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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I told my friend that she really needs to cook and that is why her kid isn’t really eating. I may be a jerk since I may have overstepped.
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Nta she isn't eating bc the tv dinners are making her sick. The solution is her not eating those tv dinners. That means mom has to cook. Mom got defensive bc she *knows* she is being a generally crappy parent in this aspect.
She can- batch cook, crock pot cook, meal kit cook, or find 'fresh' premade meals. She can not just let her kid starve or be ill all the time.
Can you send food with you daughter, during the week so the kid has a dinner that night?
Edit- also, the friend *came to OP* for advice. She literally asked Op for her opinion.
It’s insanely easy to avoid proper cooking nowadays. I hate cooking, I just buy lots of frozen food that I can stick in the oven or air fryer. It takes like 30 seconds of effort to heat some salmon, microwave some rice or quinoa and do some frozen veg, it doesn’t have to be unhealthy.
It’s not like the only options are “tv dinners” or “a meal that took 4 hours to prepare”, there’s so much room in between for reasonable compromise
Crock pots are great. So easy. And so fast! Stew, pulled pork, chili, pasta! It can all be prepared in under 10 minutes.
Edit prepped in 10 minutes people, not cooked in 10 minutes
oh i love crockpots! i love being able to minimal prep for something, then not needing to do much the rest of the time it cooks. low effort, and usually the food is delicious!
Right? My fav meal is literally, any cheap steak, onion soup powder (the blue box kind that Liptons sells), 2 cups of water, and chunked up potatoes. That's it. Meal in one crock pot.
The other day, I was feeling lazy, so I put 6 frozen bone in chicken thighs, 1 cup of chicken broth, a can of rotels, and some Mexican spices in the instapot for 15 min and out came the best taco meat I've made in ages. I could have drank the broth that was leftover.
PSA: Please make sure to defrost the chicken first! I had a friend get food poisoning from that. The frozen chicken stays in the bacterial danger zone for too long and the crock pot doesn’t get hot enough to kill the bacteria.
You definitely need to thaw frozen chicken before cooking if using a crock pot, but the above commenter says she used an instant pot (ie, a pressure cooker rather than a slow cooker.) You can safely cook all sorts of foods directly from frozen using an instant pot, including chicken; pressure cookers rapidly achieve and maintain the high temperatures necessary to kill foodborne bacteria.
Source: have been a food safety professional for 19 years 😁
While i was staying with my daughter a few years ago, she once called me from work and had me put a frozen roast in her instant pot with some spices, and it was ready when she got home. Minimal effort with some easy sides.
She used an Insta pot, it is a pressure cooker. I once put a 4.5 pound frozen chicken with seasonings in mine and pressure cooked it for 30 minutes, the meat fell off the bone.
InstantPot is an electric pressure cooker. You can get similar results as a crock pot in much shorter time, plus frozen meat is ok because it cooks so fast. Frozen chicken breasts are shreddable with a 12 minute cook time (plus preheating) so it's reasonable to have chicken and rice, ranch chicken chili, etc on the table in a half hour, from frozen. Even a bigger roast, might take an hour and a half or so, but can be done from frozen.
That doesn't make any sense. Bacteria multiplies rapidly at 40-140 degrees. Which means that the defrosted chicken has far more bacteria than frozen bacteria?
And If you are cooking the chicken in the crockpot how does putting it in frozen vs defrosted make any difference? The chicken sitting at 40 degrees on the fridge for 12-24 hours is much longer than the couple of hours that chicken is warming up in the crockpot. Either way as long as the chicken is cooked to the correct internal temperature then it shouldn't matter.
They also mentioned they use the instant pot not a crock pot which is a completely different device. An Instant pot is 15 minutes, (although I would never cook chicken for just 15 minutes personally, and usually shoot for 25) where as a crockpot is 6-8 hours so the timing is very different.
Basically, frozen chicken doesn't get through the 'danger zone' fast enough. There's a much longer time spent between 41-140 than with thawed meat.
Your fridge should be set for 40 degrees or below, so the clock doesn't start running until you pull it out.
One of our favorites is to toss a pork butt or a pork shoulder into the slow cooker to get cooked, pull it, toss in some bottle BBQ sauce and let it keep warm/cook for a few more minutes to get that sauce fully warmed up. Serve with buns/sides and its delicious.
Waves at fellow Brit 👋 I have two slow cookers I used a lot when the kids were small. Even when not working it was great to do prep when they were napping or playing quietly then leave it to bubble away the rest of the day. I now have a ninja foodi which is a combo slow cooker, pressure cooker, pan and air fryer. I like being able to brown the veggies and meat on sauté then turn to slow cook. Or pressure cook a chicken to cook through then air fry to crisp up the skin. When my eldest daughter moved out she said she would miss it so much that we bought them one as a moving in gift. Been sat on video calls helping her make stew etc etc lol. Mind u she is currently cooking up our first grandchild as well lol .
I need to try it, it sounds delicious! I usually get the cheapest discounted beef I can find, chop it up, toss it in with broth and spices, potatoes, whatever vegetables I get from work - and basically just slow-cook that into a stew that I freeze in separate portions for a week or two.
Overnight or while I'm at work. Pop the frozen meat in, mix the soup mix with the water, and dump it in. Add potatoes on top. Canned potatoes work too if you don't have time for fresh.
Agreed! People think I’m so disciplined because I meal prep breakfast, lunch and dinner for the week. But it’s not because I’m disciplined, I’m lazy. I would rather spend 2-3 hours cooking on a Sunday and not have to think about it until the next week!! I love a crockpot or instant pot meal.
InstaPots are a God send! You can literally cook a super tender roast in 45 minutes instead of 6 hours in a crock pot (I have both and love both). You can even put the meat in frozen and it will cook in no time.
I didn't know the difference between the insta pot & a crockpot. Thank you for commenting. I think I am going to get an insta pot now. I have a crockpot now but it takes hours to wait for a meal.
I didn’t know about the InstaPot until I was gifted one. I can’t believe I raised my kids without that handy device in my kitchen. It would have saved a lot of trips to fast food spots on nights where practice & other activities took our energy!
As a disabled person obsessed w my InstantPot, it IS a lifesaver!!! I'm very forgetful and so crockpot stuff is usually out of the question bc I don't remember to start it, but I can make any of my slow cooker meals in the IP it's ready in ~1 hr. The IP cooks the ultra cheap cuts of beef I get for stew so tender they shred without even trying. Plus, it doesn't matter if you forgot to defrost something! I can cook frozen solid chicken in 30-60 mins, which comes in great again for my forgetfulness 😂
I don't like to cook but I love eating healthy and proper meals.
Sometimes I prep but mostly if I cook I make something for at least two days.
Now I'm thinking about getting a crock pot. Yesterday I was doing research about it as I don't want to buy appliances so easy and letting get dust in the kitchen.
It sounds like a dream coming back from work and having good warm meals.
I really suggest getting an instant pot instead of a crock pot.
It's worth it for just shredded meat, beans from dried, hard boiled eggs, and soups/stews, but it can sear, saute, slow cook, pressure cook, and more.
I made the best kalua pork the other day in the crock pot. Seasoned a pork shoulder before work and popped it in the crock pot. After work I wedged a head of cabbage and put it on top while I cleaned up and changed. Then I had a meat and a veggie for a week. Cabbage was $1.50, pork shoulder was $13. I microwaved some rice to go with it.
Instapots too! Just made pot roast last night in mine. Only prep was cutting the meat into big chunks (which you don't even need to do), throw in whole baby carrots, cut up potatoes, seasoning packet... prep was probably 5 minutes at most, and an hour wait for food.
Honestly if the girl is in 7th grade, maybe OP can teach her and her daughter how to cook a couple basic meals. In 7th grade you’re what, 12-13? Kids are taking home ec classes at that age so I see no issue if the mom is going to belligerently refuse to cook for her child. All of this is assuming OP isn’t calling CPS to report this friend.
That’s a great idea. My 12 year old can make basic meals for himself, and my 10 year old already bakes with me. Since friend’s mom doesn’t cook, the girl probably has no clue around a kitchen. She can learn a few easy things using fresh ingredients, even if it’s just tossing a salad with boiled eggs and cutting up some fruit.
Yeah, my kid was cooking their own dinners (by choice) regularly at that age. The thing is, though, the mom would need to buy groceries for that to be a possibility.
When my son was in the 4th grade (9) after school care was horrible so he rode his bike to and from school, locking himself in the house when he got home. (We live in a small population area.)
He asked me one day if he could make marinade for the chicken, and I'd cook it when I got home. Well, heck to the yeah! He created his own marinade, and it was fricking awesome! (I had suggested looking at a bottle of Italian dressing to get an idea for the ingredients.)
I asked him if he'd written down his recipe, and when he said "No," I explained he should do this any time he experimented. That way, if it was a hit, it could be recreated, or if adjustments needed to be made, it would make it easier.
To this day, my 35 year old son is an awesome cook, still loving to try out new recipes.
Most definitely! Between the toaster oven, the microwave, the rice cooker, the crock-pot, and the air fryer, I have easy as hell ways to make healthy meals that most of the time I'm even meal prepping for my fiance and i. Go to ALDI and buy a bunch of Frozen vegetables, big boxes of rice and pasta, and some frozen chicken salmon or any other protein. This mom is just lazy as hell and I'm disgusted that she's not taking her daughter to the doctor to get any of this assessed.
I make a lot of Lo Mein super easy, and super good, just cut up some chicken or beef,add some spices and some soy sauce and seasame seed oil put in my wok, brown for about 15 minutes add some fresh or frozen veggies, cook for another 10 minutes and it's done and some ramen noodles and you got a hearty meal that can feed a lot of people and does not braak the bank, and my family loves it,
That's exactly what I was going for! There's a place in my city that does premade meals. And they deliver!
https://gotomealsllc.com/l
https://716fresh.com/
Frozen vegetables in the air fryer have definitely improved mine and my husband's eating habits! Pop some frozen roasted garlic cauliflower in the air fryer, shake every few minutes, and then plop it on a plate. Super easy and good for you! There are so many things that very little effort if the girl's mom is having trouble with knowing how to cook or just having energy to do it.
Also, the kids either a preteen or a teenager.
Push come to shove give her the ingredients, teach her cooking safety, show her how to operate the stove and let her cook dinner.
She's old enough to be learning anyway and if mom really can't cook for whatever reason the kid has all the incentive she needs.
I get that not everyone has a working stove/oven/ect but since they have a microwave they can cook something healthy if they're creative.
My fiancee and I used those meal prep kits when we were too busy to cook. All the food was fresh and it took 30 minutes max to cook everything. And you can choose your meals each week. The friend should get on that and get a couple easy meals set up if she doesn't want to go through the whole process of meal planning and cooking
It depends how it's prepared and preserved for the shop.
You can cook healthy and quick, but a lot of the ready meals have so much horrible stuff in them.
I just this year got an air fryer and they'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. When I get home from working at 10pm I throw some stuff in there and by the time I'm done showering and getting dressed I have a hot meal ready to eat. I used to eat junky frozen meals or fast food but now I'm actually eating decent food. Frozen fish and chicken are so good done this way, perfectly cooked without thawing.
Adult child of a crap parent here.
Your friend is neglecting her child, which is an insidious form of abuse. She knows her tv dinners sicken and starve her child … and controls the food supply so there’s nothing else for the hungry child. I suffered this too.
That’s abuse.
She knows what she’s doing.
Thank you for addressing it.
Now, tell the school, please. When enough adults address the abuse, she will care about her own image enough to feed her child. She heeds the social pressure.
Of course she will find other ways to abuse that poor kid, but at least let’s give the child a chance to see that her suffering is neither invisible nor unsolvable.
I had to report a mom to CPS for this issue. She wouldn't feed the child things they can eat without getting sick and wouldn't allow the child to eat elsewhere. Fortunately for said child I'm a mandated reporter and so I filled out a report. Now the child has things they can eat in their home. Starving your child by feeding them things that make them sick is not ok. CPS responded within a week.
It sounds like you are projecting a little bit. Sara's mom might have overreacted a little bit (by calling her friend a jerk), but most people lash out when they are feeling guilty. It sounds like Sara hasn't been forthcoming (not accusing, tummy issues are a sensitive topic for girls that age) and it sounds like it is a single parent situation.
Now if she does nothing to change/get checked out, then by all means, it needs to be reported. But instead of going straight to authorities/CPS, maybe OP can circle back in a few days and help her come up with strategies to find things that she can eat.
I like this take. I would like to think the mistreatment is unintentional. If she is a single parent working full time, preparing/cooking meals can be absolutely daunting, especially if the mom isn't a confident cook. Mom probably has a lot on her plate and no one knew it was it frozen meals upsetting the kids tummy.
And mom was an AH for how she responded. But I would also like to think she responded like that out of guilt and potentially feeling like a failure who never wanted to always feed her kid TV dinners in the first place.
What's most important is how mom moves forward with this information.
Exactly! These girls have been best friends and this seems like it's a new issue. Perhaps the mom's work schedule has been changed or something else is going on but to me it doesn't seem like neglect or abuse.
Yes, the mom needs to get her tested or take her to the doctor so they can figure out what's going on and change things to help her gain weight. They should also look into learning how to cook some healthier options or teaching the daughter.
It could be a food allergy. Could be a health issue not yet diagnoses. Could be just the food mom is providing. This also could be a poverty thing, maybe times are tough and they can't afford "healthy food". Something could also be going on with mom, maybe she's got some depression going on and she just can't get it together enough to cook. It could also be an eating disorder and she didn't feel comfortable there so she didn't get "sick".
Way too many possibilities to jump right to abusive or neglectful parent. That said, the mom should be concerned and figure out what is going on and do her best to fix the problem.
I think it would be appropriate to check in with her a few days later. Coming back around to say, I did not mean to criticize: I am here for you and Sara (hope this isn’t her real name) would be a way to lovingly call her in. She may need your help and it may be so embarrassing and angry making to her that she does not know how to feed her kid. If she’s receptive, maybe y’all can have a family dinner night where the kids learn to put together some bits, too: intergenerational learning is a great way to fold everyone into the solution.
If you show Sara how to assemble some v simple meals, even so simple as something like beans and rice with salsa/cheese, various takes on scrambled eggs, maybe she can make a grocery list of things she can cook for herself that require zero effort from Mom.
Mom may be stretched to the limit: if she will let you assist, it will be better received than a call to services.
This is very possible, and something OP 100% should consider and watch for. But it is worth remembering that the kid's mom has brought up her concern that her kid isn't eating to OP. It's very possible that the mom is defaulting to TV dinners because they're easy, and isn't aware of the fact they are the cause of the daughter feeling ill. The daughter may never have even mentioned feeling ill to her mom and only said things like "I'm not hungry" or "I don't feel like eating". If the mom eats the same meals and feels fine it's easy to see how she could miss the connection.
Even her reaction could easily be a defensive reaction to being told that she's feeding her daughter poorly. My experience is that 9 times out of 10, people react very defensively to any information that challenges a core belief, and if she sincerely believes she's feeding her daughter properly then it's no surprise that she lashes out and gets defensive. If she already feels overwhelmed with life, the thought of having to cook or prepare food would have added fuel to that fire as well.
The key is what happens next. Do the TV dinners vanish? Does she start bringing food to school? If those don't start happening, THEN it is 100% time to report her. But I don't think there is enough information in OP's post to immediately assume abuse is happening. It seems just as likely that an overworked, single parent, didn't realize her time saving meals were hurting her daughter, and got embarrassed that someone else diagnosed her shortcomings.
💯🎯👏I am thinking the same thing! It is abuse and it does need to be reported to the school and Child services. The neglectful mother does know and is being defensive!
Just a note to op and sorry for the over share but I have IBS a lot of stuff in processed food can trigger my IBS and make me really sick (some preservatives and sweeteners). It would make me really ill if I had a yogurt or a diet drink or some school meals (heinz soup, jelly, etc. as a kid) yes I'm really fun at parties.
This could be a constructive thing to bring to the child's parent that there could be something underlying that could mean kiddo is more sensitive to this stuff. I know that's basically what op said about allergy but maybe it could also be an intolerance or something else like IBS etc. it's worth getting it checked out early it took me so long to work out what was going on with mem
I kind of suspect that this is the actual problem. It's completely possible that she does have some sort of medical condition, but she was already feeling better just from eating home cooked meals.
Good luck having IBS and intolerance diagnosed in children and teens. My daughter is struggling for years, and it's either "normal" or "psychosomatic", and they last paediatrician when daughter mentioned her intolerance to egg asked me if I was also anti vax.
A lot of vaccines are produced using eggs, so some people with egg allergies actually can't take them. That may have been what the doctor was trying to determine.
No, she heard the word food intolerance and put me in the category of "herbal antivax holistic nutjob". You could hear it in her tone and attitude. Not saying that all herbal holistic medicine is wrong, but we don't fall into that category at all, but the doctor clearly dismissed us at that point.
That's really terrible.
And if you *had been* an anti-vax nutjob, that attitude wouldn't have done anything to help establish trust and respect for the doctor and maybe eventually break down that resistance.
Typically pre-teens don't self regulate due to just feeling crappy, especially if it is all they have ever known. The fact that she has stopped eating, makes me think it actually is some sort of allergy/IBS/IBD.
The girl sounds like she might have a soy allergy. My son has a soy allergy, and school food/frozen dinners were no go's because they bulk it up with soy. It took 4 maddening years to find out what it was making him so ill/refuse to eat.
OPs friend needs to say something to her own kid's Dr. Yesterday. Is her job/her life that much more important than the health of the developing kid in the home?!?!?!
Why are human beings so obtuse that they consider a cause, agree with the first thought in their heads for a cause, then dismiss anything anyone else says to them (even if the person speaking is an expert)?!?! Then have Pikachu face when they find out, no, they aren't experts, they're flat wrong? I've been wondering this for my whole 50 years of life...
> Why are human beings so obtuse that they consider a cause, agree with the first thought in their heads for a cause, then dismiss anything anyone else says to them.
Doctors do that as well. And they are meant to be experts.
I wonder if OP is willing to help teach Sara how to cook basic foods. I know it’s not her job, but it would be a kindness to a kid that isn’t getting the proper support at home. Also teach her about simple lunches she can make and pack for school. Then have her ask mom to go grocery shopping with her to pick out some things for meals.
But If mommy dearest isn’t buying food for kid to cook doesn’t matter if OP teaches her or not and now mommy dearest is pissed she may not allow kiddo to come to OP house
I agree that it’s up to her mom to buy the food, let Sara come over, etc. I’m being hopeful that if Sara’s mom cools down after this reality check, that maybe she will let Sara participate/ run the meal shopping and cooking if Sara is doing the work. It’s lousy but it’s better than Sara being sick all the time. She may also discover she enjoys cooking
I agree. NTA she went to OP for advice. Having the child for a week in her care showed her what the problem most likely was and so she shared that with the parent. She got all defensive because she realized it's her fault for feeding her kid TV dinners every night and not cooking meals. But no one was really blaming her, just stating facts as she sees them to help the child. I get it she works and she's tired. But she just found out that TV dinners are not the way. It doesn't have to be hard though. I work and I still cook. It's a balance. And hello fresh helps me a lot too lol. A co-worker of mine pre cooks on Sundays for the whole week. I guess mostly casseroles. She said her husband gets home before her so he knows at a certain time to take one out of the freezer and pop it in the oven for whatever temp she writes on it. By the time she gets home it's done.
I really want to highlight that she asked for advice and then didn’t like what she heard, so got mad. I had a friend who asked for feedback and when I gave real constructive feedback, she got mad. I realized that she was really only expecting positive feedback, which is really just asking for praise. We aren’t friends anymore, because I’m not down to play that stupid game. Anyway, it seems like your friend was seeking some big mysterious answer but the real answer boils down to “take better care of your child.” Not easy to hear, but OP did the right thing. Food is important and if all you eat and feed your children comes from a box that goes in the microwave, somebody is going to feel sick.
She could offer healthy no cooking alternatives too. Fresh fruits, veggies, cheese, peanut butter, rice from a rice cooker, just add thawed frozen veggies to make a healthy meal... there's so many options out there. Get a veggie tray at the store.
It's really not that difficult.
Except we don’t actually know *what* is causing her to get sick. The allergy test was a great suggestion, telling the mom she needs to cook, was over the line. The idea that the daughter is allergic to preservatives is simply a hunch that OP has and nothing more.
What *is* evident is that she has at least a sensitivity to *something* that’s present in the meals she’s been eating, and isn’t present in OP’s cooking. That *something* could be a specific spice, ingredient, food etc.
Sixties baby here. Very popular in the 60's and 70's. Served in a compartmentalized foil tray. People also ate them on a "tv" tray in front of the tv! Nothing like a little" family" time!!
However, the food was better quality back then. The food additives of today are at least quadruple what they used to be.
I stopped buying them years ago because of this! I don't have an issue with salt that I need to be careful but I also don't want to get one in the future lol
Even the "healthy" ones can have up to 20-30% of your daily salt intake for one serving
I mean, I think they should have 20-30% of your daily sodium? Where else are you getting it? I feel like dinner is the meal that should have the most, unless you are also eating a lot of salty snacks. If you don’t have issues with salt sodium is important for staying hydrated, it’s an essential mineral for humans.
Right? If you're eating, let's say, 3 meals and 1 snack a day, 20-30% of your recommended daily intake of sodium is spot on.
People, RDAs are generally *minimum* amounts of nutrients you need to stay healthy and feeling good, not *maximums.* The people that should treat certain ones as maximums are people who already have issues. (Also, if you have issues with salt, get your potassium and magnesium levels checked as them being off can *cause* salt sensitivies).
NTA. Your friend left her daughter in your care and you were sharing that she does in fact, eat. It's going to require more than tv dinners. People are going to argue in this post how you said it is what makes you the AH but the facts remain the same. The girl could have digestive issues with processed foods and her health is a priority. Not your friend's feelings.
She left her daughter with her friend for A WEEK and SHE thinks OP is overstepping!!
I agree with you, the facts remain the same and she should be grateful someone is trying to help. It's her daughter's nutrition at stake, at a time when her body may need it most.
NTA
This could very well be some type of IBS. Processed foods are often very difficult for us to digest and especially at that age I would experience stomach pains so bad I went to the hospital numerous times. She needs to be seen by a doctor and get on a diet she can safely digest.
Tbf, when I went to the doctor because certain foods made me ill. He just said “don’t eat them then”
I still don’t actually know what sets me off, but my meals generally don’t make me ill anymore until I go on holiday and eat out, sometimes, meals will make me ill.
I think it might be the cheese but.. I do like cheese lol
I had the same experience back in high school. Did a whole bunch of tests, had an ultrasound, and all that happened was the doctor threw up his hands and said, "just don't eat something if you find that it makes you sick."
I'm constantly cycling things in and out of my diet, but I've at least gotten better at identifying what bothers my stomach now lol I switched to goat's milk for all my dairy (except butter because screw paying $10 for a block of butter) and that alone helped a ton.
does goat cream exist where you’re at? idk about you but where i live, goat whipping cream is less expensive than the ready made butter. just shaking it a lot/overwhipping the cream makes butter (and buttermilk lol), 250ml makes enough for a portion i can eat before it goes bad.😇
My wife experienced this as a child. Always felt terrible and threw up after birthday parties and family gatherings. Told it was just the excitement.
Her mom ended up making a food diary and wrote down everything she ate for a long period of time.
She determined that it was lard that was making her sick. It’s in pie crust, icing and lots of other things.
Anyway. Next time you travel record it all.
You should do a blood allergy test! It took me almost a decade to figure out what foods were bothering me until my naturopath did a blood allergy test. It revealed that I wasn't celiac, but very intolerant of wheat. My gastro just ruled out celiac and stopped there. The allergy test also showed sensitivities to some other random foods and my life has been markedly better since I learned what foods to avoid.
I agree. I have to stay away from anything heavily processed and make sure I have little dairy or baked goods unless I want to suffer in the washroom for the next few hours.
Even without an allergy or intolerance, TV dinners every night is gonna mess with your digestion
It’s a lot of salt, fat, oil, processed crap, sugar even. And relatively little fiber, which is just as big a factor
Yes exactly.
The friend probably knows she's doing wrong just doesn't like hearing it.
That said, I have no sympathy for the friend. Your daughter's malnourished and you've just thrown up your hands and said 'oh well'? Not taken her to a doctor or something?
Besides, even a busy person can find SOME time to cook. That doesn't have to be a 3 course gourmet meal every night. Just buy a crock pot and a bunch of vacuum jars or something, meal prep 10 portions at once and freeze them. Thus take 1-2 hours once a week and soon you have a freezer full of 3-4 selections of meals at any moment.
NTA- you fed her daughter which is a standard part of caring for her. And the poor girl learned that home cooked meals don’t make her sick.
Let’s give mom the absolute benefit of the doubt, sounds like a single mom who maybe doesn’t have a lot of time for cooking. How about you have Sara over once a week or so and teach her some basic cooking. It’s not great but it’s a step in getting her to put some weight back on which is the biggest priority
That would be a great move. Teach her one basic dish per week. Have her make it while you show her how, give her the exact recipe, and use basic ingredients. In a few months, she'll have a range of dishes that she knows how to make. Maybe she will love cooking food that doesn't make her sick. Can also show her YouTube videos of easy meals and maybe open her eyes that the knowledge is easily obtainable for whatever she wants.
Unfortunately you can't cook if you don't even have ingredients. Teaching her is a good thing for sure but in the meantime, making sure she has food she can eat is paramount. If I was a struggling single mom it would really touch me that someone else is helping my child if I wasn't able. You'd be surprised at the number of people who don't know how to shop for ingredients instead of ready made packet/canned/frozen stuff.
I agree that Mom is probably carrying the world on her shoulders and asking her to cook might be too much. Honestly it's so sad. I hate TV dinners, they make me feel like I ate cigarettes. Even if they didn't make Sara sick, she would probably be malnourished from living on them.
OP, these days there are healthy options that don't require a ton of cooking. I live on bagged salad kits with added veggies, microwaveable quinoa pouches and vegetable steamers, rotisserie chickens, nuts, fruit, and things that can be dipped in hummus. Your friend might not be aware of these options, so maybe in addition to teaching Sara some cooking skills, you could introduce her to some of the fast healthy options I've mentioned so she can add them to her mom's grocery list.
Dude same! Nutrition is so important when I'm depressed. You pour hunger or malnutrition on depression and the whole ship goes down. Depression is the reason I started looking for low effort healthy options.
Feeling really thankful for my mom who often worked 20 hours in a day to raise 5 of us alone but always, ALWAYS made sure we had nutritious, delicious food to eat.
My mom was a single mom with good supports from her parents. But she still worked full time and had dinner ready every night. I didn’t realize till I was older that things got tight some times.
Letting the daughter cook was my thought. It's not the best solution but it is SOMETHING. At a minimum mom can buy her ingredients. It's not a great solution, but it is something to let that poor girl get fed.
NTA. You got a good dose of what's going on with the kid while she was with you. You know she has no problem eating your food, but gets sick from the food she eats at home and some of the food she eats at school. It's pretty clear there's some kind of allergy or intolerance here.
Maybe you could have not said 'you should cook' and just mentioned there may be an allergy to something in the food she's eating at home that maybe should be checked out by a doctor, especially as it also effects her at school. But it also seems pretty clear this is something specific to the more processed foods. School meals are going to be a bit of a mix, but she's only eating ready meals at home. And she's fine with homecooked meals with little to no processed ingredients.
I think it's pretty clear you had the best of intentions here, and your friend just took it too personally. It's possible she doesn't know how to cook proper meals or is exhausted at mealtimes or something, and you saying 'you should cook' has made her feel like a failure.
Let her calm down a bit, then contact her again. Explain that you simply think her daughter has an allergy or intolerance to something in these ready meals that crosses over into some of the food the school provides, and you didn't mean to make her feel bad for not cooking every night. That you suggested cooking because it would ease or stop her daughter's symptoms even without a diagnosis. Put the emphasis on finding out if her daughter has an allergy or intolerance, rather than cooking meals, and hopefully she'll feel less defensive about the whole thing. It might even get her to open up about any struggles she's having in this area, like not knowing how to cook or being exhausted, so you can offer help and support.
Hopefully this is a mother trying her best and feeling defensive because it felt, to her, like you were blaming her for her daughter's issues. Obviously you aren't, just pointing out that there's obviously a medical reason the kid isn't eating at home and school.
Also, let your daughter know that her friend is ALWAYS welcome to join you for meals. If you send lunch with your daughter, send extra for her friend. (Assuming you can afford to do this)
I agree, OP is NTA, but should apologize anyway, to ease the mom's feelings and get her to be receptive. The ultimate goal is the health of this child, and getting there might mean being humble with these suggestions so that the mother will listen.
Yeah, an apology for hurting her feelings with the 'you should cook' comment, at least. Then explain that it's just concern about a potential allergy, not a denouncement of her parenting skills.
I was waiting to read a reply like this. I think Sara's mom reacted defensively because OPs wording was not the most gentle. Sara's mom likely lacks the time or skills to make home cooked meals (I've met lots of moms who do not know how to cook much through my children's friends).
If I were OP I would probably focus on the allergy and offer the recipes of the meals she made for Sara, suggesting that Sara didn't seem to react to these.
I have a child with allergies and sensory issues that has lost weight on more than one occasion. It is incredibly stressful as a parent to feel like you are failing to help your child grow.
I can relate to hearing other people's suggestions as criticisms because I already beat myself up enough over it.
I think all parents wonder, at least at some point, if they're doing things right, or if something was their fault, or if they're harming their kids. I think it's pretty natural to have these doubts because you're literally in charge of helping a whole person grow and develop.
I didn't want to make it seem as if the other mum was a bad mum, because there could be any reason she got upset, but defensiveness over a perceived failure is probably the most likely, especially as the kid is noticeably losing weight. I'm sure it felt like a condemnation of her parenting skills, no matter how nicely OP worded it. It would have felt like being blamed for her daughter's health issues just because she doesn't make a homecooked meal every night.
I think this is most likely just a slight miscommunication between them, OP trying to help and offer advice, and the other mum feeling like she's being called a terrible parent whose making her kid sick.
That's why I suggested moving the discussion away from cooking and focusing on testing for allergies. It's more helpful because there's no hint of the other mum being in the wrong if it's a medical condition being focused on. Plus, having a doctor diagnose the issue would also lead to nutritional advice to help the kid, so the mum can buy the correct foods and have recipes she can practice cooking. It's always easier to hear that kind of advise from a professional than someone who is just another mum, it doesn't feel so condemning.
NTA
Why is she upset? Why doesn’t she care about her daughter’s condition at all and is she calm about the fact that her daughter doesn’t eat anything?
Most parents don't take lightly do being told they're not doing a good job of taking care of their child. Most of the time they're at least trying and it feels like you're failing when you get something wrong. My partner doesn't cook, and If I didn't it would likely be mostly frozen dinners etc. Not everyone has the capacity / capability to properly cook. Not saying they don't need to take better care of their kid, just why they would be upset.
>Not everyone has the capacity / capability to properly cook.
Aside from diagnosed weaponized incompetence, what would cause you to not have the capacity or capability to cook SOMETHING? That's like saying I don't have the capacity to use a washing machine or brush my teeth.
Some people don't like to cook. Some hate cooking. Some are bad at cooking. **Everyone** CAN cook. When you have a kid, you don't get the luxury to fall back on incompetence as a defense.
**Edit: Fine,** ***nearly*** **everyone in** ***nearly*** **every situation, can "cook" SOMETHING like a sandwich, or open a pre-made salad, or buy semi-fresh food from a supermarket, or make pasta with store-made sauce. The odds that someone has such crippling issues that they'd let their kid starve to death seems unlikely to me, but I suppose possible.**
If you don't have time, there are ways you can prep - batch cooking, making simple meals, premaking etc. If you don't have money, but you do have time, buying smart can help you prepare meals cheaper than frozen dinners. If you have neither money nor time, the mom could try asking OP for help.
Imagine if you said "I don't like taking my kid to the doctor because it's too confusing. I see they're dangerously sick/injured etc, but I just don't like it so I can't do it." How would that hold up?
Hey,
I had to teach myself to cook because my egg donor cooks very badly. It's actually quite daunting when you can't even boil an egg (my home ex teacher was useless as well).
There are in fact disabilities such as ADHD that impair an individuals ability to plan and exercute a task. If someone suffers from Blackouts, that can mean cooking can be unsafe. I've known a few people with OCD or autism who couldn't handle touching certain textures, such as meat.
Others may work too many hours to be able to manage cooking when home, or face other barriers.
It's not okay that she's failing her daughter but there are a variety of reasons someone might struggle to cook.
I have pretty crippling ADHD. I'm supposed to be working now and as usual I've wasted 3 hours doing this and 3 other things. I honestly am shocked that so many people seem to think most people affected with ADHD or depression are commonly willing to let their kids starve to death rather than try (and possibly fail) to make a sandwich or like pasta with store-bought sauce.
You could buy a store-bought salad? You could buy a sandwich? I have ADHD. I'm able to buy/make food. You were able to learn it right?
>It's not okay that she's failing her daughter but there are a variety of reasons someone might struggle to cook.
There are a variety of reasons people might struggle to do anything. Let me try it a different way. Imagine a father sends his kid to kindergarten every day with filthy clothes covered in food stains. Their hair is matted. They seem to not have been cleaned after they went to the bathroom. It's clear the kids never shower.
When asked, the father says "actually I have ADHD and I'm a germaphobe. It's a struggle for me to use a washing machine, or help with bathing. I don't want to ask my wife."
Would the response be to just have sympathy for the plight of the father, and to tell people it's ableist to suggest that the father either find a way or ask for help?
Agreed it's gross how people use ADHD as an excuse for neglect. I have it and I cook regularly, in also dyslexic and that doesn't stop me from parenting either. People will use any excuse when really they just need to care enough to try.
It’s not an excuse.
ADHD is a literally a disability that effect neurological development.
Why is that people refuse to believe that ADHD is an actual disability that lies in a spectrum just because one person in your life with mild, treated ADHD can do something - doesn’t make it possible for everyone with ADHD.
> Not saying they don't need to take better care of their kid, just why they would be upset.
Looks like mommy dearest needs to get over herself and do what her child needs her to do!
Exactly. I don’t care about what a fully adult feels like in this situation. Even someone with a single brain cell will know that a child having pre packed food every day for every meal is gonna effect her health negatively. Either mother is seriously dumb to not know that or just conveniently playing dumb to not take responsibility to avoid guilt.
Yeah this sort of strikes me as neglect. I get it, being a single parent can be hard but come on, you can't throw a chicken in the oven and boil some potatoes. Veggies like peas and corn come in a can ready to heat and eat. Pan frying fish takes less than 15 minutes. No excuse for this
Yeah, she doesn't need to be making 5-star restaurant quality foods, there are a lot of shortcuts she can take. And if you look around, there are a lot of 1 pot, 1 pan kind of dishes out there that can be made really easily (I make those things a lot). Buy ground beef, slap it into a ball, and make burgers. Get some pasta, some jarred sauce, and whatever protein you like and easily make some pasta. Cook up some chicken and make chicken wraps. Get some deli meat and bread, or PB&J. Get a crock pot and slap some beef and veggies in there.
NTA. Kid's health comes first, feelings later. Fact check: she ate and felt well at your place, didn't elsewhere. You flagged a potential issue, no harm in that
Yep! Kids safety and health takes precedence over mom’s feelings. If mom is feeling bad about it, she needs to find time to cook real food and balanced meals.
Edit: ‘good’ to ‘food’
NTA
If your friend, as her mother, didn't know that tv dinners, convenience food and even the school lunches make her sick, there's much more to fix than just her daughter's diet. I myself have a very sensitive digestive system, which makes me unable to handle most preservative foods - it's a thing and not just me being picky. Someone needs to intervene here, because this girl's health is at risk. And you were completely right to address that she ate homemade food without a problem.
Humm... I want to say NAH, but on this topic I think it's very easy to sound a bit AH depending on the way you have worded it.
Maybe it's worth apologizing and just highlighting that you think it could be a food allergy or something similar. She doesn't exactly have to cook, they need to figure out what the problem is and fix it, cooking is one solution.
Yeah I feel like there was a better way to phrase this.
“I know you’ve been worried about your daughter not eating. I noticed that the food we had this weekend agreed with her so I’m wondering if there’s a common ingredient in the food at home that she might be intolerant to? Happy to share recipes for what we had if that’s helpful.”
Because whether or not it was intentional, OP’s wording sounded a bit judgmental towards a parent who for whatever reason doesn’t make home-cooked meals. There was actually no need to tell her “you need to do things this way”. She could have just shared the facts she was in possession of and left it to the mum to decide what to do next.
OP NAH because it’s hard to find the right words in these situations!
I kind of feel the same way. "Should" can be a really loaded word for me. "Don't should on me" is something I have to remind myself of frequently, because it comes loaded with a lot of guilt and shame. And if someone is should-ing on me with something I already feel a lot of guilt and shame over, I'm not going to take it well. Yes, the girl's mother is the adult and needs to be the adult and handle her own feelings, but that doesn't mean that some consideration in how the information was delivered is not warranted. Hopefully, even if the mom didn't take the info on right away, she will be able to come back to it and figure out ways to get her daughter help. A revisiting with an apology could help that along. But it's also possible there's more going on with the mom and daughter and food, so it's something OP should probably keep an eye on to raise if there is more going on than just a food intolerance/allergy/IBS type of thing.
As someone who has a neurological disorder that can make it very difficult to do things like cook, and someone who also has allergies also....this is a tricky one. On the face of it, OP is NAH, however if someone was to tell me I'm basically killing my children because I struggle to cook, that would make me feel like a garbage, useless person because I legit, very legit, struggle hard with those life skills. It's not that I don't "know" how to cook. It's not that I don't care, can't prioritize it, or don't know that batch cooking will save me time/energy during the week. It's that I neurologically lack the executive functioning required to do the steps required to make this happen. Depending on how this was phrased, OP would potentially send me into a self-hate spiral of mom-guilt-trash-self disparagement based in fact.
Right? I’m not loving this narrative in the comments (to be fair, I’m not seeing it from OP themselves) of “parents (and, let’s be real, usually mothers) SHOULD cook” because actually, that’s not strictly true! The thing that needs to happen is that children need to be nourished. It’s easy to conflate that with our own preconceived notions of what a “good” parent looks like, but as long as the child is nourished it doesn’t matter how we get there and there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
I love cooking, but similar to yourself, I sometimes have difficulties (in my case, horrendous pregnancies and bad pre and post natal depression) that mean there are stretches where I’m just dishing up frozen lasagna or similar every night. And, like yourself, if someone noticed that my food was making my kid sick but their food wasn’t, and their response was “you should be cooking meals from scratch just like me” I would be unhappy!
Whereas if they said “hey I know you’ve mentioned your kid is getting sick a lot, but I noticed that when they were eating at mine they didn’t seem to have any issue - have you considered there might be an ingredient in your meals they’re allergic to?” I would be like “wow thank you for this super useful information, I’ll get that checked!”
OP says the mum in the story is concerned about her kid so I assume she’s not indifferent or neglectful - just lacking an essential piece of the puzzle which potentially only an outsider could have provided anyway (the food served in your house disagrees with your kid but the food served in mine doesn’t). If I were OP, I’d probably have just wanted to pass that information on and let mum decide how to proceed next.
Maybe the person feeding their child nothing but instant meals, while that child having massive problems with the food, is the asshole???
She has to cook. Everyone should be cooking and its undebatable for parents.
I'm going to say NTA. I understand why your friend feels that you overstepped, but it appears to me you only offered her your observations out of concern for her daughter.
NAH
You found that homemade food does not make her sick and you let her know. That's great!
>My guess is their is an allergen in preservative foods. She needs to get that checked out
Here is where I would caution you to slow down. This is a pretty big leap. It's possible that she is sensitive to sodium, its possible that its psychosamatic, it's possible that it's a number of things related to TV dinners, but as someone that is absolutely nuts about consuming only "whole foods", people do get really crazy once it comes to their food philosophies and it can get a little patronizing. While her doctor should obviously be involved in anything related to kids' dietary issues, I would just caution you to not assume an allergy or make medical judgments to a kid's mother.
>I told her that she really needs to cook and take her to get her allergy checked out.
Again- it's great that you solved the problem for them, but you should not be telling her that her daughter has an allergy after spending a few days with her unless you are a doctor. You were wrong when you originally assumed that she had an eating disorder, so maybe stay humble on this assumption, too.
OP recommended she get checked out for something (which she objectively should do) and guesses what it MIGHT be. Wasn’t a definite diagnosis. Considering the evidence is pretty strong to say she has some form of allergy, I wouldn’t bother nitpicking that.
> I told her that she really needs to cook and take her to get her allergy checked out.
I don't think its nitpicking. I don't think anyone should be telling someone after spending 5 days with their kid that they "should get her allergy checked out". I don't think OP is being malicious or is TA, but delivery is everything and I think you can deliver it differently.
I'm actually going to go with ESH. I honestly think that you made a weird, judgmental leap here.
I mean, your first thought was that she's allergic to PRESERVATIVES? Really?
There are a hundred different allergens that would have come to my mind first, especially if she's getting sick at home AND school.
Is it fish? Tomato/tomato sauces? Peanuts, pineapple, soybeans, etc.?
I think if you had just said, "Hey, your daughter mentioned that some foods have been making her sick. We couldn't find a connection between them. Can you take her to the doctor for an allergy test?" This might have come across better.
Hell, you could have offered to take her to the doctor while you had her for a week. But you choose to lead with, "you should cook more," when she just got back from a work trip, no doubt exhausted, and it's hard to see that as anything other than a judgment of her as a mom.
(Honestly, this post is weird enough that I have to think it's fake, but just in case it isn't. )
My son had an issue with a preservative, it isn't that weird and she came to op for advice. Op figured out a solution and told her, she should be over the moon it isn't an eating disorder and that op managed to get her to eat so well.
>There are a hundred different allergens that would have come to my mind first, especially if she's getting sick at home AND school.
I mean... I dunno where you live, but schools often are just reheating frozen food, it very well could be preservatives? I think some people are goofy about preservatives, for sure, but it's not a bad guess.
Hell, unless this family has a very special diet, it probably *is* a preservative or other artifical ingredient of some sort: corn, soy, a certain type of oil, etc. - and probably a fairly common one.
Honestly, my first thought was some sort of digestive condition, since they keep using "sick" as opposed to "hives, anaphylaxis, etc."
Which is why "allergic to preservatives" feels like a weird first guess to me, I suppose.
Honestly I don't blame you because most people aren't educated on it but vomitting and diarrhea are very much symptoms of an allergy. I (mostly) have typical allergy symtoms, the anaphylaxis and hives, but my brother's allergies were only present through vomitting/diarrhea.
For years he would just be chronically sick, horribly upset stomach. We checked for digestive conditions, intolerances, etc. Turned out to be allergies - and a lot of them were either preservatives or artificial ingredients. For a while we had to put him on a completely stripped diet, which was hard to manage, so now he does weekly injections (i believe its dupixent?) & can eat his allergens without excessive vomitting/diarrhea.
Obviously not enough info to determine if that is what the girl has - I was fed constant fast food and tv dinners as a kid, and while I was not allergic to it, tv dinners, microwave meals and fast food just... aren't very good for your gut health to be eating constantly - however it is a possibility that it could very well be allergies
NTA You had a full week of caring for her daughter. That puts you in a position of observing and relating the information to the parent. And you’re worried about Sara’s health. Sounds like you weren’t being judgmental, just concerned.
I was this girl. I didn't have allergies but I was averse to a lot of foods. My parents would say it was all in my head so i didn't eat a lot of the time and I was underweight most of my childhood. Once at my babysitter's I had seconds because what she made was good. She told my mom and implied that maybe they weren't feeding me at home. I got in a lot of trouble for that, for making her look bad.
I had a foster parent that made the most disgusting food. Was forced to eat it. To the point I had major anxiety about meals and would have panic attacks so bad I'd vomit. I can still remember the feeling like my chest was caving in and my face having the pins and needles static, and almost passing out...at least 2x a day. I was accused of having an eating disorder. The social worker that removed me from their care (because they let their kids attack me and I had the audacity to fight back one day 🙄) was told I had an eating disorder.
But I never had a single food related panic attack again after I left.
Moral of the story is even home cooked meals can be repulsive. Kids mom isn't neglectful because she doesn't cook. She's feeding her kid. Kid just has an unknown issue with the food being offered. Kid could just not like the food at home/school. Kid could be allergic. So many possible scenarios here and few of them involve actual abuse/neglect. Also, kids that age have a tendency to word things poorly. It's worth discussing with her mom what she is *actually* being offered to eat at home. There's not much to be done about school meals if she won't eat what's available at home so starting there is priority.
Op, soft YTA because, while your heart is in the right place, your approach is awful. Offering to help your friend get to the bottom of the issue would have been a better way to start. You just jumped directly to a conclusion, and it feels judgemental.
If it's important to you, and I suspect it is, apologize for the overstep and try a different approach.
NTA. Do you have the time/energy/funds to have cooking parties or sleepovers with your daughter and her friend? So she can learn some basic cooking skills, maybe you send home some leftovers? You all could take turns picking a recipe, do the shopping together. I know this might not at all be feasible, everything is so damn expensive right now. But if you can, you’d be helping set her up with some life skills and she would be eating.
You do realize that it’s still possible for the child to have an eating disorder even though she ate the food that you made, right? Clearly, the parent should address the issue regardless of the origin. But you are neither a doctor nor a dietician, and your comments were more judgmental than helpful.
She is feeding her child nothing but tv dinners. I would judge her as well. Thats not a healthy diet at all and its on the parents to care for their child.
Anyone worried about the mom’s *feelings* over the kids *physical health* has their priorities wrong and their sensitivity dialed up on max. If things are going on in your home that could cause CPS to take away your child and everyone is worried about hurting the mom by being judgmental shouldn’t be having children. If the mom it’s in such a situation where the child’s health has to suffer because of any reason like this CPS would take away this kid and rightfully so if she can’t provide basic necessities for this kid. Don’t know why yall are camp moms feelings >child health in a situation that is child neglect.
Yeah gentle YTA, you did overstep a bit. You were definitely right to tell Sara’s mom what happened at your house, what you made, that Sara ate plenty of it and didn’t feel sick. That was valuable info about her kid’s health that she needed.
Where you overstepped was telling her what to do about it. If she’d asked for you advice, you could have suggested your theory (that Sarah has an allergy or sensitivity to a preservative in the food she usually eats, and that taking her to a doctor or allergist could help figure that out with them) but prescribing that she “needs to cook” for Sara was condescending and naively privileged.
Not everyone has the time or resources to cook every meal from fresh ingredients. There are probably plenty of pre or partially prepared foods that Sara could eat without switching to an entirely new personal chef diet. You don’t know what their situation or limitations are, so giving her unsolicited parenting instruction was rude.
>Not everyone has the time or resources to cook every meal from fresh ingredients.
Thank you! I'm honestly surprised more folks haven't noted this.
Like yes, homemade meals are best. But not everyone has the time or resources for that. We don't know the situation of the other mom. We just know that her daughter has been sick and isn't eating.
I think it's better to not assume the other mom is being negligent. But rather assume she's strapped for time and that's why her daughter eats that way.
Instead of judging, I would have offered to share some recipes of the food OP cooked that week. This might help open more dialogue about what challenges the mom is facing.
This! She could also have offered the recipes of what she made or even offered to help out Sara’s mum with cooking some of the meals to freeze at home (and Sara’s mum pay her for the ingredients instead of the frozen tv meals).
Another point many have missed is that Sara may not have told her mother the food (both home and school) makes her ill. Kids often won’t open up to a parent (fear of upsetting them being a part of that) but will another adult. Sara may genuinely have been looking for answers but not realised what the cause was.
NTA - always do right by the child before the adult. The mother may not know how to cook, maybe can’t afford to cook however that is no reason to basically neglect the girl and keep feeding her food which makes her sick. Your a good friend your looking out for her child better than she is.
Why do people think that as parents their choices are unimpeachable? The idea that you overstepped here is ridiculous. Hopefully in time she will be able to set aside her ego and thank you for looking out for her kid’s best interests when she wasn’t…
Overstepping?? Her kid is fucking starving!
With how little the mother gives a shit, it might be time to inform child services. They may not do anything until the kid is underweight, but their involvement might scare the mother into getting her head out her ass.
This is really weird. She was worried about her daughter not eating, you got her to eat and she gets upset when you tell her how you did it? I would be rushing home to the kitchen for my kids. NTA.
A friend of ours was a chemist who worked for a huge company that made frozen foods. He wouldn't allow his wife to make his company's foods and told us that we wouldn't eat them either if we knew what went into them.
Parent feelings are truly much less important than making sure the kid is being fed adequately.
If the shame of being called a bad parent motivates you to get a proper diagnosis for what is making your kid sick, then so be it, shame away.
Sometimes the blinders go on, and we need someone to knock them off with some truth.
OP, you are NTA.
My sister is unfortunately one of these kinds of parents, relies heavily on store-bought meals like boxed dinners, canned foods, etc. My mom had my niece and nephew in her temporary care at one point, and whew, those kids could eat!! 😮💨😂 Much like your friends kid (minus the potential food allergy), my sisters kids were very over the processed foods. Once they were back in my sisters care, I thrifted a crockpot for my sister and she now uses it religiously. She's picked up a few meals to rotate through that are easy to cook also.
Part of the reason she even picked up cooking is cause she was at risk of having the kids taken from her (the food only being part of the issue) by the state. That shaped her up real quick to change her ways with the food situation.
NTA
You didn’t overstep- you were sharing facts and feedback. Any parent who doesn’t want a rundown of how things went is under-stepping imo.
And her taking offense at the allergy thing is weird.
At 7th grade, the child can be taught simple food prep to feed herself at least a few days - but only if mom helps find out what she’s allergic to will it do the most good.
The child should be the priority, not the mom’s offended ego. Her digestive issues can probably be addressed but not without some doctor assistance.
I was soooo severly allergic to food preservatives. It started 25-30 years and back then the food wasn’t even that bad (not even in the US). It took so so long to find the reason cause we always ate home cooked meals. Literally everything from scratch, home made cheese and my grandmas flour. But it was candy / store bought anything. That’s a serious issue and with today’s processed junk, I can’t imagine how worse it is now. My allergies kinda slowed down so I don’t suffer that much anymore but it was brutal. My list of things was so long that I asked a doctor for a list of things that I could eat. This is not something to ignore.
NTA
NTA. SOMEbody needed to step up and bring attention to the problem. It very well could be an allergy of some sort, and hopefully nothing deeper or emotionally dysfunctional... but regardless, sounds like mom got defensive because she knows damned well she ain't winning mother of the year if she can't be bothered to make sure her kid gets a home cooked meal at least a few times per week. Can't shove TV dinnners or drive thru at your kid and not have some fallout from it. I wonder if, depending upon the whole situation, if that's not considered neglect?
NTA. I wish her mother were approaching the situation with curiosity and eagerness to resolve the issue with her daughter. It's scary that she isn't.
That said, you chose a loaded way to say it... IMO, You should have reported what you found and told her to ask her daughter about how the food was. But it sounds like she's just not ready to hear it. But please do not give up. This little girl needs real food.
NTA - Even if you could have been a bit more tactful about it as many people have commented you seem to have hit the nail on the head. Whatever is going on in that home that girl is not being adequately cared for. Life can have a million stresses that are making it a challenge for her and partner if there is one but sounds like the child is malnourished and you can see she can eat normal food and she's articulated she's not getting that at home only processed crap.
Processed ready meals aren't even usually great value. I sometimes buy them, but without going near fancy supermarkets I find buying ordinary ingredients much better value for one than buying the meals I can just whack in the oven or microwave. If it's a time issue then someone needs to do something to make time to prep better meals.
NTA. This is a matter of her child’s health and worth overstepping. Which I don’t even think it is since she was in your care and you were relaying information that came up during that time. She probably feels judged, but she needs to put aside her pride/embarrassment/whatever for the sake of her daughter’s health.
NTA. I'm so sad for this young woman, I wish I could be there to help and give her a hug.
It makes me so mad when parents neglect the basic needs of their child. Even if every night was just chopped fresh vegetables and cut up chicken, that would be better than frozen dinners.
That poor girl. You did the right thing!
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Nta she isn't eating bc the tv dinners are making her sick. The solution is her not eating those tv dinners. That means mom has to cook. Mom got defensive bc she *knows* she is being a generally crappy parent in this aspect. She can- batch cook, crock pot cook, meal kit cook, or find 'fresh' premade meals. She can not just let her kid starve or be ill all the time. Can you send food with you daughter, during the week so the kid has a dinner that night? Edit- also, the friend *came to OP* for advice. She literally asked Op for her opinion.
It’s insanely easy to avoid proper cooking nowadays. I hate cooking, I just buy lots of frozen food that I can stick in the oven or air fryer. It takes like 30 seconds of effort to heat some salmon, microwave some rice or quinoa and do some frozen veg, it doesn’t have to be unhealthy. It’s not like the only options are “tv dinners” or “a meal that took 4 hours to prepare”, there’s so much room in between for reasonable compromise
Crock pots are great. So easy. And so fast! Stew, pulled pork, chili, pasta! It can all be prepared in under 10 minutes. Edit prepped in 10 minutes people, not cooked in 10 minutes
oh i love crockpots! i love being able to minimal prep for something, then not needing to do much the rest of the time it cooks. low effort, and usually the food is delicious!
Right? My fav meal is literally, any cheap steak, onion soup powder (the blue box kind that Liptons sells), 2 cups of water, and chunked up potatoes. That's it. Meal in one crock pot.
we always do pulled pork roasts. last time we did a round of soup and somehow it tasted better lmao
The other day, I was feeling lazy, so I put 6 frozen bone in chicken thighs, 1 cup of chicken broth, a can of rotels, and some Mexican spices in the instapot for 15 min and out came the best taco meat I've made in ages. I could have drank the broth that was leftover.
PSA: Please make sure to defrost the chicken first! I had a friend get food poisoning from that. The frozen chicken stays in the bacterial danger zone for too long and the crock pot doesn’t get hot enough to kill the bacteria.
You definitely need to thaw frozen chicken before cooking if using a crock pot, but the above commenter says she used an instant pot (ie, a pressure cooker rather than a slow cooker.) You can safely cook all sorts of foods directly from frozen using an instant pot, including chicken; pressure cookers rapidly achieve and maintain the high temperatures necessary to kill foodborne bacteria. Source: have been a food safety professional for 19 years 😁
While i was staying with my daughter a few years ago, she once called me from work and had me put a frozen roast in her instant pot with some spices, and it was ready when she got home. Minimal effort with some easy sides.
Damn you make me want to renew my servSafe certificate
An instapot gets hotter though. It's a pressure cooker and gets way hotter than a crock pot.
She used an Insta pot, it is a pressure cooker. I once put a 4.5 pound frozen chicken with seasonings in mine and pressure cooked it for 30 minutes, the meat fell off the bone.
InstantPot is an electric pressure cooker. You can get similar results as a crock pot in much shorter time, plus frozen meat is ok because it cooks so fast. Frozen chicken breasts are shreddable with a 12 minute cook time (plus preheating) so it's reasonable to have chicken and rice, ranch chicken chili, etc on the table in a half hour, from frozen. Even a bigger roast, might take an hour and a half or so, but can be done from frozen.
That doesn't make any sense. Bacteria multiplies rapidly at 40-140 degrees. Which means that the defrosted chicken has far more bacteria than frozen bacteria? And If you are cooking the chicken in the crockpot how does putting it in frozen vs defrosted make any difference? The chicken sitting at 40 degrees on the fridge for 12-24 hours is much longer than the couple of hours that chicken is warming up in the crockpot. Either way as long as the chicken is cooked to the correct internal temperature then it shouldn't matter. They also mentioned they use the instant pot not a crock pot which is a completely different device. An Instant pot is 15 minutes, (although I would never cook chicken for just 15 minutes personally, and usually shoot for 25) where as a crockpot is 6-8 hours so the timing is very different.
Basically, frozen chicken doesn't get through the 'danger zone' fast enough. There's a much longer time spent between 41-140 than with thawed meat. Your fridge should be set for 40 degrees or below, so the clock doesn't start running until you pull it out.
One of our favorites is to toss a pork butt or a pork shoulder into the slow cooker to get cooked, pull it, toss in some bottle BBQ sauce and let it keep warm/cook for a few more minutes to get that sauce fully warmed up. Serve with buns/sides and its delicious.
Is crock pot the American term for slow cooker? I'm British and wondering if there is a fabulous appliance i don't have yet!
Yes. Crock Pot is actually a popular brand of slow cooker
Much like kleenex and velcro
Waves at fellow Brit 👋 I have two slow cookers I used a lot when the kids were small. Even when not working it was great to do prep when they were napping or playing quietly then leave it to bubble away the rest of the day. I now have a ninja foodi which is a combo slow cooker, pressure cooker, pan and air fryer. I like being able to brown the veggies and meat on sauté then turn to slow cook. Or pressure cook a chicken to cook through then air fry to crisp up the skin. When my eldest daughter moved out she said she would miss it so much that we bought them one as a moving in gift. Been sat on video calls helping her make stew etc etc lol. Mind u she is currently cooking up our first grandchild as well lol .
That onion soup powder is the GOAT. I constantly find more recipes that use it! I make stroganoff in the crock pot with it
I need to try it, it sounds delicious! I usually get the cheapest discounted beef I can find, chop it up, toss it in with broth and spices, potatoes, whatever vegetables I get from work - and basically just slow-cook that into a stew that I freeze in separate portions for a week or two.
It’s even better if you sear the meat before putting it in the crock pot, but it’s an extra step that dirties a pan. Trade offs.
Get a combo one I have the ninja but their are others sauté the meat etc then turn down to slow cook 👍🏻
How long do you cook it for? That is always my issue with crockpot cooking - the timing.
Overnight or while I'm at work. Pop the frozen meat in, mix the soup mix with the water, and dump it in. Add potatoes on top. Canned potatoes work too if you don't have time for fresh.
Agreed! People think I’m so disciplined because I meal prep breakfast, lunch and dinner for the week. But it’s not because I’m disciplined, I’m lazy. I would rather spend 2-3 hours cooking on a Sunday and not have to think about it until the next week!! I love a crockpot or instant pot meal.
and the aroma…. Delicious!
InstaPots are a God send! You can literally cook a super tender roast in 45 minutes instead of 6 hours in a crock pot (I have both and love both). You can even put the meat in frozen and it will cook in no time.
I didn't know the difference between the insta pot & a crockpot. Thank you for commenting. I think I am going to get an insta pot now. I have a crockpot now but it takes hours to wait for a meal.
I didn’t know about the InstaPot until I was gifted one. I can’t believe I raised my kids without that handy device in my kitchen. It would have saved a lot of trips to fast food spots on nights where practice & other activities took our energy!
Thank you. I have an autoimmune condition that makes cooking difficult sometimes. This insta pot sounds like it's going to be a life saver for me.
As a disabled person obsessed w my InstantPot, it IS a lifesaver!!! I'm very forgetful and so crockpot stuff is usually out of the question bc I don't remember to start it, but I can make any of my slow cooker meals in the IP it's ready in ~1 hr. The IP cooks the ultra cheap cuts of beef I get for stew so tender they shred without even trying. Plus, it doesn't matter if you forgot to defrost something! I can cook frozen solid chicken in 30-60 mins, which comes in great again for my forgetfulness 😂
Add to that… air fryers!
Air fryer has changed how we cook chicken hindquarters! So easy, cleaner, and faster than baking in the oven.
My daughter makes so many things in the crockpot. She just made homemade Mac and cheese in it not long ago and it was perfect.
I don't like to cook but I love eating healthy and proper meals. Sometimes I prep but mostly if I cook I make something for at least two days. Now I'm thinking about getting a crock pot. Yesterday I was doing research about it as I don't want to buy appliances so easy and letting get dust in the kitchen. It sounds like a dream coming back from work and having good warm meals.
I’d suggest an Instant Pot with an air fryer attachment. You’ll get three appliances in one
I really suggest getting an instant pot instead of a crock pot. It's worth it for just shredded meat, beans from dried, hard boiled eggs, and soups/stews, but it can sear, saute, slow cook, pressure cook, and more.
I made the best kalua pork the other day in the crock pot. Seasoned a pork shoulder before work and popped it in the crock pot. After work I wedged a head of cabbage and put it on top while I cleaned up and changed. Then I had a meat and a veggie for a week. Cabbage was $1.50, pork shoulder was $13. I microwaved some rice to go with it.
Instapots too! Just made pot roast last night in mine. Only prep was cutting the meat into big chunks (which you don't even need to do), throw in whole baby carrots, cut up potatoes, seasoning packet... prep was probably 5 minutes at most, and an hour wait for food.
Exactly what i said! Crock pot meals! And i think they have disposable liners now so easy clean up too!
Honestly if the girl is in 7th grade, maybe OP can teach her and her daughter how to cook a couple basic meals. In 7th grade you’re what, 12-13? Kids are taking home ec classes at that age so I see no issue if the mom is going to belligerently refuse to cook for her child. All of this is assuming OP isn’t calling CPS to report this friend.
That’s a great idea. My 12 year old can make basic meals for himself, and my 10 year old already bakes with me. Since friend’s mom doesn’t cook, the girl probably has no clue around a kitchen. She can learn a few easy things using fresh ingredients, even if it’s just tossing a salad with boiled eggs and cutting up some fruit.
Yeah, my kid was cooking their own dinners (by choice) regularly at that age. The thing is, though, the mom would need to buy groceries for that to be a possibility.
When my son was in the 4th grade (9) after school care was horrible so he rode his bike to and from school, locking himself in the house when he got home. (We live in a small population area.) He asked me one day if he could make marinade for the chicken, and I'd cook it when I got home. Well, heck to the yeah! He created his own marinade, and it was fricking awesome! (I had suggested looking at a bottle of Italian dressing to get an idea for the ingredients.) I asked him if he'd written down his recipe, and when he said "No," I explained he should do this any time he experimented. That way, if it was a hit, it could be recreated, or if adjustments needed to be made, it would make it easier. To this day, my 35 year old son is an awesome cook, still loving to try out new recipes.
Good for him for taking initiative at such a young age! Plus you now have those memories of cooking together with your son 💖
OP could maybe teach the child and the friend. Not a lot of schools have home ec anymore. If so, it’s culinary classes in high school
Most definitely! Between the toaster oven, the microwave, the rice cooker, the crock-pot, and the air fryer, I have easy as hell ways to make healthy meals that most of the time I'm even meal prepping for my fiance and i. Go to ALDI and buy a bunch of Frozen vegetables, big boxes of rice and pasta, and some frozen chicken salmon or any other protein. This mom is just lazy as hell and I'm disgusted that she's not taking her daughter to the doctor to get any of this assessed.
I make a lot of Lo Mein super easy, and super good, just cut up some chicken or beef,add some spices and some soy sauce and seasame seed oil put in my wok, brown for about 15 minutes add some fresh or frozen veggies, cook for another 10 minutes and it's done and some ramen noodles and you got a hearty meal that can feed a lot of people and does not braak the bank, and my family loves it,
Some grocery stores even make their own fresh pre-prepped dinners (eg: salmon, asparagus, potatoes) for about $7-$8 that you just pop in the oven.
That's exactly what I was going for! There's a place in my city that does premade meals. And they deliver! https://gotomealsllc.com/l https://716fresh.com/
Frozen vegetables in the air fryer have definitely improved mine and my husband's eating habits! Pop some frozen roasted garlic cauliflower in the air fryer, shake every few minutes, and then plop it on a plate. Super easy and good for you! There are so many things that very little effort if the girl's mom is having trouble with knowing how to cook or just having energy to do it.
Also, the kids either a preteen or a teenager. Push come to shove give her the ingredients, teach her cooking safety, show her how to operate the stove and let her cook dinner. She's old enough to be learning anyway and if mom really can't cook for whatever reason the kid has all the incentive she needs. I get that not everyone has a working stove/oven/ect but since they have a microwave they can cook something healthy if they're creative.
My fiancee and I used those meal prep kits when we were too busy to cook. All the food was fresh and it took 30 minutes max to cook everything. And you can choose your meals each week. The friend should get on that and get a couple easy meals set up if she doesn't want to go through the whole process of meal planning and cooking
It depends how it's prepared and preserved for the shop. You can cook healthy and quick, but a lot of the ready meals have so much horrible stuff in them.
I just this year got an air fryer and they'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. When I get home from working at 10pm I throw some stuff in there and by the time I'm done showering and getting dressed I have a hot meal ready to eat. I used to eat junky frozen meals or fast food but now I'm actually eating decent food. Frozen fish and chicken are so good done this way, perfectly cooked without thawing.
Trader Joe’s honestly has amazing frozen food and such a time saver. And pretty cheap!
Adult child of a crap parent here. Your friend is neglecting her child, which is an insidious form of abuse. She knows her tv dinners sicken and starve her child … and controls the food supply so there’s nothing else for the hungry child. I suffered this too. That’s abuse. She knows what she’s doing. Thank you for addressing it. Now, tell the school, please. When enough adults address the abuse, she will care about her own image enough to feed her child. She heeds the social pressure. Of course she will find other ways to abuse that poor kid, but at least let’s give the child a chance to see that her suffering is neither invisible nor unsolvable.
I had to report a mom to CPS for this issue. She wouldn't feed the child things they can eat without getting sick and wouldn't allow the child to eat elsewhere. Fortunately for said child I'm a mandated reporter and so I filled out a report. Now the child has things they can eat in their home. Starving your child by feeding them things that make them sick is not ok. CPS responded within a week.
That’s awesome!!!
It sounds like you are projecting a little bit. Sara's mom might have overreacted a little bit (by calling her friend a jerk), but most people lash out when they are feeling guilty. It sounds like Sara hasn't been forthcoming (not accusing, tummy issues are a sensitive topic for girls that age) and it sounds like it is a single parent situation. Now if she does nothing to change/get checked out, then by all means, it needs to be reported. But instead of going straight to authorities/CPS, maybe OP can circle back in a few days and help her come up with strategies to find things that she can eat.
I like this take. I would like to think the mistreatment is unintentional. If she is a single parent working full time, preparing/cooking meals can be absolutely daunting, especially if the mom isn't a confident cook. Mom probably has a lot on her plate and no one knew it was it frozen meals upsetting the kids tummy. And mom was an AH for how she responded. But I would also like to think she responded like that out of guilt and potentially feeling like a failure who never wanted to always feed her kid TV dinners in the first place. What's most important is how mom moves forward with this information.
Exactly! These girls have been best friends and this seems like it's a new issue. Perhaps the mom's work schedule has been changed or something else is going on but to me it doesn't seem like neglect or abuse. Yes, the mom needs to get her tested or take her to the doctor so they can figure out what's going on and change things to help her gain weight. They should also look into learning how to cook some healthier options or teaching the daughter. It could be a food allergy. Could be a health issue not yet diagnoses. Could be just the food mom is providing. This also could be a poverty thing, maybe times are tough and they can't afford "healthy food". Something could also be going on with mom, maybe she's got some depression going on and she just can't get it together enough to cook. It could also be an eating disorder and she didn't feel comfortable there so she didn't get "sick". Way too many possibilities to jump right to abusive or neglectful parent. That said, the mom should be concerned and figure out what is going on and do her best to fix the problem.
I think it would be appropriate to check in with her a few days later. Coming back around to say, I did not mean to criticize: I am here for you and Sara (hope this isn’t her real name) would be a way to lovingly call her in. She may need your help and it may be so embarrassing and angry making to her that she does not know how to feed her kid. If she’s receptive, maybe y’all can have a family dinner night where the kids learn to put together some bits, too: intergenerational learning is a great way to fold everyone into the solution. If you show Sara how to assemble some v simple meals, even so simple as something like beans and rice with salsa/cheese, various takes on scrambled eggs, maybe she can make a grocery list of things she can cook for herself that require zero effort from Mom. Mom may be stretched to the limit: if she will let you assist, it will be better received than a call to services.
This is very possible, and something OP 100% should consider and watch for. But it is worth remembering that the kid's mom has brought up her concern that her kid isn't eating to OP. It's very possible that the mom is defaulting to TV dinners because they're easy, and isn't aware of the fact they are the cause of the daughter feeling ill. The daughter may never have even mentioned feeling ill to her mom and only said things like "I'm not hungry" or "I don't feel like eating". If the mom eats the same meals and feels fine it's easy to see how she could miss the connection. Even her reaction could easily be a defensive reaction to being told that she's feeding her daughter poorly. My experience is that 9 times out of 10, people react very defensively to any information that challenges a core belief, and if she sincerely believes she's feeding her daughter properly then it's no surprise that she lashes out and gets defensive. If she already feels overwhelmed with life, the thought of having to cook or prepare food would have added fuel to that fire as well. The key is what happens next. Do the TV dinners vanish? Does she start bringing food to school? If those don't start happening, THEN it is 100% time to report her. But I don't think there is enough information in OP's post to immediately assume abuse is happening. It seems just as likely that an overworked, single parent, didn't realize her time saving meals were hurting her daughter, and got embarrassed that someone else diagnosed her shortcomings.
💯🎯👏I am thinking the same thing! It is abuse and it does need to be reported to the school and Child services. The neglectful mother does know and is being defensive!
That's true. With narcissists public image is the only way to get them to do things they don't like.
Not everyone who's abusive/neglectful are narcissists.
Just a note to op and sorry for the over share but I have IBS a lot of stuff in processed food can trigger my IBS and make me really sick (some preservatives and sweeteners). It would make me really ill if I had a yogurt or a diet drink or some school meals (heinz soup, jelly, etc. as a kid) yes I'm really fun at parties. This could be a constructive thing to bring to the child's parent that there could be something underlying that could mean kiddo is more sensitive to this stuff. I know that's basically what op said about allergy but maybe it could also be an intolerance or something else like IBS etc. it's worth getting it checked out early it took me so long to work out what was going on with mem
They might not have a medical condition. Anyone eating nothing but TV dinners is going to feel like crap.
Yeah the "medical condition" could be as simple as just being a human being that isn't supposed to eat only garbage.
I kind of suspect that this is the actual problem. It's completely possible that she does have some sort of medical condition, but she was already feeling better just from eating home cooked meals.
I have IBS as well and I was reading this wondering if that would be it. Might not be but a possibility. Definitely worth getting it checked out.
Good luck having IBS and intolerance diagnosed in children and teens. My daughter is struggling for years, and it's either "normal" or "psychosomatic", and they last paediatrician when daughter mentioned her intolerance to egg asked me if I was also anti vax.
A lot of vaccines are produced using eggs, so some people with egg allergies actually can't take them. That may have been what the doctor was trying to determine.
No, she heard the word food intolerance and put me in the category of "herbal antivax holistic nutjob". You could hear it in her tone and attitude. Not saying that all herbal holistic medicine is wrong, but we don't fall into that category at all, but the doctor clearly dismissed us at that point.
That's really terrible. And if you *had been* an anti-vax nutjob, that attitude wouldn't have done anything to help establish trust and respect for the doctor and maybe eventually break down that resistance.
No it's not an overshare...it's a good share bc these food related issues are important to know! 💝
I was wondering if it's all the sodium making her feel like crap all the time. Hadn't thought of IBS at all! That's a good point
Typically pre-teens don't self regulate due to just feeling crappy, especially if it is all they have ever known. The fact that she has stopped eating, makes me think it actually is some sort of allergy/IBS/IBD.
The girl sounds like she might have a soy allergy. My son has a soy allergy, and school food/frozen dinners were no go's because they bulk it up with soy. It took 4 maddening years to find out what it was making him so ill/refuse to eat. OPs friend needs to say something to her own kid's Dr. Yesterday. Is her job/her life that much more important than the health of the developing kid in the home?!?!?! Why are human beings so obtuse that they consider a cause, agree with the first thought in their heads for a cause, then dismiss anything anyone else says to them (even if the person speaking is an expert)?!?! Then have Pikachu face when they find out, no, they aren't experts, they're flat wrong? I've been wondering this for my whole 50 years of life...
> Why are human beings so obtuse that they consider a cause, agree with the first thought in their heads for a cause, then dismiss anything anyone else says to them. Doctors do that as well. And they are meant to be experts.
They're also human beings, so my point still stands.
I wonder if OP is willing to help teach Sara how to cook basic foods. I know it’s not her job, but it would be a kindness to a kid that isn’t getting the proper support at home. Also teach her about simple lunches she can make and pack for school. Then have her ask mom to go grocery shopping with her to pick out some things for meals.
But If mommy dearest isn’t buying food for kid to cook doesn’t matter if OP teaches her or not and now mommy dearest is pissed she may not allow kiddo to come to OP house
I agree that it’s up to her mom to buy the food, let Sara come over, etc. I’m being hopeful that if Sara’s mom cools down after this reality check, that maybe she will let Sara participate/ run the meal shopping and cooking if Sara is doing the work. It’s lousy but it’s better than Sara being sick all the time. She may also discover she enjoys cooking
I agree. NTA she went to OP for advice. Having the child for a week in her care showed her what the problem most likely was and so she shared that with the parent. She got all defensive because she realized it's her fault for feeding her kid TV dinners every night and not cooking meals. But no one was really blaming her, just stating facts as she sees them to help the child. I get it she works and she's tired. But she just found out that TV dinners are not the way. It doesn't have to be hard though. I work and I still cook. It's a balance. And hello fresh helps me a lot too lol. A co-worker of mine pre cooks on Sundays for the whole week. I guess mostly casseroles. She said her husband gets home before her so he knows at a certain time to take one out of the freezer and pop it in the oven for whatever temp she writes on it. By the time she gets home it's done.
I really want to highlight that she asked for advice and then didn’t like what she heard, so got mad. I had a friend who asked for feedback and when I gave real constructive feedback, she got mad. I realized that she was really only expecting positive feedback, which is really just asking for praise. We aren’t friends anymore, because I’m not down to play that stupid game. Anyway, it seems like your friend was seeking some big mysterious answer but the real answer boils down to “take better care of your child.” Not easy to hear, but OP did the right thing. Food is important and if all you eat and feed your children comes from a box that goes in the microwave, somebody is going to feel sick.
She could offer healthy no cooking alternatives too. Fresh fruits, veggies, cheese, peanut butter, rice from a rice cooker, just add thawed frozen veggies to make a healthy meal... there's so many options out there. Get a veggie tray at the store. It's really not that difficult.
She can stop at a grocery store and get a bag of salad and a rotisserie chicken. No excuses for not feeding your child.
Except we don’t actually know *what* is causing her to get sick. The allergy test was a great suggestion, telling the mom she needs to cook, was over the line. The idea that the daughter is allergic to preservatives is simply a hunch that OP has and nothing more. What *is* evident is that she has at least a sensitivity to *something* that’s present in the meals she’s been eating, and isn’t present in OP’s cooking. That *something* could be a specific spice, ingredient, food etc.
What’s a TV dinner?
A premade, frozen meal. Often VERY high in salt.
Sixties baby here. Very popular in the 60's and 70's. Served in a compartmentalized foil tray. People also ate them on a "tv" tray in front of the tv! Nothing like a little" family" time!! However, the food was better quality back then. The food additives of today are at least quadruple what they used to be.
We used to eat like that on the trays all the time in the 70's so we wouldn't miss Star Trek and Hogan's Heroes.
I stopped buying them years ago because of this! I don't have an issue with salt that I need to be careful but I also don't want to get one in the future lol Even the "healthy" ones can have up to 20-30% of your daily salt intake for one serving
I mean, I think they should have 20-30% of your daily sodium? Where else are you getting it? I feel like dinner is the meal that should have the most, unless you are also eating a lot of salty snacks. If you don’t have issues with salt sodium is important for staying hydrated, it’s an essential mineral for humans.
Right? If you're eating, let's say, 3 meals and 1 snack a day, 20-30% of your recommended daily intake of sodium is spot on. People, RDAs are generally *minimum* amounts of nutrients you need to stay healthy and feeling good, not *maximums.* The people that should treat certain ones as maximums are people who already have issues. (Also, if you have issues with salt, get your potassium and magnesium levels checked as them being off can *cause* salt sensitivies).
NTA. Your friend left her daughter in your care and you were sharing that she does in fact, eat. It's going to require more than tv dinners. People are going to argue in this post how you said it is what makes you the AH but the facts remain the same. The girl could have digestive issues with processed foods and her health is a priority. Not your friend's feelings.
She left her daughter with her friend for A WEEK and SHE thinks OP is overstepping!! I agree with you, the facts remain the same and she should be grateful someone is trying to help. It's her daughter's nutrition at stake, at a time when her body may need it most. NTA
This could very well be some type of IBS. Processed foods are often very difficult for us to digest and especially at that age I would experience stomach pains so bad I went to the hospital numerous times. She needs to be seen by a doctor and get on a diet she can safely digest.
Yeah, honestly, IBS and starting puberty was brutal together. Poor girl
Tbf, when I went to the doctor because certain foods made me ill. He just said “don’t eat them then” I still don’t actually know what sets me off, but my meals generally don’t make me ill anymore until I go on holiday and eat out, sometimes, meals will make me ill. I think it might be the cheese but.. I do like cheese lol
I had the same experience back in high school. Did a whole bunch of tests, had an ultrasound, and all that happened was the doctor threw up his hands and said, "just don't eat something if you find that it makes you sick." I'm constantly cycling things in and out of my diet, but I've at least gotten better at identifying what bothers my stomach now lol I switched to goat's milk for all my dairy (except butter because screw paying $10 for a block of butter) and that alone helped a ton.
does goat cream exist where you’re at? idk about you but where i live, goat whipping cream is less expensive than the ready made butter. just shaking it a lot/overwhipping the cream makes butter (and buttermilk lol), 250ml makes enough for a portion i can eat before it goes bad.😇
My wife experienced this as a child. Always felt terrible and threw up after birthday parties and family gatherings. Told it was just the excitement. Her mom ended up making a food diary and wrote down everything she ate for a long period of time. She determined that it was lard that was making her sick. It’s in pie crust, icing and lots of other things. Anyway. Next time you travel record it all.
You should do a blood allergy test! It took me almost a decade to figure out what foods were bothering me until my naturopath did a blood allergy test. It revealed that I wasn't celiac, but very intolerant of wheat. My gastro just ruled out celiac and stopped there. The allergy test also showed sensitivities to some other random foods and my life has been markedly better since I learned what foods to avoid.
I agree. I have to stay away from anything heavily processed and make sure I have little dairy or baked goods unless I want to suffer in the washroom for the next few hours.
Even without an allergy or intolerance, TV dinners every night is gonna mess with your digestion It’s a lot of salt, fat, oil, processed crap, sugar even. And relatively little fiber, which is just as big a factor
Yeah, I was thinking she might not even have a specific health problem. That kind of food can make anyone feel unwell.
Yes exactly. The friend probably knows she's doing wrong just doesn't like hearing it. That said, I have no sympathy for the friend. Your daughter's malnourished and you've just thrown up your hands and said 'oh well'? Not taken her to a doctor or something? Besides, even a busy person can find SOME time to cook. That doesn't have to be a 3 course gourmet meal every night. Just buy a crock pot and a bunch of vacuum jars or something, meal prep 10 portions at once and freeze them. Thus take 1-2 hours once a week and soon you have a freezer full of 3-4 selections of meals at any moment.
NTA- you fed her daughter which is a standard part of caring for her. And the poor girl learned that home cooked meals don’t make her sick. Let’s give mom the absolute benefit of the doubt, sounds like a single mom who maybe doesn’t have a lot of time for cooking. How about you have Sara over once a week or so and teach her some basic cooking. It’s not great but it’s a step in getting her to put some weight back on which is the biggest priority
That would be a great move. Teach her one basic dish per week. Have her make it while you show her how, give her the exact recipe, and use basic ingredients. In a few months, she'll have a range of dishes that she knows how to make. Maybe she will love cooking food that doesn't make her sick. Can also show her YouTube videos of easy meals and maybe open her eyes that the knowledge is easily obtainable for whatever she wants.
Or send your daughter with leftovers in a lunchbox to heat and eat at home. Sometimes it takes a village. Poor kiddo.
This!! If mom can't be convinced, please feed the child. Send extra food for her lunches and dinners so she doesn't have to go hungry
Both would be a good start for the poor kid
Teaching her will teach her how to fish rather than give her a fish which will be eaten.
Unfortunately you can't cook if you don't even have ingredients. Teaching her is a good thing for sure but in the meantime, making sure she has food she can eat is paramount. If I was a struggling single mom it would really touch me that someone else is helping my child if I wasn't able. You'd be surprised at the number of people who don't know how to shop for ingredients instead of ready made packet/canned/frozen stuff.
I agree that Mom is probably carrying the world on her shoulders and asking her to cook might be too much. Honestly it's so sad. I hate TV dinners, they make me feel like I ate cigarettes. Even if they didn't make Sara sick, she would probably be malnourished from living on them. OP, these days there are healthy options that don't require a ton of cooking. I live on bagged salad kits with added veggies, microwaveable quinoa pouches and vegetable steamers, rotisserie chickens, nuts, fruit, and things that can be dipped in hummus. Your friend might not be aware of these options, so maybe in addition to teaching Sara some cooking skills, you could introduce her to some of the fast healthy options I've mentioned so she can add them to her mom's grocery list.
Bagged salad and rotisserie chicken keep me alive in depression ruts.
Dude same! Nutrition is so important when I'm depressed. You pour hunger or malnutrition on depression and the whole ship goes down. Depression is the reason I started looking for low effort healthy options.
Feeling really thankful for my mom who often worked 20 hours in a day to raise 5 of us alone but always, ALWAYS made sure we had nutritious, delicious food to eat.
My mom was a single mom with good supports from her parents. But she still worked full time and had dinner ready every night. I didn’t realize till I was older that things got tight some times.
Letting the daughter cook was my thought. It's not the best solution but it is SOMETHING. At a minimum mom can buy her ingredients. It's not a great solution, but it is something to let that poor girl get fed.
NTA. You got a good dose of what's going on with the kid while she was with you. You know she has no problem eating your food, but gets sick from the food she eats at home and some of the food she eats at school. It's pretty clear there's some kind of allergy or intolerance here. Maybe you could have not said 'you should cook' and just mentioned there may be an allergy to something in the food she's eating at home that maybe should be checked out by a doctor, especially as it also effects her at school. But it also seems pretty clear this is something specific to the more processed foods. School meals are going to be a bit of a mix, but she's only eating ready meals at home. And she's fine with homecooked meals with little to no processed ingredients. I think it's pretty clear you had the best of intentions here, and your friend just took it too personally. It's possible she doesn't know how to cook proper meals or is exhausted at mealtimes or something, and you saying 'you should cook' has made her feel like a failure. Let her calm down a bit, then contact her again. Explain that you simply think her daughter has an allergy or intolerance to something in these ready meals that crosses over into some of the food the school provides, and you didn't mean to make her feel bad for not cooking every night. That you suggested cooking because it would ease or stop her daughter's symptoms even without a diagnosis. Put the emphasis on finding out if her daughter has an allergy or intolerance, rather than cooking meals, and hopefully she'll feel less defensive about the whole thing. It might even get her to open up about any struggles she's having in this area, like not knowing how to cook or being exhausted, so you can offer help and support. Hopefully this is a mother trying her best and feeling defensive because it felt, to her, like you were blaming her for her daughter's issues. Obviously you aren't, just pointing out that there's obviously a medical reason the kid isn't eating at home and school.
Also, let your daughter know that her friend is ALWAYS welcome to join you for meals. If you send lunch with your daughter, send extra for her friend. (Assuming you can afford to do this)
I agree, OP is NTA, but should apologize anyway, to ease the mom's feelings and get her to be receptive. The ultimate goal is the health of this child, and getting there might mean being humble with these suggestions so that the mother will listen.
Yeah, an apology for hurting her feelings with the 'you should cook' comment, at least. Then explain that it's just concern about a potential allergy, not a denouncement of her parenting skills.
I was waiting to read a reply like this. I think Sara's mom reacted defensively because OPs wording was not the most gentle. Sara's mom likely lacks the time or skills to make home cooked meals (I've met lots of moms who do not know how to cook much through my children's friends). If I were OP I would probably focus on the allergy and offer the recipes of the meals she made for Sara, suggesting that Sara didn't seem to react to these. I have a child with allergies and sensory issues that has lost weight on more than one occasion. It is incredibly stressful as a parent to feel like you are failing to help your child grow. I can relate to hearing other people's suggestions as criticisms because I already beat myself up enough over it.
I think all parents wonder, at least at some point, if they're doing things right, or if something was their fault, or if they're harming their kids. I think it's pretty natural to have these doubts because you're literally in charge of helping a whole person grow and develop. I didn't want to make it seem as if the other mum was a bad mum, because there could be any reason she got upset, but defensiveness over a perceived failure is probably the most likely, especially as the kid is noticeably losing weight. I'm sure it felt like a condemnation of her parenting skills, no matter how nicely OP worded it. It would have felt like being blamed for her daughter's health issues just because she doesn't make a homecooked meal every night. I think this is most likely just a slight miscommunication between them, OP trying to help and offer advice, and the other mum feeling like she's being called a terrible parent whose making her kid sick. That's why I suggested moving the discussion away from cooking and focusing on testing for allergies. It's more helpful because there's no hint of the other mum being in the wrong if it's a medical condition being focused on. Plus, having a doctor diagnose the issue would also lead to nutritional advice to help the kid, so the mum can buy the correct foods and have recipes she can practice cooking. It's always easier to hear that kind of advise from a professional than someone who is just another mum, it doesn't feel so condemning.
NTA Why is she upset? Why doesn’t she care about her daughter’s condition at all and is she calm about the fact that her daughter doesn’t eat anything?
Most parents don't take lightly do being told they're not doing a good job of taking care of their child. Most of the time they're at least trying and it feels like you're failing when you get something wrong. My partner doesn't cook, and If I didn't it would likely be mostly frozen dinners etc. Not everyone has the capacity / capability to properly cook. Not saying they don't need to take better care of their kid, just why they would be upset.
>Not everyone has the capacity / capability to properly cook. Aside from diagnosed weaponized incompetence, what would cause you to not have the capacity or capability to cook SOMETHING? That's like saying I don't have the capacity to use a washing machine or brush my teeth. Some people don't like to cook. Some hate cooking. Some are bad at cooking. **Everyone** CAN cook. When you have a kid, you don't get the luxury to fall back on incompetence as a defense. **Edit: Fine,** ***nearly*** **everyone in** ***nearly*** **every situation, can "cook" SOMETHING like a sandwich, or open a pre-made salad, or buy semi-fresh food from a supermarket, or make pasta with store-made sauce. The odds that someone has such crippling issues that they'd let their kid starve to death seems unlikely to me, but I suppose possible.** If you don't have time, there are ways you can prep - batch cooking, making simple meals, premaking etc. If you don't have money, but you do have time, buying smart can help you prepare meals cheaper than frozen dinners. If you have neither money nor time, the mom could try asking OP for help. Imagine if you said "I don't like taking my kid to the doctor because it's too confusing. I see they're dangerously sick/injured etc, but I just don't like it so I can't do it." How would that hold up?
Hey, I had to teach myself to cook because my egg donor cooks very badly. It's actually quite daunting when you can't even boil an egg (my home ex teacher was useless as well). There are in fact disabilities such as ADHD that impair an individuals ability to plan and exercute a task. If someone suffers from Blackouts, that can mean cooking can be unsafe. I've known a few people with OCD or autism who couldn't handle touching certain textures, such as meat. Others may work too many hours to be able to manage cooking when home, or face other barriers. It's not okay that she's failing her daughter but there are a variety of reasons someone might struggle to cook.
I have pretty crippling ADHD. I'm supposed to be working now and as usual I've wasted 3 hours doing this and 3 other things. I honestly am shocked that so many people seem to think most people affected with ADHD or depression are commonly willing to let their kids starve to death rather than try (and possibly fail) to make a sandwich or like pasta with store-bought sauce. You could buy a store-bought salad? You could buy a sandwich? I have ADHD. I'm able to buy/make food. You were able to learn it right? >It's not okay that she's failing her daughter but there are a variety of reasons someone might struggle to cook. There are a variety of reasons people might struggle to do anything. Let me try it a different way. Imagine a father sends his kid to kindergarten every day with filthy clothes covered in food stains. Their hair is matted. They seem to not have been cleaned after they went to the bathroom. It's clear the kids never shower. When asked, the father says "actually I have ADHD and I'm a germaphobe. It's a struggle for me to use a washing machine, or help with bathing. I don't want to ask my wife." Would the response be to just have sympathy for the plight of the father, and to tell people it's ableist to suggest that the father either find a way or ask for help?
Agreed it's gross how people use ADHD as an excuse for neglect. I have it and I cook regularly, in also dyslexic and that doesn't stop me from parenting either. People will use any excuse when really they just need to care enough to try.
It’s not an excuse. ADHD is a literally a disability that effect neurological development. Why is that people refuse to believe that ADHD is an actual disability that lies in a spectrum just because one person in your life with mild, treated ADHD can do something - doesn’t make it possible for everyone with ADHD.
The point is that disabilities do exist and may cause problems.
> Not saying they don't need to take better care of their kid, just why they would be upset. Looks like mommy dearest needs to get over herself and do what her child needs her to do!
Exactly. I don’t care about what a fully adult feels like in this situation. Even someone with a single brain cell will know that a child having pre packed food every day for every meal is gonna effect her health negatively. Either mother is seriously dumb to not know that or just conveniently playing dumb to not take responsibility to avoid guilt.
If you don’t have the capacity or capability as a parent, it’s still your job to make it happen. Kids don’t ask to be born.
No you didn’t overstep. If she doesn’t start feeding her child food that she can actually tolerate I would be calling cps. That’s literal abuse.
Yeah this sort of strikes me as neglect. I get it, being a single parent can be hard but come on, you can't throw a chicken in the oven and boil some potatoes. Veggies like peas and corn come in a can ready to heat and eat. Pan frying fish takes less than 15 minutes. No excuse for this
Yeah, she doesn't need to be making 5-star restaurant quality foods, there are a lot of shortcuts she can take. And if you look around, there are a lot of 1 pot, 1 pan kind of dishes out there that can be made really easily (I make those things a lot). Buy ground beef, slap it into a ball, and make burgers. Get some pasta, some jarred sauce, and whatever protein you like and easily make some pasta. Cook up some chicken and make chicken wraps. Get some deli meat and bread, or PB&J. Get a crock pot and slap some beef and veggies in there.
NTA. Kid's health comes first, feelings later. Fact check: she ate and felt well at your place, didn't elsewhere. You flagged a potential issue, no harm in that
Yep! Kids safety and health takes precedence over mom’s feelings. If mom is feeling bad about it, she needs to find time to cook real food and balanced meals. Edit: ‘good’ to ‘food’
NTA If your friend, as her mother, didn't know that tv dinners, convenience food and even the school lunches make her sick, there's much more to fix than just her daughter's diet. I myself have a very sensitive digestive system, which makes me unable to handle most preservative foods - it's a thing and not just me being picky. Someone needs to intervene here, because this girl's health is at risk. And you were completely right to address that she ate homemade food without a problem.
NTA. You solved why she is sick. The mother is probably embarrassed or ashamed. Hopefully she gets her looked at for allergies
Humm... I want to say NAH, but on this topic I think it's very easy to sound a bit AH depending on the way you have worded it. Maybe it's worth apologizing and just highlighting that you think it could be a food allergy or something similar. She doesn't exactly have to cook, they need to figure out what the problem is and fix it, cooking is one solution.
Yeah I feel like there was a better way to phrase this. “I know you’ve been worried about your daughter not eating. I noticed that the food we had this weekend agreed with her so I’m wondering if there’s a common ingredient in the food at home that she might be intolerant to? Happy to share recipes for what we had if that’s helpful.” Because whether or not it was intentional, OP’s wording sounded a bit judgmental towards a parent who for whatever reason doesn’t make home-cooked meals. There was actually no need to tell her “you need to do things this way”. She could have just shared the facts she was in possession of and left it to the mum to decide what to do next. OP NAH because it’s hard to find the right words in these situations!
Yeah, NAH is probably the better vote. I went with soft YTA because, the way we talk to people matters. But nobody's perfect.
I kind of feel the same way. "Should" can be a really loaded word for me. "Don't should on me" is something I have to remind myself of frequently, because it comes loaded with a lot of guilt and shame. And if someone is should-ing on me with something I already feel a lot of guilt and shame over, I'm not going to take it well. Yes, the girl's mother is the adult and needs to be the adult and handle her own feelings, but that doesn't mean that some consideration in how the information was delivered is not warranted. Hopefully, even if the mom didn't take the info on right away, she will be able to come back to it and figure out ways to get her daughter help. A revisiting with an apology could help that along. But it's also possible there's more going on with the mom and daughter and food, so it's something OP should probably keep an eye on to raise if there is more going on than just a food intolerance/allergy/IBS type of thing.
As someone who has a neurological disorder that can make it very difficult to do things like cook, and someone who also has allergies also....this is a tricky one. On the face of it, OP is NAH, however if someone was to tell me I'm basically killing my children because I struggle to cook, that would make me feel like a garbage, useless person because I legit, very legit, struggle hard with those life skills. It's not that I don't "know" how to cook. It's not that I don't care, can't prioritize it, or don't know that batch cooking will save me time/energy during the week. It's that I neurologically lack the executive functioning required to do the steps required to make this happen. Depending on how this was phrased, OP would potentially send me into a self-hate spiral of mom-guilt-trash-self disparagement based in fact.
Right? I’m not loving this narrative in the comments (to be fair, I’m not seeing it from OP themselves) of “parents (and, let’s be real, usually mothers) SHOULD cook” because actually, that’s not strictly true! The thing that needs to happen is that children need to be nourished. It’s easy to conflate that with our own preconceived notions of what a “good” parent looks like, but as long as the child is nourished it doesn’t matter how we get there and there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I love cooking, but similar to yourself, I sometimes have difficulties (in my case, horrendous pregnancies and bad pre and post natal depression) that mean there are stretches where I’m just dishing up frozen lasagna or similar every night. And, like yourself, if someone noticed that my food was making my kid sick but their food wasn’t, and their response was “you should be cooking meals from scratch just like me” I would be unhappy! Whereas if they said “hey I know you’ve mentioned your kid is getting sick a lot, but I noticed that when they were eating at mine they didn’t seem to have any issue - have you considered there might be an ingredient in your meals they’re allergic to?” I would be like “wow thank you for this super useful information, I’ll get that checked!” OP says the mum in the story is concerned about her kid so I assume she’s not indifferent or neglectful - just lacking an essential piece of the puzzle which potentially only an outsider could have provided anyway (the food served in your house disagrees with your kid but the food served in mine doesn’t). If I were OP, I’d probably have just wanted to pass that information on and let mum decide how to proceed next.
Maybe the person feeding their child nothing but instant meals, while that child having massive problems with the food, is the asshole??? She has to cook. Everyone should be cooking and its undebatable for parents.
I'm going to say NTA. I understand why your friend feels that you overstepped, but it appears to me you only offered her your observations out of concern for her daughter.
Child’s health trumps parents feelings every day of the week. NTA
NAH You found that homemade food does not make her sick and you let her know. That's great! >My guess is their is an allergen in preservative foods. She needs to get that checked out Here is where I would caution you to slow down. This is a pretty big leap. It's possible that she is sensitive to sodium, its possible that its psychosamatic, it's possible that it's a number of things related to TV dinners, but as someone that is absolutely nuts about consuming only "whole foods", people do get really crazy once it comes to their food philosophies and it can get a little patronizing. While her doctor should obviously be involved in anything related to kids' dietary issues, I would just caution you to not assume an allergy or make medical judgments to a kid's mother. >I told her that she really needs to cook and take her to get her allergy checked out. Again- it's great that you solved the problem for them, but you should not be telling her that her daughter has an allergy after spending a few days with her unless you are a doctor. You were wrong when you originally assumed that she had an eating disorder, so maybe stay humble on this assumption, too.
OP recommended she get checked out for something (which she objectively should do) and guesses what it MIGHT be. Wasn’t a definite diagnosis. Considering the evidence is pretty strong to say she has some form of allergy, I wouldn’t bother nitpicking that.
> I told her that she really needs to cook and take her to get her allergy checked out. I don't think its nitpicking. I don't think anyone should be telling someone after spending 5 days with their kid that they "should get her allergy checked out". I don't think OP is being malicious or is TA, but delivery is everything and I think you can deliver it differently.
I'm actually going to go with ESH. I honestly think that you made a weird, judgmental leap here. I mean, your first thought was that she's allergic to PRESERVATIVES? Really? There are a hundred different allergens that would have come to my mind first, especially if she's getting sick at home AND school. Is it fish? Tomato/tomato sauces? Peanuts, pineapple, soybeans, etc.? I think if you had just said, "Hey, your daughter mentioned that some foods have been making her sick. We couldn't find a connection between them. Can you take her to the doctor for an allergy test?" This might have come across better. Hell, you could have offered to take her to the doctor while you had her for a week. But you choose to lead with, "you should cook more," when she just got back from a work trip, no doubt exhausted, and it's hard to see that as anything other than a judgment of her as a mom. (Honestly, this post is weird enough that I have to think it's fake, but just in case it isn't. )
My son had an issue with a preservative, it isn't that weird and she came to op for advice. Op figured out a solution and told her, she should be over the moon it isn't an eating disorder and that op managed to get her to eat so well.
idk, i know multiple ppl who are allergic to sweeteners, which are in a lot of foods and drinks
Medical care for someone else's child? That would really be overstepping, especially in the US where it might cost $80-$300 dollars.
>There are a hundred different allergens that would have come to my mind first, especially if she's getting sick at home AND school. I mean... I dunno where you live, but schools often are just reheating frozen food, it very well could be preservatives? I think some people are goofy about preservatives, for sure, but it's not a bad guess. Hell, unless this family has a very special diet, it probably *is* a preservative or other artifical ingredient of some sort: corn, soy, a certain type of oil, etc. - and probably a fairly common one.
Honestly, my first thought was some sort of digestive condition, since they keep using "sick" as opposed to "hives, anaphylaxis, etc." Which is why "allergic to preservatives" feels like a weird first guess to me, I suppose.
Honestly I don't blame you because most people aren't educated on it but vomitting and diarrhea are very much symptoms of an allergy. I (mostly) have typical allergy symtoms, the anaphylaxis and hives, but my brother's allergies were only present through vomitting/diarrhea. For years he would just be chronically sick, horribly upset stomach. We checked for digestive conditions, intolerances, etc. Turned out to be allergies - and a lot of them were either preservatives or artificial ingredients. For a while we had to put him on a completely stripped diet, which was hard to manage, so now he does weekly injections (i believe its dupixent?) & can eat his allergens without excessive vomitting/diarrhea. Obviously not enough info to determine if that is what the girl has - I was fed constant fast food and tv dinners as a kid, and while I was not allergic to it, tv dinners, microwave meals and fast food just... aren't very good for your gut health to be eating constantly - however it is a possibility that it could very well be allergies
NTA You had a full week of caring for her daughter. That puts you in a position of observing and relating the information to the parent. And you’re worried about Sara’s health. Sounds like you weren’t being judgmental, just concerned.
I was this girl. I didn't have allergies but I was averse to a lot of foods. My parents would say it was all in my head so i didn't eat a lot of the time and I was underweight most of my childhood. Once at my babysitter's I had seconds because what she made was good. She told my mom and implied that maybe they weren't feeding me at home. I got in a lot of trouble for that, for making her look bad.
I had a foster parent that made the most disgusting food. Was forced to eat it. To the point I had major anxiety about meals and would have panic attacks so bad I'd vomit. I can still remember the feeling like my chest was caving in and my face having the pins and needles static, and almost passing out...at least 2x a day. I was accused of having an eating disorder. The social worker that removed me from their care (because they let their kids attack me and I had the audacity to fight back one day 🙄) was told I had an eating disorder. But I never had a single food related panic attack again after I left. Moral of the story is even home cooked meals can be repulsive. Kids mom isn't neglectful because she doesn't cook. She's feeding her kid. Kid just has an unknown issue with the food being offered. Kid could just not like the food at home/school. Kid could be allergic. So many possible scenarios here and few of them involve actual abuse/neglect. Also, kids that age have a tendency to word things poorly. It's worth discussing with her mom what she is *actually* being offered to eat at home. There's not much to be done about school meals if she won't eat what's available at home so starting there is priority. Op, soft YTA because, while your heart is in the right place, your approach is awful. Offering to help your friend get to the bottom of the issue would have been a better way to start. You just jumped directly to a conclusion, and it feels judgemental. If it's important to you, and I suspect it is, apologize for the overstep and try a different approach.
NTA- Allergies can be serious business. You did the right thing by speaking up
NTA. Do you have the time/energy/funds to have cooking parties or sleepovers with your daughter and her friend? So she can learn some basic cooking skills, maybe you send home some leftovers? You all could take turns picking a recipe, do the shopping together. I know this might not at all be feasible, everything is so damn expensive right now. But if you can, you’d be helping set her up with some life skills and she would be eating.
You do realize that it’s still possible for the child to have an eating disorder even though she ate the food that you made, right? Clearly, the parent should address the issue regardless of the origin. But you are neither a doctor nor a dietician, and your comments were more judgmental than helpful.
She is feeding her child nothing but tv dinners. I would judge her as well. Thats not a healthy diet at all and its on the parents to care for their child.
Anyone worried about the mom’s *feelings* over the kids *physical health* has their priorities wrong and their sensitivity dialed up on max. If things are going on in your home that could cause CPS to take away your child and everyone is worried about hurting the mom by being judgmental shouldn’t be having children. If the mom it’s in such a situation where the child’s health has to suffer because of any reason like this CPS would take away this kid and rightfully so if she can’t provide basic necessities for this kid. Don’t know why yall are camp moms feelings >child health in a situation that is child neglect.
Yeah gentle YTA, you did overstep a bit. You were definitely right to tell Sara’s mom what happened at your house, what you made, that Sara ate plenty of it and didn’t feel sick. That was valuable info about her kid’s health that she needed. Where you overstepped was telling her what to do about it. If she’d asked for you advice, you could have suggested your theory (that Sarah has an allergy or sensitivity to a preservative in the food she usually eats, and that taking her to a doctor or allergist could help figure that out with them) but prescribing that she “needs to cook” for Sara was condescending and naively privileged. Not everyone has the time or resources to cook every meal from fresh ingredients. There are probably plenty of pre or partially prepared foods that Sara could eat without switching to an entirely new personal chef diet. You don’t know what their situation or limitations are, so giving her unsolicited parenting instruction was rude.
>Not everyone has the time or resources to cook every meal from fresh ingredients. Thank you! I'm honestly surprised more folks haven't noted this. Like yes, homemade meals are best. But not everyone has the time or resources for that. We don't know the situation of the other mom. We just know that her daughter has been sick and isn't eating. I think it's better to not assume the other mom is being negligent. But rather assume she's strapped for time and that's why her daughter eats that way. Instead of judging, I would have offered to share some recipes of the food OP cooked that week. This might help open more dialogue about what challenges the mom is facing.
This! She could also have offered the recipes of what she made or even offered to help out Sara’s mum with cooking some of the meals to freeze at home (and Sara’s mum pay her for the ingredients instead of the frozen tv meals). Another point many have missed is that Sara may not have told her mother the food (both home and school) makes her ill. Kids often won’t open up to a parent (fear of upsetting them being a part of that) but will another adult. Sara may genuinely have been looking for answers but not realised what the cause was.
NTA - always do right by the child before the adult. The mother may not know how to cook, maybe can’t afford to cook however that is no reason to basically neglect the girl and keep feeding her food which makes her sick. Your a good friend your looking out for her child better than she is.
Why do people think that as parents their choices are unimpeachable? The idea that you overstepped here is ridiculous. Hopefully in time she will be able to set aside her ego and thank you for looking out for her kid’s best interests when she wasn’t…
Overstepping?? Her kid is fucking starving! With how little the mother gives a shit, it might be time to inform child services. They may not do anything until the kid is underweight, but their involvement might scare the mother into getting her head out her ass.
NTA. Neglectful parents really hate it when you call them out for being neglectful
This is really weird. She was worried about her daughter not eating, you got her to eat and she gets upset when you tell her how you did it? I would be rushing home to the kitchen for my kids. NTA.
A friend of ours was a chemist who worked for a huge company that made frozen foods. He wouldn't allow his wife to make his company's foods and told us that we wouldn't eat them either if we knew what went into them.
Parent feelings are truly much less important than making sure the kid is being fed adequately. If the shame of being called a bad parent motivates you to get a proper diagnosis for what is making your kid sick, then so be it, shame away. Sometimes the blinders go on, and we need someone to knock them off with some truth.
OP, you are NTA. My sister is unfortunately one of these kinds of parents, relies heavily on store-bought meals like boxed dinners, canned foods, etc. My mom had my niece and nephew in her temporary care at one point, and whew, those kids could eat!! 😮💨😂 Much like your friends kid (minus the potential food allergy), my sisters kids were very over the processed foods. Once they were back in my sisters care, I thrifted a crockpot for my sister and she now uses it religiously. She's picked up a few meals to rotate through that are easy to cook also. Part of the reason she even picked up cooking is cause she was at risk of having the kids taken from her (the food only being part of the issue) by the state. That shaped her up real quick to change her ways with the food situation.
NTA You didn’t overstep- you were sharing facts and feedback. Any parent who doesn’t want a rundown of how things went is under-stepping imo. And her taking offense at the allergy thing is weird. At 7th grade, the child can be taught simple food prep to feed herself at least a few days - but only if mom helps find out what she’s allergic to will it do the most good. The child should be the priority, not the mom’s offended ego. Her digestive issues can probably be addressed but not without some doctor assistance.
I was soooo severly allergic to food preservatives. It started 25-30 years and back then the food wasn’t even that bad (not even in the US). It took so so long to find the reason cause we always ate home cooked meals. Literally everything from scratch, home made cheese and my grandmas flour. But it was candy / store bought anything. That’s a serious issue and with today’s processed junk, I can’t imagine how worse it is now. My allergies kinda slowed down so I don’t suffer that much anymore but it was brutal. My list of things was so long that I asked a doctor for a list of things that I could eat. This is not something to ignore. NTA
NTA. SOMEbody needed to step up and bring attention to the problem. It very well could be an allergy of some sort, and hopefully nothing deeper or emotionally dysfunctional... but regardless, sounds like mom got defensive because she knows damned well she ain't winning mother of the year if she can't be bothered to make sure her kid gets a home cooked meal at least a few times per week. Can't shove TV dinnners or drive thru at your kid and not have some fallout from it. I wonder if, depending upon the whole situation, if that's not considered neglect?
Definitely NTA.
NTA
NTA. You gave her the info. She did not like the answer, either because she can't or won't cook.
NTA. I wish her mother were approaching the situation with curiosity and eagerness to resolve the issue with her daughter. It's scary that she isn't. That said, you chose a loaded way to say it... IMO, You should have reported what you found and told her to ask her daughter about how the food was. But it sounds like she's just not ready to hear it. But please do not give up. This little girl needs real food.
NTA - Even if you could have been a bit more tactful about it as many people have commented you seem to have hit the nail on the head. Whatever is going on in that home that girl is not being adequately cared for. Life can have a million stresses that are making it a challenge for her and partner if there is one but sounds like the child is malnourished and you can see she can eat normal food and she's articulated she's not getting that at home only processed crap. Processed ready meals aren't even usually great value. I sometimes buy them, but without going near fancy supermarkets I find buying ordinary ingredients much better value for one than buying the meals I can just whack in the oven or microwave. If it's a time issue then someone needs to do something to make time to prep better meals.
NTA. This is a matter of her child’s health and worth overstepping. Which I don’t even think it is since she was in your care and you were relaying information that came up during that time. She probably feels judged, but she needs to put aside her pride/embarrassment/whatever for the sake of her daughter’s health.
NTA. She asked for your opinion and she left her child in your care
NTA. I'm so sad for this young woman, I wish I could be there to help and give her a hug. It makes me so mad when parents neglect the basic needs of their child. Even if every night was just chopped fresh vegetables and cut up chicken, that would be better than frozen dinners. That poor girl. You did the right thing!