Welcome to speed Round Sunday on the Parenting Roundabout podcast, where we share a
mini episode from our past for your weekend listening pleasure. We'll be back tomorrow
with a brand new episode. Our speed Round topic today is whether and when
your kids started making their own meals, like especially for breakfast in lunch,
do you still make breakfast in lunch for them? Do they do it independently?
Do they do it independently sometimes? I was noticing over the summer,
when my husband was home that my son was completely capable of making his own
breakfast in lunch. But now that my husband is back at work and I
am the one sort of responsible for making sure he eats, suddenly he needs
help. So and possibly the problem is that I feel guilty if I don't
do it. So suck. You know you're saying, mom, house to
work, go get your own breakfast. I feel terrible. So I was
gonna ask you, guys, do your kids do their own thing meal wise?
My daughter, who is alway has for a very long time been completely
independent in her breakfasting and lunching my son. Apparently it goes back and forth.
We'll see. You have to frame it as not you can get your
own because mom has to work. But you can get your own because you're
capable. And yes, you can get your own because you're twenty four years
Go add some milk to cereal. It's not that hard. But I you
know, it's still I feel like bad mom. Maybe it's a maybe it's
a mother son thing. Well, yeah, because I'd like to take care
of them. I still end up making my son's breakfast and lunch lunch far
too often. Also, yes, because he is perfectly capable, but he
is very busy, you know, playing video games and doing other things,
so he cannot be bothered to eat anything. And then, of course until
he desperately needs something and it's going to be something horrible. Yes, So
it's a challenge. I'm trying to balance, you know, his need to
be my need for him to be independent, his need for him for himself
to be independent. I'm not sure where the grammar went there, you know,
his need to be independent. Um, his perfectly capable hands that can
make his own food. But then the choices that he makes are not are
not necessarily good. So here's the other problem. So what do you do?
You know, do you because there's no the natural consequences. Thing is
definitely not working. And because the natural consequences, he will eat you know,
cereal and candy. Yeah, yeah, for every meal and he'll be
perfectly happy with that. Yeah. So yeah, I start independent for sure.
Yeah. Well, Nicole, obviously your son makes his own meals because
he's not living at home. But about your daughter, he make his own
meals his girlfriends his girlfriend does. Let's backtrack a bit. I have failed
miserably, like or actually I have failed what would you say, I've successfully
failed not encouraging or not having my kids make their own meals. And I
just kick myself all the time because my son, who yeah, I tried.
I tried teaching him how to cook, and I tried encouraging him to,
uh, you know, get his own meals. When I worked,
it was easier because he had to get his breakfast at his lunch and then
I'd come home and get dinner. But now that I've been at home,
there's just somehow I fell into this role, Yeah, getting them their breakfast,
packing their lunch, having food ready for them when they get home.
So my son went from that and so then in grade twelve, I'm like,
that's it. You are no longer you know, I'm no longer making
your lunches for you. You're in charge. And then, of course,
even though I've got all the healthy stuff in the fridge, he doesn't take
anything and ends up getting just junk food throughout the day. So natural consequences
didn't work. And then he moved out, and I thought, okay,
uh huh, now is the time he's going to finally learn for himself.
But no, he lived in a frat house where cooking just did not exist
because you couldn't even find the kitchen sink or the kitchen counter or the stove
for that matter. And then from there he started dating a lovely, lovely
girl who loves to cook. Now she's cooking and he's eating what she cooks
for hal and I don't. I just keep telling her you are spoiling him.
You don't realize. And then does she say, she goes, I
like to do it. It's it's you know, it's my favorite thing.
So but it's funny because everyone's in a while in our because we have a
family chat on um texting, so everyone's in a while a comment, she'll,
you know, something we'll pop up from her and it will say,
Josh, please put a pot of water on the stove and boil it.
I'm coming home. So I think that's the extent of his Oh man,
his cooking is she only trusts him to boil a pot of water. And
then my daughter, on the other hand, is she's terrible. She if
I don't put something in front of her, she won't eat if I tell
her. Yeah. Well, I think part of the problem too is that
so she has add and she gets hyper focused when she is doing something and
she'll literally forget to eat. And then when she finally realizes she has a
raging headache from low blood sugar. Yeah, and she's hungry, she'll want
something to eat, but she's terrible. She won't. Yeah, she won't
put anything together either. So, and she used to bake. She used
to do a lot of baking, and which was great for us, but
she's not interested anymore. So, Yeah, I have not done well in
that department. And well I feel a little better now. Yeah. I
just had got I got fifty percent right. I just had my cousin here
for as you know, I had relatives here recently from Australia and her daughter,
who is fifteen. She volunteers to make dinner. Oh my god.
And she makes good else too, so it's great. Anyway, we haven't
been able to get our kids to necessarily do dinner for the family, but
on nights. There are some nights where my husband and son go out to
do something and my daughter and I have dinner together at home and she's in
charge of dinner. Then she will get the frozen fish and put it on
a pan and put in the oven, and frozen vegetables or whatever. She
makes dinner for me, and she's very proud of it. And I'm like,
as long as I'm not doing the work, anything you want to serve.
Yeah, I never cooked dinner anymore, but we're very into microwave things
here for lunches and breakfasts. We usually have leftovers, the kids have leftovers,
so it can be done. Yeah, he can't do it, and
if he's overhearing me saying this podcast, he will now be guilting me by
doing. But it's not that hard and I don't. I don't make lunch.
I extracted a promise from my husband and when I was I think before
I even was pregnant with my first child, that I would not make lunches
because I hate it so much because I just always hated making my own lunch
for work. So he, you know, unwittingly agreed, Not unwittingly,
he just yeah, you know, he agreed, not not really realized the
magnitude of what he agreed to. So yeah, so yeah, I don't
make lunches for anyone, like packed lunches. So either my husband makes them,
or the kids make them themselves, or they buy the school lunch,
which generally tends to be the final the final answer. But yeah, and
what really bugs me is when he makes the kids lunches now, because I'm
always telling him they need to do it themselves. Yeah, you know,
don't do that for them, don't do that for them. But right,
it doesn't really work because then they just don't do it. They just buy.
I should just not put money in their account. There you go.
It starved and I can't look you know. Yeah, we are conflicted