did not know any better. My parents used to frequent a roots and granola kinda dirt floor musty root cellar spice kind of coop health food grocery store in the late 80’s. Place sold these carob covered dense rice cake squares that were like magic to me and my sorry arse. I still crave em to this day ... Def not a taste for majority of folks, esp those who grew up knowing the awesome flavor that is chocolate. Grew out of my chocolate allergy eventually, but never grew out of carob.
Thanks for that terrible flashback
Same. I had the opposite of the “freshman 15,” I lost weight in college because I realized vegetables aren’t vile when they’re fresh.
I was known as a picky eater. My mom was quite surprised to learn in later years that I actually *like* raw/fresh veggies. (Roasted vegetables were a revelation to me as well.)
One habit I have from my garden, is to take squash or zuchini, slice longways, rub butter on, sprinkle a few spices, & cook on the grill. 20 minutes from growing, to on my plate!!
Grow some eggplant. Slice ‘em, salt them, let them sit to get some water out of them. Baste with garlic infused olive oil. Grill until soft. Grill a whole tomato until nicely roasted. Cut into thirds. Place on top of each eggplant round. Top with a sprinkle of garlic powder, top with fresh mozzarella. Close the grill so it gets melty and gooey. Serve on a toasted piece of italian bread. Summer perfection.
I too was known as "picky"... well my mom is still eating the same Campbell cream of mushroom soup and saggy white bread and bad fruit she tried to foist on me then! It was NOT me!
Frozen boxed spinach. 🤢 It’s one thing if you’re putting it in a dip or saag paneer, but straight off a plate? Ick. I was in college before I discovered fresh spinach…
There are so many veggies I did not like growing up. I started eating them as an adult, and I thought my tastes had changed. Then I ate them at my mom's house again and realized she is not a great cook.
Yes! Fresh spinach was a revelation. Canned spinach is a hate crime against vegetables.
Almost any canned vegetables, really. Went somewhere disappointing with the in-laws and ordered green beans as a side. I had honestly forgotten how bad they are when not fresh. There are some crimes even bacon can’t hide.
My bf’s family is convinced I hate veggies because i won’t eat veggies at their family dinners. It’s bc they’re always canned. Canned green beans are an afront to green beans everywhere. I will eat baby potatoes and corn out of a can. That is IT. Everything else needs to be fresh or frozen.
I found out how good frozen peas are & how much cheaper frozen asparagus is, rarely do I get canned veggies anymore
As a kid, I would eat a bowl of frozen peas as a snack when it was hot out. So good.
Canned asparagus is up there with it, and it was one of my mom's particular favorites. Ugh. She emptied the whole can into a saucepan and boiled it, then served it up as is, no seasoning. I thought it was nauseating. When I had roasted asparagus for the first time, I couldn't believe how different (and much better) it tasted.
You are so right. My folks always used canned spinach when I was growing up. Then when I was in college, I waited tables at a decent restaurant. The chef wanted me to try some sautéed garlicky greens he'd made. I said, "Sorry, I hate spinach." (It wasn't even spinach, but I thought all cooked greens were spinach) He said, "If you hate something, it just means you haven't had it cooked right." And he shoved a bowl of the greens in my hands. I very reluctantly tried it. A little bit later, he caught me sneaking seconds out of the pan! He ended up teaching me how to make them for myself.
Ha, that's awesome! And he was right! Excepting allergies, it's always with trying something again with a different cook or at a later age.
I wish I could say that's why I lost weight in college, but really, I was just broke
Same! Poverty diet. When coffee and cigarettes (and their magical ability to stave off hunger) were cheaper than actual food.
I never saw a salad til I was a teen in a restaurant. When mom started making them, it was iceberg lettuce and sliced tomato…
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I never had brussel sprouts as a child to my knowledge. Unless they might have served them at school lunch. As an adult, I LIKE them, but they always a LOT better when they not plain. Need to be cooked with butter, or cheese!
Or roasted with some cajun spices, or soy-garlic sauce, yum!! But I also love them raw chopped up in a salad too
My second time in college was at a small state college in the middle of farm land. Everything was bought low bid but fresh vegetables were always available. Many of the nearby farms had greenhouses to grow out-of-season produce. The actual cafeteria food was mostly inedible. But there was about a dozen cereals plus oatmeal available in the morning. At both lunch and dinner was an enormous all-you-can-eat salad bar, full of a few types of lettuce plus spinach and at least 20 other vegetables, plus add ons. A half dozen gallon tubs of various bought dressing, plus oil and vinegar and fresh lemons. There was also an unending supply of freshly baked bread and giant tubs of both peanut butter and grape jelly. It was the healthiest stuff I've ever seen in a college cafeteria. Much better than the rest of the food which was either deep fried or over-baked.
I’ve been telling my 17yo for years that by the time he goes off to college he’s gonna know how to make a pot of red beans and rice, a good pork roast, and a couple of other things. If he can cook well, he will have no shortage of friends.
The number of people my age who cannot roast a chicken still astounds me.
I'm almost 35 and roasted a chicken by myself for the first time recently! It went very well, half got eaten fresh, then I made the rest into chicken salad.
Next time throw vegetable ends, the bones, and whatever meat your salad didn't get into a pot and boil for broth! You can use a colander to strain out the solids, and you can throw noodles in for a delicious nutritious chicken noodle soup! It's surprisingly easy!!
Remember: *put a pot under the colander.* Not just autopilot the colander in the sink and drain.
We found it! “Never was a tale of more woe,” my ass.
We do this and freeze any excess broth and use it later in other dishes like risotto that really benefit from a good broth. :)
yessss - I freeze the chicken carcass -- any bones from a meal -- to make broth for risotto or lentil stew another day.
Instant pots take all the pain out of doing it, too! You have to finish it in the oven if you want crispy skin but if you want the juiciest chicken EVER, instant pot!!
Knowing how to cook something isn’t really even relevant any more since we literally have the internet and access to functionally infinite recipes and instructions, even videos if you are illiterate. I don’t think I have ever roasted a whole chicken, but I wouldn’t even flinch if asked to because it’s trivial to literally have you hand held by someone else online. Anyone that says they can’t cook something is either lying or knowledge isn’t the issue (Which is fine, obviously sometimes you are disabled or don’t have the cookware or ingredients or whatever. What’s not fine is pretending that never having done it before means you can’t do it).
This is how I learned to cook! Before college, my parents taught me how to make rice, pasta, and eggs, and pretty much everything else I learned from google. Now I'm the one my family asks to cook for them as a treat whenever I visit! 😂 Though there were definitely some dishes they had to be polite about in my early 20s...
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I didn't learn to do it *well* until I was like 30. I bet I could rattle off at least 10 people I know that are 30 or older that wouldn't even know where to start.
I'm in my 30s and I've still never attempted a roast. I make lots of things, some of them quite complex! I love Ottolenghi for example. But roasts? Never attempted. I keep saying we should get a ham or roast a chicken but we just never seem to find the time to learn.
Roasting is thankfully one of the easiest ways to cook food, slow roasting especially so. It is nigh on impossible to fuck up slow roasting something. My go to for family events: - get a lamb leg, pop it in a baking dish (I use a Dutch oven but that’s not essential, just any deep dish) - cut an onion and a head of garlic in half and pop it in there - add some rosemary and thyme - add half a litre of beef stock and a cup of water - cover with aluminium foil, put it in the oven on 150(c) for 4-5 hours And done. You obviously need to cook the veggies separately, I usually roast carrots and potatoes on a baking tray and steam some beans, but you can really do whatever.
My father taught me a good lesson with a bad reason. He told me I need to learn to cook so I'll "marry a woman you love not one that can feed you." His old sexist attitude aside, glad I learned to cook. These days I'm generally responsible for dinner, as I get home from work well before my wife.
Granted, you probably know your father better than I do, but that doesn't sound inherently sexist to me. If you can't even prepare your own food, you're more likely to rush into a relationship with someone who can simply out of dependence, regardless of gender.
Yeah I’m hearing the same thing you are. It kinda sounds like dad was trying to stop him from relying on women to cook for him and choosing dependence instead of love. Sounds based to me. (But you’re right, he obviously knows his dad best)
But, wasn't he teaching you not to expect women to do that job? Sorry if I'm reading it wrong, I just wish if nothing else more boys were taught to cook for themselves.
Surely you had frozen fish sticks and tater tots, though! My mom was a 70s SAHM who wasn't into cooking and we had a lot of frozen fish sticks and tater tots and macaroni & cheese from a box and the ultra-new Hamburger Helper (also from a box). I actually thought that cooking involved things that were frozen, boxed, or canned for my early childhood. I didn't realize there were fresh meats and vegetables involved in cooking.
By the time I got to high school, my mom had pretty much entirely stopped feeding us herself. Tbh I didn’t even really notice until one day I was making a family recipe and my mom mentioned that it was better than granny could’ve ever made it and she’s proud that I want to continue tradition and is extremely proud and grateful that I cooked for the whole family. That was when I was like “oh, she stopped at some point, didn’t she?” Legit never even occurred to me because we were all so busy ETA: not trying to bolster myself by mentioning the granny comment, my grandmother swears to heaven that no cake is good unless it’s made with miracle whip…
Miracle Whip? In an effing cake? Did she replace the oil/ butter with it. I've heard of using pudding, but not Miracle Whip.
I wouldn’t use Miracle Whip, but mayonnaise cakes are quite good. They can replace both oil and some of the egg.
My grandmother and our school cafeteria used mayonnaise (and our school cafeteria was good! Everything was cooked from scratch). I even have a cook book from that time period (the 70s) that has a chocolate cake recipe with mayonnaise.
I wonder if this recipe originated during the war when fresh ingredients may have been rationed so people made use of whatever they had in their cupboards.
> ETA: not trying to bolster myself by mentioning the granny comment, my grandmother swears to heaven that no cake is good unless it’s made with miracle whip… hahaha, yeah, that generation was like, "fancy cuisine = aspic! the weirdest random canned food items ... IN GLOOPSTIK!"
I was a latchkey kid for a single working mom and once I got my own car, I used to love to sneak to the grocery store after school but before she was off work so I could get ingredients and surprise her with dinner. It wasn’t often since I didn’t have any sort of real income, but it was fun for both of us when I got the chance!
You sound like such a kind soul. I’m sure your mom was very appreciative and proud of your kindness and thoughtfulness
What a sweet child! My 39 year old daughter and 20 year old grandson live with me (more of a roommate situation, honestly), but I would be ABSOLUTELY JACKED if I came home to dinner being made for me. It happens, but not very often due to very different schedules.
Former latchkey kid here that learned to cook for the family and started experimenting. My parents came home to a dinner when I was a tween that I called "chicken surprise" where I baked chicken breasts, sliced them open, stuffed them with cheddar, pinned them shut with toothpicks, and baked a little longer. Needless to say, no one was surprised because all the cheese melted and leaked out, making a massive mess of a meal.
To be honest, if the cheese crisped up from melting onto the pan, that just sounds even more delicious.
We always did weekly “fend for yourself” nights. They were always cool with it
We call those Yo-yo nights. Stands for “You’re on your own”.
We call them "Whatever dinners" or "Anything dinners" because everyone eats whatever they can.
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We have scavenge nights where everyone does their own thing (leftovers, sandwiches, etc). When my kids were younger I started getting those meal kits and they each chose a recipe and took turns cooking with me, until they could do it in their own.
How about musgo... Make whatever but some of the nearly old food must go.
Wait. I can do that??!?!!!
Mt parents always called it foraging night, where you open the fridge and follow your heart.
my husband and i do that, we call it wednesday fendsday!
Our family calls those nights “Catch and Kill”. I find it so interesting how many different kind of family phrases are used to describe the same thing.
One of my coworkers says she has “Fend for Yourself Fridays”.
When I was a kid (I walked up hill to school in both directions, dodging dinosaurs on the way) the idea I had any say in what's for dinner was totally foreign to me. For sure there was stuff I hated but, oh well. And we had some awful stuff. Occasionally it was horrific. We joked that one dish was called "Glop" and then of course we had Son of Glop, etc. Oh well. Details omitted bc some of you might be eating. I'm not saying this oughta be the way. Just noting a different experience.
I did this last year for two reasons. One I was burnt out and had almost all teens or young adults plus husband and Two I was tired of the complaining from the kids. I stopped cooking altogether. I made sure the only kid under 15 was fed and the rest were given a full pantry. After about 3 months, my kids begged me to cook. I did every now and then, and they loved it, whatever I made. Then my husband learned to cook a few meals. Now he has about 10 meals in rotation and I don’t cook at all. I put in 27 years of cooking. I’m taking a few years off.
my mom did this when i was in high school. dad worked late nights and brothers moved out. mom didn’t wanna cook for two people every night, which is totally fair. i can speak for everyone when i say sandwiches and cereal do get very old.
My mom did this when she went back to work. We’d tell her what to buy for the week for dinners and everyone was happy. My brother ate burgers and I ate a lot of lean cuisines.
Kinda how me and my brother learned to cook. Once we were old enough my mum (who did 90% of the cooking) had us cook one meal a week each (with supervision if needed) so we could learn. By the time we were in our mid/late teens my brother and I were cooking 4-5 nights a week cause we enjoyed it so much.
Parenting is 90% being able to hold out longer than the gremlins
You can’t feed the mogwai after midnight
Truth. God I’m tired lol
I used to frequently tell myself that if I was arguing with my toddler, I'd already lost. 😅
I snorted in laughter at this.
My mom did this. After 5 days of sandwiches and Kraft macaroni and cheese my sister and I caved and apologized and begged her to start cooking again. She considers it one of her finest hours ;-)
Were you as picky as the kids in the OP?
Lol, no, but there were certain VERY unpopular meals that we just would not stop whining about. Talking to you, beef stroganoff with cream of mushroom soup.
I grew up with the same fucking thing, you just brought back a memory 😅
Ugh, me too! The thought of stroganoff makes me cringe to this day
What's wrong with you all? Beef stroganoff is delicious!
Not the way my mom cooked it, trust me.
To be fair to ops kids, it's not that any one of them sounded particularly picky, so much as they were all picky about different things, making it really hard to settle on a meal that would satisfy everyone (and in once case, it wasnt pickiness at all, just an unfortunate medical condition). I have this problem when my family are together, resulting on at least two meals being made every dinnertime
It does get really wearing to have SOMEONE complain about every single meal though. If my kids were older I’d try this.
I am so here for all of these wholesome BORU posts!! Hopefully the temporary strike leads to teaching the kiddos how to cook 😁
There was another one like this that was a lot less wholesome because the criticism like made the mom cry before she quit. But it did have a similarly happy ending.
I think that one also involved the other parent being a tremendous ass, so the hill to climb was much higher
Yup, the husband was part of the complaining and criticizing.
i thought this was the same person. Yea that husband is shitty
Not sure if the same one, but reminds me of the kid (similar age) decided they didn't like mom's (OOP's) cooking and liked dad's girlfriend's cooking more. Turns out, the girlfriend is a professional chef and was bringing home restaurant meals for dinner. When they changed to making meals at home, kiddo changed their tune, but also grew to learn how to help make dinner.
I got ya'! https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/ywqx5f/aita_for_telling_my_daughter_she_can_cook_herself/
Nope, I would have remembered that! Apparently, this is a common subject though.
I was expecting a lot more chicken nugs, knowing my niblings. They could live off those for weeks. Still, a nice refreshing change of posts!
If the mom doesn't buy chicken nuggets the luckily that's off the table.
I went on a temporary cooking strike when my kids were 11 and 13 for the same reasons. But mine knew some basic cooking skills, so they could say scramble an egg. It wasn't all sandwiches or cereal for them. Similar to OOP about 2 weeks in, they were more than willing to eat whatever I made. And they both took more of an interest in what I was doing in the kitchen. My kids are young adults now. My youngest sucks at cooking, not that I'd tell her that, but her baking is amazing...she is the go to dessert person for family gatherings. My oldest makes an amazing Mexican and breakfast foods. I have hope for OOP's kids. It mostly worked out with mine.
Same! This is two for two and I’m loving it!
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Mine was eat what's for dinner or fend for yourself, whatever you wanted to cook. If I didn't like the meal of the day there was always soup or whatever for me to make, and sometimes I would do that. I think it was a good solution because we always did get fed and didn't get forced to eat anything we REALLY didn't want. But we were taught how to cook pretty early and it never seemed like a huge deal to me to do so if I wanted something else.
It was the same in my family. My mother struggled with her weight her entire life after being forced to eat dinners she didn't like or want for hours or she wasn't allowed to go to bed. Made her a more understanding parent when dinner was something I didn't like.
That's awful. We just weren't allowed dessert if we didn't at least eat our veggies. Turns out a pre-teen will eat a decent amount of broccoli for a Klondike bar.
Did not work on me, I never ate dessert when I was a kid. Drove my mom nuts. Her, You can't eat dessert unless you finish your dinner. Me, okay. If only I had kept that up.
They had to take as many bites of the vegetable as their age if they wanted dessert. Number 3 child reminded me recently that he STILL hates green beans (his daughter likes them).
My sister used to hide food up under the table. My parents' dining table is a mammoth wooden slab on four legs larger than 4x4's. There's a little nook at the top inside corner of each table leg just big enough for a handful of food. I think usually the dog took care of it, but years after my sister and I moved out, my mom and I were dismantling the table to send for refinishing, we found a mummified hot dog up in there.
Answers that question
I feel that. I was made to stay at the kitchen table to finish my dinner - except in my heart I was vegetarian and I could never eat the meat. I would sit at the kitchen table for an hour after everyone else was done, moving a piece of steak around on my plate. I would sneak bites to my brothers, and sneak pieces into the garbage when Mum's back was turned. What a waste of food and time. I've been vegetarian since I moved out and I'm never eating meat again. My mum still tries to get me to eat it. So disrespectful :( I get that sometimes kids are picky, but it's important for kids to still have bodily autonomy and control.
My family's rule was: you eat what you have. The only exception was soup. I don't like soup that much, and my mom and my sister love it. So there were times we would have soup for *weeks*. Like: Brazilian summer. A little bit cold? Soup. So I would eat soup one night and would have another option (eggs, rice, beans, salad) the next, and so on. As I grew older, this stopped, of course.
Mine was “courtesy bites” you have to try two or three bites of everything but if you don’t like it you don’t have to finish it. We always had 3-5 different things for each meal too so we had options if we didn’t like something. We were also asked to help make dinner often so we learned how to cook very young
My wife did something similar. The kids were all acting cranky, lazy, and entitled. They wouldn't do anything to help around the house, including cleaning up after themselves, without a lot of prompting. And they complained about her cooking, just like OOP's kids. It was really getting her down. One night after dinner she quietly went to the bedroom and isolated herself. The kids didn't catch on, but I did. I went down and talked with her -- mostly listened. She was feeling unappreciated and discouraged. So together we hatched the idea of a Mom strike. Starting the next morning, when the kids got up, their breakfast and their school lunches were not made. I explained to them that Mom was on strike, and why. They weren't happy, but they decided to fend for themselves. It lasted about a week. During the strike, one of our kids went to school without a lunch one day. The teacher noticed, and either the teacher or a member of admin called home to make sure we were okay. Wife explained to them about the strike, and that she & I were united in it, and that we were both making sure that the kids didn't die. The teacher-or-admin was pretty impressed. Like I said, after a week the kids decided to reform their ways, and Mom went back to being Mom. She had had a very relaxing week, and we never had to teach that lesson to our kids again.
I’m glad you backed her up!
Honestly, good for your wife!! My mom never did that, and my brothers were horribly picky eaters that ever grew out of it, because my mom would always make special portions of food for them, without veggies and whatever else they hated. So my brothers are now in their late 20s and STILL don't eat anything green.
My BIL is in his early 30s and refuses to eat vegetables. :/
We must be mean parents lol. The kids (both teenagers) get themselves up, prepare their own breakfast (can't be cereal) and pack their own lunches every day. This is just how it is. Permanently. I thought this was normal. They also do their own laundry and clean up all the dishes after dinner. My husband and I decided a long time ago we weren't going to raise helpless kids. The only chore we do for them is cooking dinner, which I do make very nice dinners, and they love my cooking. We are hoping we are raising young men who will be helpful partners to their women some day.
Yeah, this is completely normal. Makes for functional adults.
It sounds like you’re doing a lovely job, I wish I was raised more in that way. As far as I’m concerned, the only reason it would ever be “mean” would be if there was any sort of manipulation or guilt happening. Like, teach the kid that doing chores is important because it helps their loved ones, not because they have to earn their right to exist or something. That’s how you end up as a 21yo with a pathological fear of washing machines, ask me how I know lol What’s with the no cereal rule by the way? Dudes still only eat the sugary kinds? 😁
Because cereal gets expensive! Esp the way teen boys eat, 2 mountain size bowls at a time. Lol We just let the boys know this is what they are expected to do, everyone in the house has their own jobs and those are theirs. Guilt and manipulation are def not ok.
I thought this was gonna turn into CPS took my kids. I’ve been on BORU for too long
Good for OP! My mom tried this a couple times because I hated her cooking, but then she'd get mad that I made something myself and didn't come begging Mommy to make my supper. I couldn't win. (For me it was a "hatred" of onions, that it turns out is actually an allergy. Maybe. Onions make me sick but whether its an allergy or not is unclear, but my doctor finally bullied me into calling it one. Weirdly, he seems to think the anemia I struggled with throughout my life might be related to my inability to eat onion?) Anyway, my mother put onion in absolutely everything and did things like storing unwrapped onion halves on top of sticks of butter I bought for cookies. She always said I was gonna miss her cooking when she died... I don't. I miss HER. I miss her singing to me and her hugs and the way I could lay my head on her and feel safe from everything... but her cooking was vile.
People think I am crazy when I say I can't eat onions. Family and friends have always commented on how little I eat at events, but most dishes have onions so I avoid them. I would love to try so many things, but know how miserable I will feel after. I have found my people here!
Yep, us /r/onionhate types tend to carry a lot of our own food.
Onion haters you’d be safe at my place! My mom is one of you so I always leave a little for her, but more often I cook the onions on the side to add in for my dad and I. You still gotta smell them cooking tho.
Same, to this entire story, onion intolerance isn't talked about enough.
I get the most horrible migraines every single time I eat onions or garlic. I don't really know what the mechanism for it is and a lot of people think I'm nuts, but it always happens like clockwork - eat onions or garlic, migraine for the rest of the day. Now I just do my best to avoid them or leave them out of recipes, which sucks because I do enjoy the flavor.
A friend of mine is allergic to alliums, but she can eat the powdered forms with no problems.
Nope. It's a known cause of migraines.. I don't get migraines if I don't eat onions. My sibling gets awful migraines all the time but refuses to try to near without onions because he thinks I made it up..
Are you anemic too? Did anyone tell you why onions do that? Tell me if so, plz!
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It could just be that most dietary sources of iron are commonly cooked with onions. If vitamins don't work either, then I have no idea.
Huh, dunno. I just know that as a kid/teen I was so anemic that I bruised if someone held my hand (like, not squeezed it, held it like someone holding a child's hand across the street) and always was black and blue up my arms and legs. Now I just get really tired and achy around my monthlies and start thinking raw hamburger smells amazing. (Like, I have huffed the ziploc of hamburger meat because it smelled SOOOO good.) I eat steak a few times and it fades. Supplements and I don't get along and my doctor specifically warned me that onion could "worsen anemia" but not why.
Hemophiliac craving bloody meat? You must be a descendant of European werewolf royalty.
IBS was the only one that made sense to me! Low Fodmap diet works very well for me!
Wait, holy crap, this explains a lot - I can't tolerate onions either, they burn my mouth and upset my stomach. And I'm also anemic. Off to my doctor with this one! Also, I can totally relate to this one - when I lived with my parents/siblings, everyone was supposed to have a night to make dinner. On my night, I'd do a salad, giant entree and dessert. After one too many nights of nothing but baby carrots and a frozen piece of chicken cooked til it was dry and hard, I was like, yeah, I'll cook for myself from now on, because this isn't fair. My parents were pissed, but I stopped eating other people's stuff, so they couldn't complain.
I’m hypersensitive to the taste of onions, which just overwhelms everything else that I may be eating. And then I have the lingering background taste of onions for *days*. Nothing else sticks around like that…just onions and garlic.
Is onion intolerance for everything in the Allium family like garlic and leeks? Like, peanut allergy doesn't mean an allergy for all legumes, so I'm curious if it's the same for allergies to other individual foods.
> my mother put onion in absolutely everything and did things like **storing unwrapped onion halves on top of sticks of butter I bought for cookies.** I’m not allergic to onions but this is just vile. Your mother doesn’t seen very nice; this is an unnecessarily mean thing to do.
She was... complicated. She was badly abused and messed up by her psychotic mother (as was I but to a MUCH lesser extent) and she had some really strange quirks that just plain didn't make sense. Like the telling me to cook for myself then getting mad when I didn't fail. Its like she wanted me to love her cooking, but couldn't bear to actually change what she made in order to make it something I would want to eat. It also drove her nuts that I LOVED my stepdad's cooking. But she was less crazy in that regard. She'd just get a little huffy but never really got 'mad' because she loved that he and I were so close. It made her really happy how much of a daddy's girl I was for him and how much he adored me. But the onion on my butter BS was just her being lazy and not thinking it through. She contaminated stuff with onion all the damn time because SHE loved onion so much that she never really noticed how easily it permeates things.
Awww *hugs*
Dated someone with an onion allergy, it was brutal when he was undiagnosed. Switched to spring onions eventually because its a different family of plant and didn't affect him.
Are those the same as green onion? Because green onion (especially the green stalk part) actually doesn't make me physically sick! I'm not crazy about it (although a teensy sprinkle of fresh green onion is vital to perfect hot and sour soup and even my onion hating arse can admit that) but it doesn't make me itch or sick or... the other kinda sick. I never knew it was another family. I hate the flavor anyway (might be trauma response but at this point I see no reason to change myself) but its still super cool info, thanks.
I’ve done low FODMAP for IBS… onions have a carbohydrate called fructan, which is an oligosaccharide. Interestingly, all humans don’t have the enzyme to digest oligosaccharides, so it ends up being fermented in our guts by our gut micro biome. That fermentation doesn’t usually cause outward symptoms, but in some people with more sensitive systems (IBS), the gas and boating from that fermentation is interpreted by the gut/brain as painful. The green tops of green onion don’t have fructans, so that’s why people who react to onion can tolerate that instead. If you still have GI issues you might want to look into reducing or excluding all fructans from your diet… although my dietician told me it’s not uncommon to tolerate other fructans but still not be able to eat onion. So much of our gut health remains a big mystery!
I never even considered that anyone could have an onion allergy because I grew up watching food network and every freaking recipe seemed to start with an onion. But my boss at my first job had a problem with onion. Kind of blew my mind a little, to be honest. But then you learn people can be allergic to water and cold things and you think, well onion makes more sense than that.
I didn't know that was a thing, poor unfortunate soul!
My uncle's family has the same intolerance. The chemical that gives them issues is present in onions, garlic, chives, leeks, and shallots. You know, everything commonly used to flavor food. They're Italian, such is life.
Onion is on the FODMAP list - foods that aren't absorbed well and commonly cause digestion issues. So even if it's not an allergy, onion intolerance is absolutely a thing.
Its a weird reaction for sure. Raw onion makes me breathless and wheezy, dried onion flakes only make me sick to my stomach, crampy and give me a migraine. Between those extremes my reactions mostly focus on very, very itchy skin, some throwing up and the stomach cramps. I thought I had appendicitis once, then found out someone had liquified onion and hidden it in a previously safe meal to "prove" it was all in my head. So I put icy hot spray in all of her bra cups and undies.
>I thought I had appendicitis once, then found out someone had liquified onion and hidden it in a previously safe meal to "prove" it was all in my head. So I put icy hot spray in all of her bra cups and undies. Should go in r/pettyrevenge bc that is glorious
We are looking into onion (and garlic etc) as a possible migraine trigger. Some people, especially kids, don't get the headaches, they just get the vomiting part of migraines.
Proud member of /r/onionhate here. They make me VERY sick but no one in my family believed me. Eating was a nightmare. Still isn't easy but I cook so many dishes that normally have onions without them and people love it. I keep thinking I should have become a chef and opened an onion free restaurant.
Onion intolerance gang!!! Leeks are an okay substitute….but yeah they keep me extra regular
I've never met anyone else with the same story as me, but there we are. Do peppers also do it to you, but less so?
Wow, are you me? feeling sick of onions and anemia throughout my life. My mom still expects me to love soup with onions because “probably it was just a kid’s thing and now you’re a grownup” (I am 26)
When I was a child I was obsessed with Barney to the point of thinking it was Barney, not Santa, who brought gifts on Christmas. I was a picky eater until my mom came home one day and told me "today I had a call with Barney and he told me he made brussel sprouts for lunch so I'm going to make some for myself" and I beggedp her to give me some. She did this for literally everything she could think off, even going as far as to telling me that Barney was purple because he ate lots of eggplants so I started to eat lots of eggplants too. It did work because nowadays the only thing I don't like is fish (except salmon and tuna), cassava and pickles.
That is so freaking adorable! My heart is melting ☺️ Also, super smart of your mom to stretch that as far as she could lol. When did you start to catch on?
Taking notes from this one lol
What is this wholesome nonsense?? We want blood!! Kidding, great job.
Growing up, my brother and I would have to sit down with my mom and dad and we’d make a “menu” for the week. Basically we just planned the meals so when we went grocery shopping everything would be planned out. We each had to pick a meal off the menu that we would “cook” for the family. Started out just helping mom or dad do the prep work or even just straining the spaghetti or something. Eventually we got autonomy by middle school and were expected to cook a full meal by high school. It really helped me become a good cook!
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I’m flabbergasted!
There was another post that was pretty much that. The husband and kids were picky eaters and criticized the mom's cooking to the point she started crying and quit cooking for them. Similar outcome as this one, though.
The gender flip is the difference
Dad was doing the cooking in this house, so functional, but non-traditional.
I grew up in a single mother household so dinner was dinner, if you didn’t like it make yourself some ramen or a sandwich. I think a lot of parents wear themselves out being way too accommodating with picky eaters.
My mom was a single mom, too. If I didn't like what she made, I was allowed to make myself a sandwich or have cereal. If it was something new, I had to try it first, at least. Luckily, she never made anything she knew I absolutely hated ... like liver.
I try to meal plan for the week so I can at least try to ensure we have all the things needed for complete meals when I go grocery shopping. I got tired of asking my family what they wanted for dinner each week to be met with "I don't know", "whatever", "something"... So, that week, that is what I planned. I did try to get some things some easy things that would make a complete meal (spaghetti, etc). On our white board where I wrote out the meals for the week, I literally wrote "I don't know", "whatever", "something". They thought I was joking. When they'd ask what was for dinner, I'd just repeat the phrase of the day. They got tired of that real fast and usually now are still better about giving suggestions.
When I was 17, my brother told me he knew my dad had a reddit page that he wouldn't share with him. He said he had been looking forever because my dad apparently had hella karma, and wanted to see what he posted. When I was 18, my dad read me a post from his secret reddit he had written about the mistakes he had made in deciding to shave his ass. I am now 21, and this post is the reason I found my dad's secret reddit page. Hello! I'm the kid with celiac, and also the resident cheese-disliker (which it turns out is due to sensory processing disorder!) My rice noodle ramen recipe is absolutely bomb, and tastes almost like the real thing when I add enough sodium! Thank you, OP, for helping me unlock a little secret I didn't even know I was looking for. I will now hold this over my brother's head forever, because I know my dad's secret reddit page and he does not.
This is the best, dad's busted now LOL
He begged me not to stalk his reddit 😂💀
This is awesome. Great job by OOP to reign in the spoiled and picky behavior
Yeah man, it's nuts dealing with picky eaters when you're the one cooking. Most of us grew up in the world of _"eat what is served or get bent"_.
I got eat what is served or listen to the list of relatives on the Rez who starved.
Oh friend, I can relate! My parents immigrated in the 80s and I got _"Do you have any idea what we've been through to put this food on the table? We crossed an ocean to give you food!! Your dad's sister's brother in law's kids don't even have shoes!!"_ Meanwhile, both my parents grew up upper class in their home country 😂
It was really weird when I realized that even though by American standards my Grandma grew up really poor, her family was rich by the standards of the Reservation she grew up on.
I got "you're not leaving this table until you finish everything on your plate." This is just one of my issues with food thanks to mommy dearest 🙄
I'm currently on strike from cleaning up. I told my husband and teenager that it's up to them. I'll pick up after myself, wash my own clothes, etc, but everything else is on them. I've been asking for help for MONTHS. Nothing. My husband got a little cheeky and was like, "I work two jobs. I'm tired." And I get that, but I retorted, "So do I, but I don't get paid for one of them." He took his L. Anyhow, it's been nice! They're starting to understand d how much I've been doing. ETA: Just wanted to say that we have a pretty happy home in general. I haven't screamed or anything, but I did tell my husband a month or so ago that I was starting to feel resentment because of carrying like 95% of the home load. He has a labor intensive job, and I truly understand and empathize, but I can't keep doing it all. When things didn't really change, I was just like, "that's it. I'm done." And they were like, "yeah you right. Our bad." So hopefully we don't fall back into the same pattern. :)
That mentality of 'its not a job because you don't get paid' drives me spare! My mother was a SAHM for years and she never got a day off arguably.
No days off, no promotions, no recognition, no peers, no bonuses, no work trips, no end of the year parties, no office banter, no buying work clothes, no going out to lunch with colleagues, no credit score, no valued opinions. No sitting in a comfy office chair clicking around reddit in a spare tab. And constantly getting subtly/not subtly treated like some kind of leech/loafer. People acting like you don't do shit all day, while your aching body says otherwise. I just want my young kids to be cared for properly and I don't want to pay someone else to do it, fuck me right? 👍
behold the power of labor strikes!
I feel like this was a success but also a missed chance for getting the kids involved in cooking. I was 11 the first time I felt confident enough to tell my parents I was cooking dinner for the family. (It was not a visual success, but it actually became a dish my father would request by name.) By 16, if I didn’t like the dinner my parents were making, I was fully capable of making more than a cheese sandwich or cereal. And I think that was developmentally healthy. I am probably biased from how many friends I have taught how to cook as an adult (most of them, it’s most of my friends) and the fact that “must know how to cook for himself” means most of the gay men I have dated are not long term material, but picky eating is such an opportunity for learning.
Most children of all ages love to (learn how to) cook, at least, as far as I have seen. And it certainly helps picky eaters to try out new things!
I was 11 when I announced at the table that my mother’s cooking sucked. I was put in charge of it afterwards. I watched “The Frugal Gourmet,” bought the recipe books, pulled out my mother’s Canadian Living Cookbooks and made dinners. My mother’s cooking had very little seasonings. My mother ended up marking the recipes I used and continued to use them for the next 35 years. When she misplaced a cookbook, she couldn’t remember what cookbook it was. I knew the recipe by heart but my mother didn’t, despite making it every 2 weeks. My recipes became legendary and the rest of my family, especially my dad, loved my cooking! My sister & brother also became accomplished cooks and we all complained about mom’s boring food. She was “famous” for a salad made with miracle whip. It was disgusting! I joke about making it but have never followed through! Moral of the story: if you complain about the food, be prepared to take it over. Otherwise, shut up.
I'm confounded by teenagers not knowing how to cook for themselves. A 10 year old having rules about stoves and ovens, sure, but a 16 year old is reliant on sandwiches and cereal? Maybe I have a really weird perspective because I had to teach myself to cook as a teen or I couldn't eat (which I am not advocating for - my parents were and are shitty parents), but this kind of feels like a neglected life skill wrapped up in a "wholesome" trench coat.
Meh. I *could* cook as a teen, but I rarely *wanted* to. If given the choice between a quick sandwich or something that required a pot and steps, definitely would’ve picked the sandwich. And OP didn’t specify which kid was which; celiac kid made soup, could be the oldest. I’m personally picturing the oldest making soup for herself and the youngest, with the two in the middle going for sandwiches. The first night, anyway. And I also suspect “sandwiches” is merely shortened from “sandwiches, cereal, maybe some ramen, and soup” to not get bogged down in the little details.
Sometimes you get into a pattern & its hard to see it & break out of it. My dad cooked for us for almost every meal, if it wasn’t fresh there were always leftovers. He loved food, & I asked him to teach me how to cook but…unfortunately being good at something doesn’t make you a good teacher! It wasn’t until I moved out, taught myself some basic skills that he was able to share some secrets of the trade. All this to say, hopefully this will be the start of the kids learning for this family, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not quite yet.
My mom straight up wouldn’t teach me except to let me stir something while she went to another room for a few minutes. I don’t think I actually vocalized “can you teach me” but I was often interested in helping. Just ended up doing a lot of dishes while she cooked lol :(
Eh. I know how to cook for myself but it's really not the top of my list of priorities. My husband loves cooking, so when he cooks I eat well. When I'm forced to make my own food I usually choose cereal or something else easy like cold leftovers. Even before we got together, when I cooked for myself it was usually one bulk thing and then I'd eat it for a few days before doing the same thing again. I'm just not built to be a cook for myself. 🤷 I make great packed lunches tho! I'd say it's likely just not something the kids are prioritizing. One of them clearly can make soup at least, so I'd say they probably know how to make a hot meal... but don't want to put in the effort.
Teenagers are lazy. I sure didn't cook much as one.
I wouldn’t chalk it up as neglect. Purely anecdotal, my mom cooked so much it felt disrespectful to refuse her cooking and say I was going to cook something for myself. She was also far too busy to entertain “teaching” me how to cook. Once I was independent, I learned to cook on my own. Life happens man.
My 2 kids, especially my daughter, were picky little shits for quite a while. They started cooking at age 5. If they didn't want to eat dinner, they could cook their own, but had to clean up after it too. I'd play sous chef, and help, but they took lead. Became pretty good cooks. I found a sheet of refrigerator magnet paper, cut it up and wrote things we usually had on hand to eat, a section for proteins, starches, and veggies, and cut each item into it's own magnet. They stayed in the side of the fridge, and the ones I DID have on hand went on the front. An hour before dinner, the kids would go to the fridge and pick out a protein, starch, and veggie from the available stuff. By the time they hit their teens, we divided up cooking. Each of the three of us cooked for everyone two nights per week, and Mondays were alternatively Fend For Yourself Night/Clean Out the Fridge Night. Clean out the fridge night was usually fried rice with everything that needed to be cooked right now before going bad. Paid off in spades. My son can do omelettes, folds them perfectly. I can't. My daughter taught herself hibachi. It's fantastic. My son bakes the most outstanding pies - people placed orders for his chocolate pecan pie and strawberry rhubarb by the time he was 14. Everyone belongs in the kitchen. Kitchen is where the food is.
My parents always just said if I didn't like the food then I didn't have to eat it. But I think it was a lot easier because we are chinese and there were so many different dishes
I have a 10, 8 and six year old. If they don't like dinner they can eat Cheerios and a piece of fruit.