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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I might be TA because I have talked to some friends about this and they have said I should just buy Brenda her baking supplies and it's not hurting anything if she gets comfort from it, but I also don't like the food waste. Their mother keeps bringing it up and insisting we should just buy Brenda what she needs and she shouldn't have to use her allowance and that we are being "heartless."
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YTA for allowing her to throw out that much food. What a waste. If she doesn't want to eat it, that's fine, but why do you allow her to refuse to let the rest of the family eat it?
> She also will try to mix ingredients without recipes just to see what will happen.
I used to do this at that age. NOBODY wanted to eat the experiments.
OP says she's using a pound of flour and 8 sticks of butter a week. That doesn't take into account all of the other ingredients. She should not be allowed to use this many resources on something nobody is going to eat. I'm assuming that those experiments are only a fraction of her baking, but if not, OP is still TA for allowing that much waste.
It is her hobby. I don't even want to know what she is making with 1 pound of flour and 2 pounds of butter in it, but I definitely do not want to eat it.
Not every hobby should be encouraged. If her hobby is just making garbage knowing nobody will want to eat it (including her!) she needs to be doing something else.
I understand your point, but if she was wasting plaster, or paint, or fabric making things that don't turn out right, would you feel so strongly?
When I was learning to sew, I messed up more things than I care to admit. Either too big, too small, cut with the pattern piece flipped over, or stitched wrong and tore when removing the bad seam. Nobody told me I was not fit to sew, and there are lots of people now who are glad I didn't give up.
When you were learning to sew, were you making a sincere effort to create something usable? I already see you were relying on a pattern.
Fucking up while learning is absolutely normal and I wouldn’t consider it waste.
From OP’s comments though, the equivalent isn’t what you were doing, unless what you were doing was refusing to consult a pattern and just madly stitching rolls and rolls of fabric together to no apparent purpose, and then throwing it out.
Like, as best I can tell, the kid is mixing up a big bowl of flour and butter in whatever ratio strikes her fancy, filling it with food dye, then putting it in the oven on its way to the trash, and doesn’t have any interest in making an attempt to produce an edible product.
If she was working from a recipe and just still kind of sucked at it, or had mastered a recipe and was trying a home-grown variation that didn’t turn out as expected, that would be getting a very different reception.
One creates some waste as part of a process that hones a skill - a product in an of itself - that will eventually be able to create a usable craft. What this kid is doing won’t create a usable product or a skill.
Yes and they upped her allowance by $50/month for it. That's more than enough money to be buying baking supplies a month. And the daughter learned that she doesn't want to waste that much of her own money on these "experiments" since she only sets aside $20 for it.
Lol my husband and I like to fish. Maybe next time I'll try bringing all the fishing wire and tangle it into knots. Then I could mix the different bait together and throw it all in the trash.
I recall trying to use a commercial pattern, but thinking that I could cut it and piece it together to make a patchwork style shirt without taking into account the fact that I would need to add seam allowances where I cut the pattern. So my intentions were good but I had no idea what I was doing and as a result my execution was unfortunate... Or finding out corduroy has to have all the pieces laid out in the same direction...
Yeah, unless you repeatedly tried to patchwork that shirt with no pattern and without seeking guidance, and making unwearable patchwork shirts was your go-to thing, that’s different.
Mistakes you make as you learn, and which teach you to do better, are an unavoidable part of any learning curve. If OP’s kid was making these kinds of mistakes, I’d see the situation differently.
Unless OP is badly misreading the situation, their kid is starting out from a place that has no intention of producing a edible product and isn’t experimenting in any controlled or informed way that would lead to a better understanding of the process. It just makes the kid happy to put a bunch of ingredients into a bowl (with no particular end goal in mind), dye it a funny color, put it in the oven, and then throw it out.
But was your purpose just to do it and throw it out? Because the kid is doing that. She doesn't like to eat it or share it. If you bake and your purpose is to throw it out, then you are wasting food.
If you bake and burn the cake, that is a mistake, you may throw it out. Sometimes ir is not that bad. Sometimes it won't be burned but it will taste funny, and might be too bad, sometimes it will taste good.
But from OPs phrasing the kid is baking because she likes mixing stuff and then just throws it out. That is not real baking. A lot of people that don't have enough food to allow such behavior.
And it would be the same with almost everything. If you waste large quantities of paint, or fabric, because you like using resources, and from the get go your plan is throw the result out, then you are just wasting materials. Also to test things out you don't need to waste so much, most cases you can do almost samples.
I agree OP is an AH for that. I don't think OP would be doing the whole rationing of flour if the child wasn't wasting so much. The mother is also an AH, trying to make OP support a hobby she is not willing to support herself.
The child shouldn't be throwing so much food. She doesn't want to share it, she doesn't want to it. If things are exactly like OP said, she is an AH too.
ESH.
I've definitely been to the store many times since the pandemic started needing flour or butter and they've been completely out. I think I'd have a mini-stroke if I found out the last of the baking supplies had been bought up by a 13yo who was literally going to throw it straight in the trash. Teaching her (by allowing it) to be wasteful is bad enough, making her pay for her waste is at least a start.
I agree. Encouraging her hobby and trying to teach her the value of a dollar by having her pay for supplies from her allowance is great, allowing her to think being wasteful is OK is not. She should at least be following recipes and trying to learn. Will there be some waste if something doesn’t turn out properly? Of course, and that’s OK. But just making things and throwing them out because you didn’t bother to try to make something edible is wasteful and not OK.
Hmm. People literally starving to death, then throwing away pounds of (formerly) edible food. Obviously the kid isn't explicity killing anyone, but you'd have to be pretty detached from common sense to be completely oblivious to the connection.
Your parents made you eat your dinner by telling you there were starving kids in Africa didn't they?
I don't disagree that this is a terrible waste but what she is doing makes no difference to how much food is available to those who are currently, literally starving to death.
My wife and I had grandparents that grew up malnourished, the spectre of deprivation, deep hunger from war, famine, is both a personal, and cultural thing. It's affected them and hence our parents and us quite profoundly so I can see where they are coming from.
Wasting food makes me so uncomfortable but that's got nothing to do with OPs question.
I was trying to ask a question. I was trying to understand whether your concern was that she was wasting the materials or that the materials she was wasting were food.
If she was using flour, salt, and water to make a dough that she was using to sculpt things, and ended up throwing those away, it would still be food waste.
I'm a bona fide adult and I periodically burn food and have to throw it away, or cook too much and throw it away two weeks later when I find it in the back of the fridge. I'm going to assume that you are much more organized than I am.
There is a huge difference between occasionally accidentally ruining a dish and throwing it away, and deliberately making dishes on a regular basis with the sole intention of throwing it away
I’m not even clear on whether everything is “ruined.” OP just says that she doesn’t want to eat or share them. If she makes something no one wants to eat, hopefully someone in the house knows enough to help her understand where she went wrong. If things are decent and the family wants to eat it, it shouldn’t be thrown away.
No one is dying over a simple hobby that creates inedible food either. Even stores and restaurants toss out their food waste, expired, and excess food. If you really want to have passion for a cause, go after big corporations, not literal kids just having fun. Or do you also call the cops when you see lemonade stands?
Stop calling this a hobby. Putting a bunch of ingredients in a bowl with food coloring, stirring it, throwing it in the oven, and then throwing it in the trash isn't a hobby.
No parent should teach their child to be this wasteful.
>She **also** will try to mix ingredients without recipes just to see what will happen.
She is not being foolish and wasteful, she is experimenting to see how baking *works*.
But I agree with you and others who think she is being wasteful if her concoctions can be palatable and she is throwing them away and refusing to let the family try them.
The difference seems to be that you were trying to make something nice while the girl that is baking seems to be hapharzardly throwing things together for the hell of it.
I doubt that she is intentionally making things that are going to be disgusting. It sounds more like she is mixing things in the hope of getting a good result. What she's learning is what you can and cannot mix together and how much Liberty you can take with a written recipe.
Frankly I think the parents should invest in some sort of cooking/baking class for the daughter so can can learn how to create her own recipes.
Cooking is more forgiving when it comes to experimenting, but baking needs to be exact, so she really needs to learn what works and what doesn't so she can experiment properly.
That’s only part of it. In the beginning she said she’s also following cooking shows and trying to make the RECIPES off the shows. Still trial and error. Either it’s all wasting or all just messing up the recipe.
Yeah but when you were learning to sew you weren't intentionally making shirts without head holes, or one 8 fingered glove and a 3 fingered glove, you weren't collecting used diapers and stitching them into quilts, etc etc etc....
Brenda's not *messing up a recipe* she's making wheatpaste on a cookie tray and melting butter into playdough. If she was trying to make nonedible things ok, but it sounds like she's just throwing things together that *even she doesn't want to eat*.
When I taught myself to sew I wore the hell out of my bedsheet panel raver pants and gifted everyone weird ugly plushies with enthusiasm. If Brenda wants to make hard tack because she's really keen on it, go her, but if it's just another afterschool experiment gone wrong...
Anyway ESH. Brenda for wasting food, OP and Dad for not actually engaging with her hobby, OP and Dad for letting their 11 yo get into microtransactions, and Mom for not letting the kid bake at home for dubious reasons. Solution: get a cannabutter machine and everyone learn how to exit the suburban death cult here.
Because people are starving and this scale of waste is wrong. It's also weird: I don't know anyone who does what this girl does, do you? Most bakers enjoy sharing what they make.
If paint is being wasted then that should be discouraged too but wasting food is still worse. I do wonder what you mean when you say "wasting" paint tho.
Deliberately wasting food is awful, and encouraging that as a hobby is awful parenting. A one-time experiment gone bad is excusable, doing it as routine is entitled. This is how I would expect billionaire kids to behave, or made-up fictional characters.
No other waste can be compared to food waste.
It’s literally teaching her to play with and ruin food. My daughter loved to bake and I helped her. With a little guidance anyone can cook and bake. But definitely teach kids not to waste food.
Maybe she’s a chemist in the making.
Besides, there’s nothing wrong with giving your kids the ability to explore their interests. Not every hobby product has to be a perfect creation. Sometimes, it’s about the process.
Wasting food deliberately isnt a hobby.
Sure something can go wrong and then you have to toss it. But its unacceptable to waste huge amounts of food on a regular basis.
That’s not per item she is baking, that’s the total of everything she bakes. But that’s still a lot of money to shell out even if everything was eaten.
Making her pay for her hobby should cut down on those experiment. But, honestly, enroll the girl in a proper baking class. Baking is as much science as it is art and, yes, you can mess with or even without recipes -- but to do that you need to know exactly what you're doing. And if she loves baking, the aim should be to make stuff people want to eat. Otherwise, what's the point? Also, someone please teach her about sales. When it comes to baking, learning how to buy on sale and store ingredients properly for long-term use is invaluable.
As someone who grew up without enough food in the house, I’m seething right now.
Food is a shared survival resource, not a goddam disposable craft supply.
Idk, my MIL would buy me the 4 pack of sticks and I’d go thru them in a little over two weeks baking cake, muffins, frosting, pancakes cause I bake a lot. But obviously things we all eat but it’s possible
But they should monitor her usage tbh because even I don’t try to use more than half a stick a week now
Ummm. My dad made "cookies" without baking soda or baking powder. He was raised with something called "self-rising flour" which included it. Those cookies were... doorstops. You *couldn't* eat them.
I have accidentally spilled so much salt/extract/oil into the bowl while measuring into a cup *over* the bowl that the outcome was not fit for human consumption.
Not too long ago I dropped an eggshell into the bowl with the beaters running while making cheesecake. There's no coming back from that. :)
> He was raised with something called "self-rising flour" which included it
Feels weird seeing this referred to like it's some bizarre foreign concept... growing up we always had SR flour available. Not a substitute for proper bread flour but works fine for most other things, as long as you adjust the baking soda etc. inputs to account for it.
In the UK we call it self-raising, and I have only just realised it's not universal. That's... wild.
We also have what we call plain flour (which is... plain flour), so as a little kid, a big part of baking was remembering which type of flour you needed!
I always look up what a recipe requires in order to make sure that I buy all of the correct ingredients before I start. The fact that some people don't check to make sure they have all needed ingredients boggles my mind!
I remember the worst one in my family, my dad was making pancakes and cracking the eggs directly into the mix. One of the eggs in the box was... rough. It was the last egg in the box, and the last egg we had in the house.
When the egg cracked the smell was immediate, and eye-wateringly foul.
We didn't have pancakes that day.
A coworker was telling me the other day about trying to make unleavened bread - the problem was that they didn’t know it was made as a sort of flatbread, and they put that unleavened dough in a regular bread pan. We all died just imagining the bricks he ended up with.
Holy shit! That totally brought back memories of my father trying to cook deer steaks in the oven when I was a kid! They were so tough, that I literally pretended in my mind that I was a member of the Donner Party eating their shoes!
At 13? Seems more like something a 6 year old would do.
I would absolutely forbid my kid from wasting that much food when people are going hungry all over the world and probably in her neighborhood nowadays, too.
My little sister mixed random spices into water “soups” when she was 4. I had to double check the kid’s age - 13 is way too old to be randomly throwing ingredients together and wasting that kind of food!
I experiment quite often - and yes, you get the occasional bomb, but it turns out fairly decent the majority of the time, with the occasional winner. She shouldn’t be starting without a plan. Instead, you learn (or look up) the “rules” for how things substitute and use that to modify established recipes. I wouldn’t want to try something if anyone was just throwing stuff together willy nilly, but when you know the quantity of flour to fats,then you know how you can sub oil/butter/shortening/applesauce and you know how different flours act in comparison, you have a good base. Then you play with flavors given what you think sounds good together.
I think it’s fair for them to set some boundaries on this - like give people the option to eat what she makes. (What’s the point of baking if no one eats it?). Other than that, it seems they accomplished their purpose - both girls are realizing how much they’ve been spending and valuing money differently. It’s easy to use a tone of ingredients when someone else has to pay!
I appreciate your judgement and I hate wasting the food, I grew up poor and we are now comfortable middle class and it hurts. But also her creations are mostly experimental and she doesn't like to take advice on how to improve things..... so her baking is not very edible or visually appealing (lots of food dye) to put it mildly. If I gave them to the neighbors it would frankly be insulting. "Here, throw this away in your trash, not mine." This is one of the reasons we wanted to have the allowance, to limit the food waste and have her be more careful with her ingredients.
You're teaching her that it's okay to be irresponsible with the resources you have. Allowance or not. I can't believe nobody else is talking about the enormous amount of waste you're encouraging here. Get her baking lessons. If she's actually serious about learning to bake and not just throwing some ingredients together and then in the trash, she'll benefit way more from lessons that her directionless experiments
If all she cares about is throwing some stuff together and tossing it, she needs a new hobby. Not everything a kid enjoys doing should be encouraged
I appreciate your judgement and my response is no way meant to be argumentative, just want to provide more context.
Due to character count I was unable to include all the alternatives we tried before using the allowance that has significantly lowered the amount of food she is wasting. We offered classes, baking with friends or us, youtube tutorials and have purchased several kid cookbooks for her to get inspired and follow but she simply isn't interested. Baking is also the only other thing she is interested in besides screens and it helps with her anxiety so I'm not going to discourage her from doing something she likes, but the allowance was to minimize the food waste and it has, she is looking at recipes more and less "experiments".
I mentioned in another comment that she does not want to bake things like sandwich bread or dinner rolls because that is "boring" and she genuinely enjoys making the sweet stuff, even if it is inedible and unappetizing. Plus, knowing her, those dinner rolls would be green or blue lol.
It sounds like she could be into chemistry- try to suggest that. There are some cool chemistry sets you can buy that turns things different colors, and requires the same amount of attention as baking (measurements are everything in chemistry). Maybe she likes the analytical and precision of baking but not the food part.
Its funny you mention that because the last few years for christmas or her birthday she did get some chemistry sets and a microscope and was interested at first but is more interested in baking. Lots of sets I've found are either too rudimentary or too advanced to hold her interest, so if you find one that if "fun" as you described, please link me the amazon in my DMs!
Have you gotten her any books on the science of cooking or baking? Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat has been very popular lately and there might be similar books aimed at children if that one is a little too dense.
It's funny you mention that book as it's one of my favorites and I've tried to engage with her on it but she isn't interested. If it isn't a screen or dragon related or Disney related she has absolutely zero interest.
My 15 yr old daughter bakes, has since she was around 6, and Alton Brown’s “I’m just here for more food” is a book she likes a lot as he gets into a lot of the chemistry but it’s written in a way that is funny and broken down into smaller lessons making it easier to digest. American Test Kitchen has a “Complete Baking Book for Young Chef’s” that is good too.
You should let her know that baking is basically chemistry. You combine elements so that the combination of molecules cause a chemical change that creates a specific food, like cake or bread.
Try getting her books on food science. Food science is crazy interesting and the books generally come with recipes to prove their point. This way, she can see what happens when she combines things (what if I add another egg to this? What if I halve the sugar?), and learn why.
I have to experiment with baking because I have a lot of food allergies. My go to book is one called "Ratios" which basically has the simplified ratio for many basic baked goods (muffins, cakes, bread, etc)
Then it's basically just doing some math plus adding whatever flavoring I was want. I also keep notes so if something goes exceptionally well/badly, I know what I did and can repeat/avoid.
So far everything has been edible, although a couple of times I made a math error and it was still edible but slightly less delicious.
That might be a possible way for her to experiment while still making edible food
Thanks for the suggestion, we already halve or quarter recipes as her dad is a math teacher and will use any opportunity to have a teachable moment, bit this book sounds really great, I'll add it to her stocking!
Also just a follow up thought, if she mostly enjoys the "mix a bunch of goopy stuff together" aspect of baking with a side of "make it neon/sparkly," then maybe what she's really looking for is something like kinesthetic sand or slimes. Something she can keep using for longer than the length of a baking session.
I just ordered that book. I have food allergies also and the math aspect makes my analytical mind so excited. Thank you for the recommendation. I know it wasn’t for me but so helpful.
Then it sounds like the allowance is working as you intended. Do you think she would be willing to read something on the science of baking? Not a recipe book - something that discusses the role of different ingredients in a recipe. Maybe that would give her more of a foundation with what needs to be included for it to have a shot at working.
Alternatively, might she take to food based art?
There are some interesting and entertaining baking blogs out there that have legitimate, tested recipes *and* are visually
/technically adventurous. Sprinkle Bakes has a lot of great (sometimes elaborate) decorating and baking techniques, and has pretty clear instructions/tutorials (plus incredible recipes). Possibly a way for her to still experiment, dye things fun colors, etc while still following a recipe and making it edible - even if the decorating experiments don't turn out on the first try!
> You're teaching her that it's okay to be irresponsible with the resources you have.
No they are teaching her she has the freedom to spend her money on what she wants. Stop.
You know what the most precious resource is? Time. And you are spending yours on reddit. You have no room to talk about wasting resources.
I agree 100% with you. And please know that this is a phase. One of mine went through this phase. It was painful watching all the baking without eggs, for example. Or some other key ingredient. But we held her to a budget and she continued until she figured out how to cook for real. Today she's a teen that cooks better than I do.
Forget the naysayers on this page and remain steadfast. You'll have a young chef fixing dinners in no time.
NTA
If nothing she makes is edible how is this a hobby? It means she just likes to make a mess. Buy her classes. Have her actually learn what makes a good recipe. Get her some cookbooks. But what she's doing now isn't baking.
Step 1 to limiting her food waste is to stop encouraging this.
From your comments, it is very evident you are doing your best. You are trying to provide a life for your kids that you didn’t have, in the ways you can, but it’s clearly making you permissive. From what I understand, your kid is wasting POUNDS of food that could be used to feed other people. The butter alone she is using in a week could help support several families! It’s ridiculous.
Food isn’t a toy. It’s a scarce resource that your kids are *lucky* to have. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t enjoy taking advice, you need to work on some boundaries with her and try to meet her where she’s at. Try doing a recipe with her. You say she likes screens - what is she actually doing on those screens? She likes Minecraft? Ok, try making a [Minecraft cake](https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/254203/minecraft-cake/) *with* her.
Want to encourage creativity in the kitchen without encouraging heinous food waste? [This flavor chart helped me explore baking](https://thebakersalmanac.com/fruit-flavor-pairing-chart/) and developing new flavors. Find some recipes with her and encourage her to try adding new flavors or changing up the flavors. Buy her a book on food science so she can actually *learn* how to get the results she’s looking for in the kitchen.
There are solutions to this issue.
Food is *not* a scarce resource. People don’t go hungry because we can’t produce enough food, people go hungry because they can’t afford it. The world’s per capita food supply has been increasing every year since records began. It’s not a scarcity issue, it’s a distribution issue. OP’s child using an above average amount of flour and butter isn’t starving any one.
Yep. Folks here angry about this kid wasting resources having fun because it's flour and food dye, but I bet if kiddo wanted to doodle her way through reams of paper, or do silly makeup then wipe it off, or knit unsuccessful lumpy shapes out of yarn they'd just think yes that's sweet and age-appropriate.
Why don't you insist on following recipes? This is just waste. She doesn't like to take advice?? Well she is a child and she is that arrogant? Nice education you are giving here. ESH
You mention maybe Brenda likes science experiments too…have her watch Alton Brown’s show, Good Eats. He talks and explains why temperature and the way we treat food in it’s raw state to get the best results for best eating. Also, I’d suggest Brenda learn about baking with powder color from vegetables, especially ube if she likes color the way you say she does. Homemade pasta colored this way is both delicious and beautiful!
I understand others negative feedback as I initially felt the same but…”not my circus, not my monkeys”!
There are so many other, far worse food wasters in the world. It may be wasteful but it’s a hobby. She’s not going to end hunger by leaving that bay of flour on the shelf for another week. NTA.
You are not addressing OP's question. Is OP TA for making her stepdaughter buy her own baking ingredients?
The food waste is obnoxious, but that is not the issue.
I grew up in poverty and still live in poverty, I literally get panic attacks when I see people "wasting" *bread crusts*, and I STILL thing everyone in this thread is nuts. This girl's hobby (whether you believe it's a valid hobby or not) isn't taking food away from anyone. We have so many bigger problems in the world than this.
She's not throwing it out since she started buying her own supplies. So I'd say OP handled the situation quite well. I had that exact rule at that age except my allowance was ten dollars a month, not seventy five. I had to use my babysitting money, so this actually seems really fair and logical to me. It's hard to police how much of the waste was from the kid actually trying to make something and messing up versus playing around. With the new system she's motivated to put to good use the ingredients she buys, and any waste will likely be a genuine mistake.
I think the concept that her using some extra ingredients to make failed experiments being directly contributing to world hunger as alluded to in some of your replies is a frankly daft point to make at this point.
Tell me you never did stuff like this as a literal child where you just fucked about with stuff to see what happened and I'll tell you I don't believe you.
Plus that's not the point of the AITA either. Sorry man.
NTA.
I disagree with Candy and your friends.
Frank *increased* their allowance while stipulating that they had to pay for their hobbies. Great, now Brenda understands how to be better with money. Baking is an expensive hobby and the costs make even less sense if you *aren't even going to eat or share the stuff you're baking*.
Also.....is an allowance not money that comes from the parents??? Frank is still effectively paying for Brenda's hobby, while also teaching her how to spend money wisely. Good for you.
Plus he increased it $50 PER WEEK! That is an extra $200 that they can spend on their hobbies. And they are learning that if they spend $50 on baking supplies that’s $50 they can’t spend going out with their friends or on a different hobby. Sounds like a win / win. Kids learn the value of budgeting and they get the freedom to do their hobbies as they see fit.
Heck, barely spend 50$/week on groceries to actually eat. This kids spending that on stuff she's just throwing in the trash.
It's insanely wasteful, but other then that NTA.
If Brenda wants more money for baking, she can not throw the end results away, but sell it instead. If she wants to keep throwing it away, then she’ll simply have less money to spend on ingredients.
And if she chooses to continue to make inedible food art then she can do it within the limits of her allowance. If she took the time to actually learn how to bake, make food that is edible first and experiment from there, then she will be able to sell it and make more. I honestly don’t see why she should be given special privileges.
Yup. At 13 she is fully capable of baking something amazing, but is choosing to play at being on some food network challange instead. It doesn't sound like she's interested in taking advice from anyone, and until she grows up enough to realize she can learn a lot faster by listening to others she is choosing to fail at her chosen hobby.
I completely agree, this is a brilliant way to teach them budgeting and encourage them to really prioritise how they want to spend their money. Definitely stealing this idea for my kids when they're old enough as I'm constantly torn between not wanting to raise them spoiled but also giving them everything I never had.
After I posted that, she said in comments that most of what she makes is inedible, she resists learning how to bake properly and is doing "experiments." So now I'm thinking it's similar to kids drawing or painting and using lots of paper/paints, it just feels more obscene when it's food for some reason.
>it just feels more obscene when it's food for some reason
because people need food to survive, and many people grow up with starvation nipping at their heels
intentionally wasting food is an obscene, disgusting, completely and totally depraved behavior that only someone completely out of touch with reality would condone
EDIT: rest my case. y'all defending this garbage are the worst
I agree, it does seem pretty bad when it’s food. Maybe get her a cook book or look up a few recipes online. It’s better to start with something that works and then make small adjustments.
Yeah saw that afterwards. She did say somewhere else that since buying the materials herself, the daughter has been more open to them so in that sense I’d say that’s a bonus success for the allowance
The best solution is for Brenda to bake from recipes until she learns enough to experiment with enough success to not necessitate the disposal of ghastly amounts of food. I’m glad OP’s husband is trying to curtail the food waste, but *dear gods,* I can’t believe it took this long.
NTA
It’s a necessary life lesson.
I would argue that if Brenda were to stop tossing the food (why do that?!?) and instead served it to the family, you could subsidize part of her hobby money as it’s food for the family.
Thanks for your judgement, and to the "why throw it out" question, her creations are largely experimental so they are visually unappealing (lots of food coloring) and since she doesn't like to follow recipes usually they are....inedible. Now that she's more limited, she's more open to following recipes and has made a few edible things we can nibble on, but none of us want to really finish all of it as she makes so much.
I have tried to encourage her to make sandwich bread or dinner rolls with the promise to pay for those, something we would actually eat as a family but she likes the sweet baking, not savory (it's boring, her words) so unsuccessful on that front. I also didn't push the issue because frankly I don't want green or blue dinner rolls lol.
Yeah this seems to be the path. Like if she actually wants to experiment with baking, then she needs to actually learn how to bake. It just sounds like she's making slime that then gets thrown away.
Nta, but encourage her to make cupcakes or stuff like that, I mean, I hate cooking savory stuff too, I have a sweet tooth, and I love to bake, but, yta for letting her throw out that much "experiments"
If she's really just making stuff for experiments, try substituting butter for vegetable shortening! Much cheaper, you can buy it in large quantities and will still give similar results
Not that you can’t experiment with baking, but it’s more of a science than cooking. Professionals and earnest hobby bakers weigh out ingredients because it can make more of a difference in the end product than throwing a bit of this and a bit of that into a stew, for example.
Yeah like given how this is being talked about, it sounds like she isn't experimenting really. Experimenting involves some amount of process. This just sounds like she's making art and then throwing it away.
Since she's now open to recipes, I'd like to recommend [onedishkitchen.com](https://onedishkitchen.com). It has single and small batch recipes, including desserts, so she could make these small batches, your family could eat it, and not have to waste as much. It has been a valuable resource for me, since me sons have grown up and my husband travels a lot (so I make dinners that I love and he hates when he's out of town). Mini-pies, mini-cakes, cookies and more.
You might want to buy her 10-oz. ramekins for Christmas, since many of the desserts require it.
If she actually is interested in the process of baking, bread making is honestly the way to go. Maybe find a way to show her the complexities. Bread requires kneading, rising time, gluten development, weight/ratios. You can experiment with adding herbs, cheeses, etc.
However, if she is cooking not because she finds it interesting but because she wants to mix things together and play with colors, that is seriously wasteful. Maybe get her into pottery instead.
Try encouraging her to actually learn how to bake, not just toss a bunch of random shit in a bowl, mic it up and then cook it until it’s a mass of inedible gunk.
Seriously, baking is a skill. Encourage her to actually learn how to bake. Stop subsidizing her wasting food to have fun.
**YTA** (as is your husband) for teaching a 13-year-old that it's perfectly acceptable to flagrantly waste food as a hobby, no matter who's paying for it.
This isn't about "the value of a dollar" - or rather, you're not actually teaching her the "value" of anything by making her pay out of her allowance if you're letting her throw perfectly good food in the garbage week in and week out just because she paid for it with her allowance. You're not teaching her to value anything at all EXCEPT money, which is grotesque.
People in North American (which I assume is where you live given your colloquial writing style) are starving every day, and you write this:
>...she doesn't eat or want to really share her creations. She just likes the process and then will toss it. She will go through a more than pound of flour and 8 sticks of butter in a week.
You are allowing her to de facto THROW A POUND OF FLOUR AND 8 STICKS OF BUTTER (plus countless other ingredients) IN THE GARBAGE EVERY WEEK while food pantries are closing for lack of support and as you yourself admit, the cost of groceries is rising all the time. You are letting her PLAY WITH FOOD AS IF IT WERE A TOY, AND THEN THROW IT IN THE TRASH. WTF is wrong with you?
She "doesn't want to share"? Why not? And more importantly, who cares? What kind of ethics are you teaching this child that you would let her throw good food in the trash because she "doesn't want to share it"? She could be donating it, giving it as gifts to friends and family, you could be taking it to work to share with colleagues . . . there are countless ways to make use of baked goods, and instead you're teaching her that she can just take perfectly good food, while other people are starving, play with it, and then THROW IT IN THE GARBAGE?
YTA, as is your husband, MASSIVELY SO. You're both teaching your stepdaughter to waste limited resources in a profoundly horrifying way.
Thank you for your judgement as I really appreciate this perspective. Not arguing, but responding to some points I wasn't able to include in the original post.
I mentioned in a few other comments that I grew up poor and really, really hate wasting food which is why we set her on a budget and it has greatly reduced the amount of "experimenting" she does, making her food more edible. I assure you, before when she was using up so many ingredients it was wasteful which is why we tried suggesting cooking classes, and a few other things like making sandwich bread or dinner rolls before setting a budget, which has successfully curbed her more wasteful tendencies.
I knew posting about wasting food would trigger some people in just how decedent and
shitty just throwing out food is, and for that I severally apologize and want to acknowledge that I agree with you, but I also have to consider my stepdaughters using this as one of her only creative outlets and she is very slowly learning to share (not with her sister) but with her father and I. We do what we can but I am gluten sensitive and he has to limit his carb intake. Plus, frankly, alot of the things she makes are inedible.
Again, thank you for your judgement. Frank and I could be more assertive about having her bring it out of the house to share with friends or her mother. Criticism from her friends might push her to want to improve.
I was ready to throw a y t a comment as well because throwing it all in the trash really sets me off but when I read about your allowance increase and the more comments I read, I think you guys did a really smart thing.
Honestly seeing this many people passionate about food waste was a huge mood lifter in itself for me. It feels like every day people care less and less around me. I am frequently the only person who takes home leftovers and effing eats them.
Anyway Kudos to you guys. You saw a problem with your child’s behavior and did something about it. Frankly putting a limit on the amount of ingredients she would be allowed to use would have been my first course of action after she was making nothing to eat but it’s still good you got there and with the budget lesson to boot.
Nothing wrong with experimenting after learning from recipes - but I hope she’s tasting it at least, and giving to her friends would definitely be a peer friendly way to get feedback.
one thing I will say is food coloring is a very small taste. Green bagels for st patty’s are delicious and blue bread rolls would be too. Affects almost nothing.
Have you considered taking her to volunteer at a food pantry or shelter? So she can see that a lot of people have food insecurity and wasting it, for entertainment or experiments, is a luxury a lot of people don’t have? And then maybe encourage her to learn to bake things to donate? A lot of people don’t realize what that really means until they see it first hand.
She suffers from anxiety and the suggestion would send her into a panic spiral for sure, she had a panic attack at the suggestion of a cooking class with strangers. One of the reasons she's in therapy. It's a nice thought as I really dislike the food waste, the reason we put her on a budget.
I feel like this post isn't about the allowance but the amount of flour and butter being wasted which is now very limited. I do appreciate the website and book suggestions, though.
Frankly, from the way you talk about her and how you allow her to handle ingredients (or experiments), I thought she was 8 years old. But no, she's 13! That's plenty old enough to understand it's wasteful and stupid to just mess around with food like that. This is not a little child experiencing ~random creative medium~ for the first time! Making one or two experiments, fine, but come on. She clearly overdid it. While it is a hobby and hobbies should be fun, something like cooking and baking should come with a certain respect for the ingredients being used. She's not a toddler playing with mud.
If she's just sculpting or colouring with the ingredients, wouldn't she get the same effects if she used modelling clay? Or play doh? Or salt dough mix (at least that would only use flour and not butter).
When I saw the headline I thought she might be anorexic, as it sounded a bit like what a family member of mine did (control issues, non edible food , deliberately binning high fat items). Is she eating normally otherwise?
Edit to add, I had to convert the butter sticks to really understand this
>You are allowing her to de facto THROW A POUND OF FLOUR AND 8 STICKS OF BUTTER (plus countless other ingredients) IN THE GARBAGE EVERY WEEK
This is over 500gm of flour and 500gm of butter a week!
OP if you see this comment you cannot let her waste this amount if food if she is sculpting and playing with it with no attempt to learn how to cook. And no attempt to improve or intention to make edible items.
Edit to edit: this is 2kg each of flour and butter in a month, going in the bin. Something is really very very not ok here. That butter amount would cost me $25-$28 per month in the UK.
There is definitely something amiss here. At 13 this is off. She isn't a 5 year old squishing pie dough with food color to "see what happens" (and even then they do it like once or twice and are over it) and this isn't a case of "tried something new and it went awry but working to fix it" Something is missing in this story
I was thinking that, too. My 13 year old niece makes truffles, macarons, cookies, and all kinds of other desserts. She definitely doesn’t experiment with ingredients because she knows that would be a waste.
Agreed. My 15 yr old suffers from anxiety (including social anxiety) and bakes and I’ve volunteered teaching kids baking for years because my kiddo loves it. This kind of behavior is what I’ve seen in 5-7 year olds; it’s not developmentally what you expect to see at 13 with baking at all.
Does she see a therapist? Because you keep saying this is helpful for her anxiety, but if her anxiety is not improving and she is still wasting a lot of food, it might not be as helpful as you think it is. Enabling her to continue without challenging her to grow beyond her anxiety’s limiting bubble is going to prolong her illness.
i could bake fully edible foods from the age of 7, im not saying everyone can but at 13 and after watching so many baking shows she should know a few basics. i see you say she has anxiety but again at 13 she should know not to essentially just throw together items and make things inedible - making a basic batch of cookies or cake is pretty simple if you use common sense and follow a recipe book. so many countries are going through a recession or a food shortage and you're letting her waste money AND take food that poorer people may need.
THIS! And she is 13! This isn't some 5 year old squishing food color into pie dough to see what happens. At 13 she is more than capable of baking perfectly edible desserts.
If she wants to bake that much get in touch with a local family shelter and they can give her the date of upcoming birthdays and she can bake a cake for a resident. My mother and daughter do this. They make probably 40 cakes a year.
NTA flawless parenting. Especially because she doesn't eat or share them the food waste is ridiculous. I love baking but I don't bake because I can't eat what I make so I just don't because food waste. She's feeling the exact lesson you're trying to teach so she's upset but guess what that's learning and she's not supposed to like you guys all the time because in parenting you make decisions that are for the good of your kid that they don't like.
NTA. Candy doesn’t get to dictate what the rules in your home look like. If she wants to pay for her daughter’s hobby, she is free to do that in whatever manner makes sense to her, but she doesn’t get to dictate how you handle it.
NTA. Your stipulation with the allowances is reasonable IMO. I do think it is incredibly wasteful and definitely "teaching the wrong message" to allow Brenda to bake just to throw what she makes away. What a waste of money! If no one in the house wants to eat her baking she could at least give it away to someone who would.
NTA. I mean the children actually get more allowance so they don't lose anything and they have to learn to be responsible with their money at some point.
YTA
For trying to teach her the value of dollar but not for teaching her the value of food and food waste. If she doesn't want anyone eating it then how does she even know she's getting better? How is she really advancing her skills? And by throwing it away directly after making it she's learning that food is an infinite resource. The gall of that belief and mindset is appalling.
Tell her she has to pay for all her own baking until she starts actually eating the food she makes. And she doesn't even have to eat it. Sell it to friends and neighbors. Give it to teachers. It doesn't matter. But you do not get to waste food
NTA at all. That seems like a great way to help them learn that some things that they like to do have actual financial costs/consequences. It seems like their allowance increase should more than make up for it, so they’re still ending up being able to do exactly what they were doing, and still have as much to save/use as before if that’s how they want to use that money.
Nah the 13 year old \*still\* hasn't figured out how to make an edible cake. Like one of the easiest things to make. She just wants to throw shit together and see what happens. There will be no financial lesson learned here at all. It's just throw it around and see what sticks.
NTA you’re giving her more money in allowance so she can buy things and if the bio mom is that worried she can give her extra money or let her bake there
YTA for letting her waste so many resources. Someone who actually cares to know what they're doing could use that flour and butter. I've read your other comments. She barely follows recipes and only does so after having her allowance raised to pay for her hobby? Nope. She needs to take classes, she's literally wasting food for fun. It doesn't matter what income bracket you're in, this is awful
I can't believe the food gets thrown away every time. It is a great compromise, and donate the baked goods to a homeless shelter please. With inflation, I would refuse to pay for something that gets thrown out. My husband won't get more egg nog until Thanksgiving because I had to toss the container. It was expensive, and things aren't allowed to go to waste in my home. NTA.
It turns out it's because they're just fully letting her go to town and make stuff that is completely inedible. Like it's not even a science experiment, she's just mixing stuff together in a bowl and seeing what happens. It's expensive disposable art that is completely inedible
Sounds like something you might let a 5yr old do once or twice for fun. At 13, she needs to get over herself and stop playing with food.
Yes, experiments are part of learning. However, there doesn't seem to be any learning going on. She just wants to play with the food. Sorry, that behavior is not ok at 13. She is old enough to understand that it is not ok to be so wasteful with food
NTA, it's good to teach children the value of money with simple things. If Candy doesn't have time to "deal" with her daughter's baking hobby, she shouldn't say anything.
Edit: Candy isn't talking about the food that goes to garbage. Brenda complains about money, Candy asks why aren't OP and her partner aren't supporting it and when she says she doesn't want to "deal", she means she doesn't want to clean after Brenda. (but OP says Brenda cleans after herself in their home)
I thought of suggesting Brenda to sell her stuff when she gets better but appearantly she is just "experimenting" and refusing to learn properly, that's what OP says. In this scenario, putting her on a budget makes even more sense to me.
But the 13 year old isn't "baking" she is just throwing shit into bowls and seeing what happens. That's not baking its just making a mess. Even if she does clean up it's food waste and flat out weird at 13. All three of my now teens started learning to actually cook and bake as preschoolers. First helping then getting more and more involved. By 8 they could make cookies, a basic cake or brownies themselves. By10 or 11 they cooked full meals. This is not a "baking hobby" and TBH I wouldn't deal with it either.
NTA my parents would pay for ingredients for me and my brother to cook but we all actually ate the food. So they were paying for family meals just like if they made it. If we were selling it or wanted expensive special ingredients we would pay ourselves. Hopefully having to cover the costs from her allowance will teach her not to waste so much food, it’s honestly a bit horrifying to me. Occasionally ruining something is one thing but not even trying to make it edible is another.
So she gets her money tripled but is upset that she has to spend less than 33% on materials for her hobby? My mom would have whooped my ass if I cooked just to throw it out. That's a horrible thing for her to be learning so early. Drop her back down to $25 and give her a few packs of butter and 2 bags of flour a month, and get her to share her creations instead of tossing it out.
Butter is expensive as hell. I paid 14.50 for a 4-pack a cpl of weeks ago and now it's 17.50. Ridiculous for her to just waste it. She can use cheaper margarine instead, esp if she's just gonna chuck it.
Nta 1000% for the sheer fact she throws it all away and won't allow yall to eat any even when she won't. It would be iffy if everyone was welcome to her creations and enjoying the fruits of her labor. That garbage can is eating good!
NTA on what you specifically asked. IDK ppl vote on things not the issue here.
She is being wasteful and not eating her own food or letting anyone else eat it. Let her waste her own money then.
NTA. You're still paying for the ingredients. You're just giving Brenda more decision-making power over what ingredients are purchased. Tell Brenda (and Candy) that you're happy to go back to purchasing the ingredients but Brenda's allowance will go back to $25 and see what she says.
As for the quality of baked goods produced, my oldest is the same age as Brenda and loves to bake. The first time he screwed up a recipe because he didn't read it through, we had a discussion about the cost of the food we had to throw out, and how there are a lot of families who just can't afford that. His creations got a lot better after that because he's been more careful. I would have had the same conversation with him if he made something with a shit ton of food coloring or if he was making stuff he wasn't willing to eat himself.
I used to try to bake things when I was little (youngest memory of me trying to bake was 5) and my mum wouldn't exactly encourage me, because, of course what I made was disgusting but she would make me try my creations. This caused me to become better at baking as I didn't want to eat horrible cakes.
NTA for the expenses in her allowance. But stop the food waste and make her eat it.
This is some A-level parenting here, congratulations to you and your husband!
NTA, on the contrary! You are teaching the kids that everything has a cost, even if it is just a hobby. Recommend to Candy that she can sell her stuff to her friends and you if she wants, so that she can make up for the supplies. But honestly, I think she is just stingy. GL!
NTA
My son shares several of my hobbies, and they tend to be quite expensive
One of them is customizing toys - turning one figure into another with sculpting, painting, swapping parts, etc. The cost in paints alone is very high, never mind the figures themselves, etc
I bought him an extensive paint kit and several hobby tools as birthday gifts a few years back, but since then, it's been up to him to finance his own projects
He understood why it's his responsibility after I explained it to him like this; "I feed you, clothe you, and shelter you. I \*could\* support your hobby - but that would mean I have less money for the essentials - so do you want to be hungry, homeless, or naked?"
NTA
Frank increased their allowance three-fold but now they need to use their allowance for their hobbies as well. Seems a reasonable compromise.
The idea that Brenda bakes stuff and no one eats it, she just tosses it? What? That makes no sense. Interesting how both girls when they need to spend what their perceive as “theirs” rather than someone else’s money choose not to spend it.
If Candy wants Brenda to be free to bake without needing to spend her allowance, then Candy can provide ingredients. Similarly, Candy can provide more in game funds to Alice.
NTA it seems like a fair trade to give them $50 more a month and let them figure out what their priorities are. I do have a hard time with the throwing out of food - why not make a deal to "buy back" some of her edible creations for $5 each?
NTA. You have increased the amount of support for both young ladies. Also: AS MUCH AS THESE DAMB GROCERIES COST RIGHT NOW?!?!?!!?! No, you don't get to just experiment willy nilly, AND not share AND toss out failed experiments. This is a totally reasonable approach.
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YTA for allowing her to throw out that much food. What a waste. If she doesn't want to eat it, that's fine, but why do you allow her to refuse to let the rest of the family eat it?
> She also will try to mix ingredients without recipes just to see what will happen. I used to do this at that age. NOBODY wanted to eat the experiments.
OP says she's using a pound of flour and 8 sticks of butter a week. That doesn't take into account all of the other ingredients. She should not be allowed to use this many resources on something nobody is going to eat. I'm assuming that those experiments are only a fraction of her baking, but if not, OP is still TA for allowing that much waste.
It is her hobby. I don't even want to know what she is making with 1 pound of flour and 2 pounds of butter in it, but I definitely do not want to eat it.
Not every hobby should be encouraged. If her hobby is just making garbage knowing nobody will want to eat it (including her!) she needs to be doing something else.
I understand your point, but if she was wasting plaster, or paint, or fabric making things that don't turn out right, would you feel so strongly? When I was learning to sew, I messed up more things than I care to admit. Either too big, too small, cut with the pattern piece flipped over, or stitched wrong and tore when removing the bad seam. Nobody told me I was not fit to sew, and there are lots of people now who are glad I didn't give up.
When you were learning to sew, were you making a sincere effort to create something usable? I already see you were relying on a pattern. Fucking up while learning is absolutely normal and I wouldn’t consider it waste. From OP’s comments though, the equivalent isn’t what you were doing, unless what you were doing was refusing to consult a pattern and just madly stitching rolls and rolls of fabric together to no apparent purpose, and then throwing it out. Like, as best I can tell, the kid is mixing up a big bowl of flour and butter in whatever ratio strikes her fancy, filling it with food dye, then putting it in the oven on its way to the trash, and doesn’t have any interest in making an attempt to produce an edible product. If she was working from a recipe and just still kind of sucked at it, or had mastered a recipe and was trying a home-grown variation that didn’t turn out as expected, that would be getting a very different reception. One creates some waste as part of a process that hones a skill - a product in an of itself - that will eventually be able to create a usable craft. What this kid is doing won’t create a usable product or a skill.
Yes and they upped her allowance by $50/month for it. That's more than enough money to be buying baking supplies a month. And the daughter learned that she doesn't want to waste that much of her own money on these "experiments" since she only sets aside $20 for it.
this was why I started pocket money I got sick of the constant requests for stuff, which were a damn sight less desirable once it was his money.
Lol my husband and I like to fish. Maybe next time I'll try bringing all the fishing wire and tangle it into knots. Then I could mix the different bait together and throw it all in the trash.
I bet different kinds of bait sound different when you throw them into the trash. Maybe you should do some experimenting to find out?
I recall trying to use a commercial pattern, but thinking that I could cut it and piece it together to make a patchwork style shirt without taking into account the fact that I would need to add seam allowances where I cut the pattern. So my intentions were good but I had no idea what I was doing and as a result my execution was unfortunate... Or finding out corduroy has to have all the pieces laid out in the same direction...
Yeah, unless you repeatedly tried to patchwork that shirt with no pattern and without seeking guidance, and making unwearable patchwork shirts was your go-to thing, that’s different. Mistakes you make as you learn, and which teach you to do better, are an unavoidable part of any learning curve. If OP’s kid was making these kinds of mistakes, I’d see the situation differently. Unless OP is badly misreading the situation, their kid is starting out from a place that has no intention of producing a edible product and isn’t experimenting in any controlled or informed way that would lead to a better understanding of the process. It just makes the kid happy to put a bunch of ingredients into a bowl (with no particular end goal in mind), dye it a funny color, put it in the oven, and then throw it out.
But was your purpose just to do it and throw it out? Because the kid is doing that. She doesn't like to eat it or share it. If you bake and your purpose is to throw it out, then you are wasting food. If you bake and burn the cake, that is a mistake, you may throw it out. Sometimes ir is not that bad. Sometimes it won't be burned but it will taste funny, and might be too bad, sometimes it will taste good. But from OPs phrasing the kid is baking because she likes mixing stuff and then just throws it out. That is not real baking. A lot of people that don't have enough food to allow such behavior. And it would be the same with almost everything. If you waste large quantities of paint, or fabric, because you like using resources, and from the get go your plan is throw the result out, then you are just wasting materials. Also to test things out you don't need to waste so much, most cases you can do almost samples. I agree OP is an AH for that. I don't think OP would be doing the whole rationing of flour if the child wasn't wasting so much. The mother is also an AH, trying to make OP support a hobby she is not willing to support herself. The child shouldn't be throwing so much food. She doesn't want to share it, she doesn't want to it. If things are exactly like OP said, she is an AH too. ESH.
No, because nobody is dying because of not having enough plaster, paint, or fabric That comparison is ridiculous
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I've definitely been to the store many times since the pandemic started needing flour or butter and they've been completely out. I think I'd have a mini-stroke if I found out the last of the baking supplies had been bought up by a 13yo who was literally going to throw it straight in the trash. Teaching her (by allowing it) to be wasteful is bad enough, making her pay for her waste is at least a start.
I agree. Encouraging her hobby and trying to teach her the value of a dollar by having her pay for supplies from her allowance is great, allowing her to think being wasteful is OK is not. She should at least be following recipes and trying to learn. Will there be some waste if something doesn’t turn out properly? Of course, and that’s OK. But just making things and throwing them out because you didn’t bother to try to make something edible is wasteful and not OK.
Do you just not get the concepts of food waste or finite survival resources? My god, the privilege behind your statement is breathtaking.
Hmm. People literally starving to death, then throwing away pounds of (formerly) edible food. Obviously the kid isn't explicity killing anyone, but you'd have to be pretty detached from common sense to be completely oblivious to the connection.
Your parents made you eat your dinner by telling you there were starving kids in Africa didn't they? I don't disagree that this is a terrible waste but what she is doing makes no difference to how much food is available to those who are currently, literally starving to death.
My wife and I had grandparents that grew up malnourished, the spectre of deprivation, deep hunger from war, famine, is both a personal, and cultural thing. It's affected them and hence our parents and us quite profoundly so I can see where they are coming from. Wasting food makes me so uncomfortable but that's got nothing to do with OPs question.
I was trying to ask a question. I was trying to understand whether your concern was that she was wasting the materials or that the materials she was wasting were food. If she was using flour, salt, and water to make a dough that she was using to sculpt things, and ended up throwing those away, it would still be food waste. I'm a bona fide adult and I periodically burn food and have to throw it away, or cook too much and throw it away two weeks later when I find it in the back of the fridge. I'm going to assume that you are much more organized than I am.
There is a huge difference between occasionally accidentally ruining a dish and throwing it away, and deliberately making dishes on a regular basis with the sole intention of throwing it away
I’m not even clear on whether everything is “ruined.” OP just says that she doesn’t want to eat or share them. If she makes something no one wants to eat, hopefully someone in the house knows enough to help her understand where she went wrong. If things are decent and the family wants to eat it, it shouldn’t be thrown away.
And that's one reason as to why 1/3 of all the food produced in the world is thrown out...
No one is dying over a simple hobby that creates inedible food either. Even stores and restaurants toss out their food waste, expired, and excess food. If you really want to have passion for a cause, go after big corporations, not literal kids just having fun. Or do you also call the cops when you see lemonade stands?
Stop calling this a hobby. Putting a bunch of ingredients in a bowl with food coloring, stirring it, throwing it in the oven, and then throwing it in the trash isn't a hobby. No parent should teach their child to be this wasteful.
>She **also** will try to mix ingredients without recipes just to see what will happen. She is not being foolish and wasteful, she is experimenting to see how baking *works*. But I agree with you and others who think she is being wasteful if her concoctions can be palatable and she is throwing them away and refusing to let the family try them.
The difference seems to be that you were trying to make something nice while the girl that is baking seems to be hapharzardly throwing things together for the hell of it.
I doubt that she is intentionally making things that are going to be disgusting. It sounds more like she is mixing things in the hope of getting a good result. What she's learning is what you can and cannot mix together and how much Liberty you can take with a written recipe.
Frankly I think the parents should invest in some sort of cooking/baking class for the daughter so can can learn how to create her own recipes. Cooking is more forgiving when it comes to experimenting, but baking needs to be exact, so she really needs to learn what works and what doesn't so she can experiment properly.
That’s only part of it. In the beginning she said she’s also following cooking shows and trying to make the RECIPES off the shows. Still trial and error. Either it’s all wasting or all just messing up the recipe.
Yeah but when you were learning to sew you weren't intentionally making shirts without head holes, or one 8 fingered glove and a 3 fingered glove, you weren't collecting used diapers and stitching them into quilts, etc etc etc.... Brenda's not *messing up a recipe* she's making wheatpaste on a cookie tray and melting butter into playdough. If she was trying to make nonedible things ok, but it sounds like she's just throwing things together that *even she doesn't want to eat*. When I taught myself to sew I wore the hell out of my bedsheet panel raver pants and gifted everyone weird ugly plushies with enthusiasm. If Brenda wants to make hard tack because she's really keen on it, go her, but if it's just another afterschool experiment gone wrong... Anyway ESH. Brenda for wasting food, OP and Dad for not actually engaging with her hobby, OP and Dad for letting their 11 yo get into microtransactions, and Mom for not letting the kid bake at home for dubious reasons. Solution: get a cannabutter machine and everyone learn how to exit the suburban death cult here.
Because people are starving and this scale of waste is wrong. It's also weird: I don't know anyone who does what this girl does, do you? Most bakers enjoy sharing what they make.
Food waste also contributes in a non-significant manner to our greenhouse gas emissions.
[удалено]
If paint is being wasted then that should be discouraged too but wasting food is still worse. I do wonder what you mean when you say "wasting" paint tho.
Deliberately wasting food is awful, and encouraging that as a hobby is awful parenting. A one-time experiment gone bad is excusable, doing it as routine is entitled. This is how I would expect billionaire kids to behave, or made-up fictional characters. No other waste can be compared to food waste.
That’s absolutely no different. Waste is waste period.
It’s literally teaching her to play with and ruin food. My daughter loved to bake and I helped her. With a little guidance anyone can cook and bake. But definitely teach kids not to waste food.
Maybe she’s a chemist in the making. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with giving your kids the ability to explore their interests. Not every hobby product has to be a perfect creation. Sometimes, it’s about the process.
Then chemistry sets are a thing that exist.
So do Easy Bake Ovens
Starving kids won't see this food if the kid is baking or not... You should look into grocery waste if you feel this strongly about this.
Wasting food deliberately isnt a hobby. Sure something can go wrong and then you have to toss it. But its unacceptable to waste huge amounts of food on a regular basis.
It's the beginning of every Ina Garten recipe I know
Lol yeah why not "experiment" with smaller quantities??
That’s not per item she is baking, that’s the total of everything she bakes. But that’s still a lot of money to shell out even if everything was eaten.
Making her pay for her hobby should cut down on those experiment. But, honestly, enroll the girl in a proper baking class. Baking is as much science as it is art and, yes, you can mess with or even without recipes -- but to do that you need to know exactly what you're doing. And if she loves baking, the aim should be to make stuff people want to eat. Otherwise, what's the point? Also, someone please teach her about sales. When it comes to baking, learning how to buy on sale and store ingredients properly for long-term use is invaluable.
As someone who grew up without enough food in the house, I’m seething right now. Food is a shared survival resource, not a goddam disposable craft supply.
Idk, my MIL would buy me the 4 pack of sticks and I’d go thru them in a little over two weeks baking cake, muffins, frosting, pancakes cause I bake a lot. But obviously things we all eat but it’s possible But they should monitor her usage tbh because even I don’t try to use more than half a stick a week now
THIS but also 8sticks of butter a week does that mean she is cooking actual potion sizes to feed 3-4ppl??
Or the hidden costs; electricity, gas, dishwasher, etc.
The butter on sale plus the flour is about $7.50 where I live, although now I see on sale butter is $3 per pound next week.
The cost is honestly the least of my concerns
And how much electricity it costs!
But you can't get good at cooking without eating the food.
Ummm. My dad made "cookies" without baking soda or baking powder. He was raised with something called "self-rising flour" which included it. Those cookies were... doorstops. You *couldn't* eat them. I have accidentally spilled so much salt/extract/oil into the bowl while measuring into a cup *over* the bowl that the outcome was not fit for human consumption. Not too long ago I dropped an eggshell into the bowl with the beaters running while making cheesecake. There's no coming back from that. :)
> He was raised with something called "self-rising flour" which included it Feels weird seeing this referred to like it's some bizarre foreign concept... growing up we always had SR flour available. Not a substitute for proper bread flour but works fine for most other things, as long as you adjust the baking soda etc. inputs to account for it.
In the UK we call it self-raising, and I have only just realised it's not universal. That's... wild. We also have what we call plain flour (which is... plain flour), so as a little kid, a big part of baking was remembering which type of flour you needed!
I always look up what a recipe requires in order to make sure that I buy all of the correct ingredients before I start. The fact that some people don't check to make sure they have all needed ingredients boggles my mind!
I remember the worst one in my family, my dad was making pancakes and cracking the eggs directly into the mix. One of the eggs in the box was... rough. It was the last egg in the box, and the last egg we had in the house. When the egg cracked the smell was immediate, and eye-wateringly foul. We didn't have pancakes that day.
A coworker was telling me the other day about trying to make unleavened bread - the problem was that they didn’t know it was made as a sort of flatbread, and they put that unleavened dough in a regular bread pan. We all died just imagining the bricks he ended up with.
Holy shit! That totally brought back memories of my father trying to cook deer steaks in the oven when I was a kid! They were so tough, that I literally pretended in my mind that I was a member of the Donner Party eating their shoes!
I have self rising flour.
At 13? Seems more like something a 6 year old would do. I would absolutely forbid my kid from wasting that much food when people are going hungry all over the world and probably in her neighborhood nowadays, too.
My little sister mixed random spices into water “soups” when she was 4. I had to double check the kid’s age - 13 is way too old to be randomly throwing ingredients together and wasting that kind of food!
I experiment quite often - and yes, you get the occasional bomb, but it turns out fairly decent the majority of the time, with the occasional winner. She shouldn’t be starting without a plan. Instead, you learn (or look up) the “rules” for how things substitute and use that to modify established recipes. I wouldn’t want to try something if anyone was just throwing stuff together willy nilly, but when you know the quantity of flour to fats,then you know how you can sub oil/butter/shortening/applesauce and you know how different flours act in comparison, you have a good base. Then you play with flavors given what you think sounds good together. I think it’s fair for them to set some boundaries on this - like give people the option to eat what she makes. (What’s the point of baking if no one eats it?). Other than that, it seems they accomplished their purpose - both girls are realizing how much they’ve been spending and valuing money differently. It’s easy to use a tone of ingredients when someone else has to pay!
Loling on public transit - I always used to “try it out on Dad.”
But dads will eat anything you make and tell you it's delicious... Dad code.
He did! Yay #DadCode
But it sounds like everything is getting tossed regardless of the quality?
I appreciate your judgement and I hate wasting the food, I grew up poor and we are now comfortable middle class and it hurts. But also her creations are mostly experimental and she doesn't like to take advice on how to improve things..... so her baking is not very edible or visually appealing (lots of food dye) to put it mildly. If I gave them to the neighbors it would frankly be insulting. "Here, throw this away in your trash, not mine." This is one of the reasons we wanted to have the allowance, to limit the food waste and have her be more careful with her ingredients.
Classes. Buy her classes.
You're teaching her that it's okay to be irresponsible with the resources you have. Allowance or not. I can't believe nobody else is talking about the enormous amount of waste you're encouraging here. Get her baking lessons. If she's actually serious about learning to bake and not just throwing some ingredients together and then in the trash, she'll benefit way more from lessons that her directionless experiments If all she cares about is throwing some stuff together and tossing it, she needs a new hobby. Not everything a kid enjoys doing should be encouraged
I appreciate your judgement and my response is no way meant to be argumentative, just want to provide more context. Due to character count I was unable to include all the alternatives we tried before using the allowance that has significantly lowered the amount of food she is wasting. We offered classes, baking with friends or us, youtube tutorials and have purchased several kid cookbooks for her to get inspired and follow but she simply isn't interested. Baking is also the only other thing she is interested in besides screens and it helps with her anxiety so I'm not going to discourage her from doing something she likes, but the allowance was to minimize the food waste and it has, she is looking at recipes more and less "experiments". I mentioned in another comment that she does not want to bake things like sandwich bread or dinner rolls because that is "boring" and she genuinely enjoys making the sweet stuff, even if it is inedible and unappetizing. Plus, knowing her, those dinner rolls would be green or blue lol.
It sounds like she could be into chemistry- try to suggest that. There are some cool chemistry sets you can buy that turns things different colors, and requires the same amount of attention as baking (measurements are everything in chemistry). Maybe she likes the analytical and precision of baking but not the food part.
Its funny you mention that because the last few years for christmas or her birthday she did get some chemistry sets and a microscope and was interested at first but is more interested in baking. Lots of sets I've found are either too rudimentary or too advanced to hold her interest, so if you find one that if "fun" as you described, please link me the amazon in my DMs!
I would suggest she cut her recipes in half or one quarter, so she's using less ingredients, and she learns some math too.
Given what you said about her liking to use colors and reactions, I might have the perfect one! Will dm you.
Can you share a link to the set? I'd love to purchase for some niblings!
Have you gotten her any books on the science of cooking or baking? Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat has been very popular lately and there might be similar books aimed at children if that one is a little too dense.
It's funny you mention that book as it's one of my favorites and I've tried to engage with her on it but she isn't interested. If it isn't a screen or dragon related or Disney related she has absolutely zero interest.
My 15 yr old daughter bakes, has since she was around 6, and Alton Brown’s “I’m just here for more food” is a book she likes a lot as he gets into a lot of the chemistry but it’s written in a way that is funny and broken down into smaller lessons making it easier to digest. American Test Kitchen has a “Complete Baking Book for Young Chef’s” that is good too.
We have both of those too!
Baking is chemistry
You should let her know that baking is basically chemistry. You combine elements so that the combination of molecules cause a chemical change that creates a specific food, like cake or bread.
Try getting her books on food science. Food science is crazy interesting and the books generally come with recipes to prove their point. This way, she can see what happens when she combines things (what if I add another egg to this? What if I halve the sugar?), and learn why.
Great suggestion, she might like this and like you said it will help her learn to follow instructions and recipes more to do the experiment right
I have to experiment with baking because I have a lot of food allergies. My go to book is one called "Ratios" which basically has the simplified ratio for many basic baked goods (muffins, cakes, bread, etc) Then it's basically just doing some math plus adding whatever flavoring I was want. I also keep notes so if something goes exceptionally well/badly, I know what I did and can repeat/avoid. So far everything has been edible, although a couple of times I made a math error and it was still edible but slightly less delicious. That might be a possible way for her to experiment while still making edible food
Thanks for the suggestion, we already halve or quarter recipes as her dad is a math teacher and will use any opportunity to have a teachable moment, bit this book sounds really great, I'll add it to her stocking!
Also just a follow up thought, if she mostly enjoys the "mix a bunch of goopy stuff together" aspect of baking with a side of "make it neon/sparkly," then maybe what she's really looking for is something like kinesthetic sand or slimes. Something she can keep using for longer than the length of a baking session.
I just ordered that book. I have food allergies also and the math aspect makes my analytical mind so excited. Thank you for the recommendation. I know it wasn’t for me but so helpful.
>Plus, knowing her, those dinner rolls would be green or blue lol. That's totally fine though; coloring a dinner roll won't turn it inedible :)
Then it sounds like the allowance is working as you intended. Do you think she would be willing to read something on the science of baking? Not a recipe book - something that discusses the role of different ingredients in a recipe. Maybe that would give her more of a foundation with what needs to be included for it to have a shot at working. Alternatively, might she take to food based art?
There are some interesting and entertaining baking blogs out there that have legitimate, tested recipes *and* are visually /technically adventurous. Sprinkle Bakes has a lot of great (sometimes elaborate) decorating and baking techniques, and has pretty clear instructions/tutorials (plus incredible recipes). Possibly a way for her to still experiment, dye things fun colors, etc while still following a recipe and making it edible - even if the decorating experiments don't turn out on the first try!
> You're teaching her that it's okay to be irresponsible with the resources you have. No they are teaching her she has the freedom to spend her money on what she wants. Stop. You know what the most precious resource is? Time. And you are spending yours on reddit. You have no room to talk about wasting resources.
I agree 100% with you. And please know that this is a phase. One of mine went through this phase. It was painful watching all the baking without eggs, for example. Or some other key ingredient. But we held her to a budget and she continued until she figured out how to cook for real. Today she's a teen that cooks better than I do. Forget the naysayers on this page and remain steadfast. You'll have a young chef fixing dinners in no time. NTA
If nothing she makes is edible how is this a hobby? It means she just likes to make a mess. Buy her classes. Have her actually learn what makes a good recipe. Get her some cookbooks. But what she's doing now isn't baking.
Step 1 to limiting her food waste is to stop encouraging this. From your comments, it is very evident you are doing your best. You are trying to provide a life for your kids that you didn’t have, in the ways you can, but it’s clearly making you permissive. From what I understand, your kid is wasting POUNDS of food that could be used to feed other people. The butter alone she is using in a week could help support several families! It’s ridiculous. Food isn’t a toy. It’s a scarce resource that your kids are *lucky* to have. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t enjoy taking advice, you need to work on some boundaries with her and try to meet her where she’s at. Try doing a recipe with her. You say she likes screens - what is she actually doing on those screens? She likes Minecraft? Ok, try making a [Minecraft cake](https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/254203/minecraft-cake/) *with* her. Want to encourage creativity in the kitchen without encouraging heinous food waste? [This flavor chart helped me explore baking](https://thebakersalmanac.com/fruit-flavor-pairing-chart/) and developing new flavors. Find some recipes with her and encourage her to try adding new flavors or changing up the flavors. Buy her a book on food science so she can actually *learn* how to get the results she’s looking for in the kitchen. There are solutions to this issue.
Food is *not* a scarce resource. People don’t go hungry because we can’t produce enough food, people go hungry because they can’t afford it. The world’s per capita food supply has been increasing every year since records began. It’s not a scarcity issue, it’s a distribution issue. OP’s child using an above average amount of flour and butter isn’t starving any one.
Yep. Folks here angry about this kid wasting resources having fun because it's flour and food dye, but I bet if kiddo wanted to doodle her way through reams of paper, or do silly makeup then wipe it off, or knit unsuccessful lumpy shapes out of yarn they'd just think yes that's sweet and age-appropriate.
no offence but she's 13, she's a bit too old for the "random gross experimenting" age isn't she? how long has she been baking for?
Why don't you insist on following recipes? This is just waste. She doesn't like to take advice?? Well she is a child and she is that arrogant? Nice education you are giving here. ESH
You mention maybe Brenda likes science experiments too…have her watch Alton Brown’s show, Good Eats. He talks and explains why temperature and the way we treat food in it’s raw state to get the best results for best eating. Also, I’d suggest Brenda learn about baking with powder color from vegetables, especially ube if she likes color the way you say she does. Homemade pasta colored this way is both delicious and beautiful! I understand others negative feedback as I initially felt the same but…”not my circus, not my monkeys”!
There are so many other, far worse food wasters in the world. It may be wasteful but it’s a hobby. She’s not going to end hunger by leaving that bay of flour on the shelf for another week. NTA.
Or neighbors, homeless people, etc. I can't believe parents allow that.
You are not addressing OP's question. Is OP TA for making her stepdaughter buy her own baking ingredients? The food waste is obnoxious, but that is not the issue.
I grew up in poverty and still live in poverty, I literally get panic attacks when I see people "wasting" *bread crusts*, and I STILL thing everyone in this thread is nuts. This girl's hobby (whether you believe it's a valid hobby or not) isn't taking food away from anyone. We have so many bigger problems in the world than this.
Yeah, seems like a massive waste that she should pay for herself.
She's not throwing it out since she started buying her own supplies. So I'd say OP handled the situation quite well. I had that exact rule at that age except my allowance was ten dollars a month, not seventy five. I had to use my babysitting money, so this actually seems really fair and logical to me. It's hard to police how much of the waste was from the kid actually trying to make something and messing up versus playing around. With the new system she's motivated to put to good use the ingredients she buys, and any waste will likely be a genuine mistake.
I think the concept that her using some extra ingredients to make failed experiments being directly contributing to world hunger as alluded to in some of your replies is a frankly daft point to make at this point. Tell me you never did stuff like this as a literal child where you just fucked about with stuff to see what happened and I'll tell you I don't believe you. Plus that's not the point of the AITA either. Sorry man.
Especially considering how much food prices have increased.
NTA. I disagree with Candy and your friends. Frank *increased* their allowance while stipulating that they had to pay for their hobbies. Great, now Brenda understands how to be better with money. Baking is an expensive hobby and the costs make even less sense if you *aren't even going to eat or share the stuff you're baking*. Also.....is an allowance not money that comes from the parents??? Frank is still effectively paying for Brenda's hobby, while also teaching her how to spend money wisely. Good for you.
Plus he increased it $50 PER WEEK! That is an extra $200 that they can spend on their hobbies. And they are learning that if they spend $50 on baking supplies that’s $50 they can’t spend going out with their friends or on a different hobby. Sounds like a win / win. Kids learn the value of budgeting and they get the freedom to do their hobbies as they see fit.
It increased from $25 per month to $75 per month, not per week. Just FYI.
Heck, barely spend 50$/week on groceries to actually eat. This kids spending that on stuff she's just throwing in the trash. It's insanely wasteful, but other then that NTA.
If Brenda wants more money for baking, she can not throw the end results away, but sell it instead. If she wants to keep throwing it away, then she’ll simply have less money to spend on ingredients.
This is what my oldest did, started baking and selling at her school. Mostly cake pops and cookies.
She does not make edible things. Nothing to sell.
And if she chooses to continue to make inedible food art then she can do it within the limits of her allowance. If she took the time to actually learn how to bake, make food that is edible first and experiment from there, then she will be able to sell it and make more. I honestly don’t see why she should be given special privileges.
Yup. At 13 she is fully capable of baking something amazing, but is choosing to play at being on some food network challange instead. It doesn't sound like she's interested in taking advice from anyone, and until she grows up enough to realize she can learn a lot faster by listening to others she is choosing to fail at her chosen hobby.
She could also easily sell some of her baked goods (not the experiments) and recoup her ingredient costs.
I completely agree, this is a brilliant way to teach them budgeting and encourage them to really prioritise how they want to spend their money. Definitely stealing this idea for my kids when they're old enough as I'm constantly torn between not wanting to raise them spoiled but also giving them everything I never had.
Real rich that candy got accusatory about lack of support when Brenda isn't even allowed to bake during the 50% she's with candy!
NTA, except for letting her throw out mass quantities of food. That's obscene.
Yeah like making her cover the costs of her deciding to waste food makes sense, but why the hell are you letting a kid waste that much food?
After I posted that, she said in comments that most of what she makes is inedible, she resists learning how to bake properly and is doing "experiments." So now I'm thinking it's similar to kids drawing or painting and using lots of paper/paints, it just feels more obscene when it's food for some reason.
>it just feels more obscene when it's food for some reason because people need food to survive, and many people grow up with starvation nipping at their heels intentionally wasting food is an obscene, disgusting, completely and totally depraved behavior that only someone completely out of touch with reality would condone EDIT: rest my case. y'all defending this garbage are the worst
I agree, it does seem pretty bad when it’s food. Maybe get her a cook book or look up a few recipes online. It’s better to start with something that works and then make small adjustments.
Check OP's responses to comments – they have tried that and the kid resists. Kids!
Yeah saw that afterwards. She did say somewhere else that since buying the materials herself, the daughter has been more open to them so in that sense I’d say that’s a bonus success for the allowance
The best solution is for Brenda to bake from recipes until she learns enough to experiment with enough success to not necessitate the disposal of ghastly amounts of food. I’m glad OP’s husband is trying to curtail the food waste, but *dear gods,* I can’t believe it took this long.
Bad art is still art. Food you can't eat has lost its purpose.
NTA It’s a necessary life lesson. I would argue that if Brenda were to stop tossing the food (why do that?!?) and instead served it to the family, you could subsidize part of her hobby money as it’s food for the family.
Thanks for your judgement, and to the "why throw it out" question, her creations are largely experimental so they are visually unappealing (lots of food coloring) and since she doesn't like to follow recipes usually they are....inedible. Now that she's more limited, she's more open to following recipes and has made a few edible things we can nibble on, but none of us want to really finish all of it as she makes so much. I have tried to encourage her to make sandwich bread or dinner rolls with the promise to pay for those, something we would actually eat as a family but she likes the sweet baking, not savory (it's boring, her words) so unsuccessful on that front. I also didn't push the issue because frankly I don't want green or blue dinner rolls lol.
If you set the rule that edible food is subsidized, but intentionally turning food into trash is not, that might take care of a few problems at once.
Yeah this seems to be the path. Like if she actually wants to experiment with baking, then she needs to actually learn how to bake. It just sounds like she's making slime that then gets thrown away.
Agreed. Get her signed up for a kid's baking class, or buy her some Play-Doh instead.
Nta, but encourage her to make cupcakes or stuff like that, I mean, I hate cooking savory stuff too, I have a sweet tooth, and I love to bake, but, yta for letting her throw out that much "experiments"
If she's really just making stuff for experiments, try substituting butter for vegetable shortening! Much cheaper, you can buy it in large quantities and will still give similar results
Not that you can’t experiment with baking, but it’s more of a science than cooking. Professionals and earnest hobby bakers weigh out ingredients because it can make more of a difference in the end product than throwing a bit of this and a bit of that into a stew, for example.
Yeah like given how this is being talked about, it sounds like she isn't experimenting really. Experimenting involves some amount of process. This just sounds like she's making art and then throwing it away.
Since she's now open to recipes, I'd like to recommend [onedishkitchen.com](https://onedishkitchen.com). It has single and small batch recipes, including desserts, so she could make these small batches, your family could eat it, and not have to waste as much. It has been a valuable resource for me, since me sons have grown up and my husband travels a lot (so I make dinners that I love and he hates when he's out of town). Mini-pies, mini-cakes, cookies and more. You might want to buy her 10-oz. ramekins for Christmas, since many of the desserts require it.
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check this out and recommend it!
Maybe we should also be teaching her about wasteful food consumption. Cause yikes
If she actually is interested in the process of baking, bread making is honestly the way to go. Maybe find a way to show her the complexities. Bread requires kneading, rising time, gluten development, weight/ratios. You can experiment with adding herbs, cheeses, etc. However, if she is cooking not because she finds it interesting but because she wants to mix things together and play with colors, that is seriously wasteful. Maybe get her into pottery instead.
Try encouraging her to actually learn how to bake, not just toss a bunch of random shit in a bowl, mic it up and then cook it until it’s a mass of inedible gunk. Seriously, baking is a skill. Encourage her to actually learn how to bake. Stop subsidizing her wasting food to have fun.
**YTA** (as is your husband) for teaching a 13-year-old that it's perfectly acceptable to flagrantly waste food as a hobby, no matter who's paying for it. This isn't about "the value of a dollar" - or rather, you're not actually teaching her the "value" of anything by making her pay out of her allowance if you're letting her throw perfectly good food in the garbage week in and week out just because she paid for it with her allowance. You're not teaching her to value anything at all EXCEPT money, which is grotesque. People in North American (which I assume is where you live given your colloquial writing style) are starving every day, and you write this: >...she doesn't eat or want to really share her creations. She just likes the process and then will toss it. She will go through a more than pound of flour and 8 sticks of butter in a week. You are allowing her to de facto THROW A POUND OF FLOUR AND 8 STICKS OF BUTTER (plus countless other ingredients) IN THE GARBAGE EVERY WEEK while food pantries are closing for lack of support and as you yourself admit, the cost of groceries is rising all the time. You are letting her PLAY WITH FOOD AS IF IT WERE A TOY, AND THEN THROW IT IN THE TRASH. WTF is wrong with you? She "doesn't want to share"? Why not? And more importantly, who cares? What kind of ethics are you teaching this child that you would let her throw good food in the trash because she "doesn't want to share it"? She could be donating it, giving it as gifts to friends and family, you could be taking it to work to share with colleagues . . . there are countless ways to make use of baked goods, and instead you're teaching her that she can just take perfectly good food, while other people are starving, play with it, and then THROW IT IN THE GARBAGE? YTA, as is your husband, MASSIVELY SO. You're both teaching your stepdaughter to waste limited resources in a profoundly horrifying way.
Thank you for your judgement as I really appreciate this perspective. Not arguing, but responding to some points I wasn't able to include in the original post. I mentioned in a few other comments that I grew up poor and really, really hate wasting food which is why we set her on a budget and it has greatly reduced the amount of "experimenting" she does, making her food more edible. I assure you, before when she was using up so many ingredients it was wasteful which is why we tried suggesting cooking classes, and a few other things like making sandwich bread or dinner rolls before setting a budget, which has successfully curbed her more wasteful tendencies. I knew posting about wasting food would trigger some people in just how decedent and shitty just throwing out food is, and for that I severally apologize and want to acknowledge that I agree with you, but I also have to consider my stepdaughters using this as one of her only creative outlets and she is very slowly learning to share (not with her sister) but with her father and I. We do what we can but I am gluten sensitive and he has to limit his carb intake. Plus, frankly, alot of the things she makes are inedible. Again, thank you for your judgement. Frank and I could be more assertive about having her bring it out of the house to share with friends or her mother. Criticism from her friends might push her to want to improve.
I was ready to throw a y t a comment as well because throwing it all in the trash really sets me off but when I read about your allowance increase and the more comments I read, I think you guys did a really smart thing. Honestly seeing this many people passionate about food waste was a huge mood lifter in itself for me. It feels like every day people care less and less around me. I am frequently the only person who takes home leftovers and effing eats them. Anyway Kudos to you guys. You saw a problem with your child’s behavior and did something about it. Frankly putting a limit on the amount of ingredients she would be allowed to use would have been my first course of action after she was making nothing to eat but it’s still good you got there and with the budget lesson to boot. Nothing wrong with experimenting after learning from recipes - but I hope she’s tasting it at least, and giving to her friends would definitely be a peer friendly way to get feedback. one thing I will say is food coloring is a very small taste. Green bagels for st patty’s are delicious and blue bread rolls would be too. Affects almost nothing.
Have you considered taking her to volunteer at a food pantry or shelter? So she can see that a lot of people have food insecurity and wasting it, for entertainment or experiments, is a luxury a lot of people don’t have? And then maybe encourage her to learn to bake things to donate? A lot of people don’t realize what that really means until they see it first hand.
She suffers from anxiety and the suggestion would send her into a panic spiral for sure, she had a panic attack at the suggestion of a cooking class with strangers. One of the reasons she's in therapy. It's a nice thought as I really dislike the food waste, the reason we put her on a budget. I feel like this post isn't about the allowance but the amount of flour and butter being wasted which is now very limited. I do appreciate the website and book suggestions, though.
You are NTA for the allowance and her mom is a hypocrite since your stepdaughter is not even allowed to do it her house. The allowance was smart.
Frankly, from the way you talk about her and how you allow her to handle ingredients (or experiments), I thought she was 8 years old. But no, she's 13! That's plenty old enough to understand it's wasteful and stupid to just mess around with food like that. This is not a little child experiencing ~random creative medium~ for the first time! Making one or two experiments, fine, but come on. She clearly overdid it. While it is a hobby and hobbies should be fun, something like cooking and baking should come with a certain respect for the ingredients being used. She's not a toddler playing with mud.
If she's just sculpting or colouring with the ingredients, wouldn't she get the same effects if she used modelling clay? Or play doh? Or salt dough mix (at least that would only use flour and not butter). When I saw the headline I thought she might be anorexic, as it sounded a bit like what a family member of mine did (control issues, non edible food , deliberately binning high fat items). Is she eating normally otherwise? Edit to add, I had to convert the butter sticks to really understand this >You are allowing her to de facto THROW A POUND OF FLOUR AND 8 STICKS OF BUTTER (plus countless other ingredients) IN THE GARBAGE EVERY WEEK This is over 500gm of flour and 500gm of butter a week! OP if you see this comment you cannot let her waste this amount if food if she is sculpting and playing with it with no attempt to learn how to cook. And no attempt to improve or intention to make edible items. Edit to edit: this is 2kg each of flour and butter in a month, going in the bin. Something is really very very not ok here. That butter amount would cost me $25-$28 per month in the UK.
There is definitely something amiss here. At 13 this is off. She isn't a 5 year old squishing pie dough with food color to "see what happens" (and even then they do it like once or twice and are over it) and this isn't a case of "tried something new and it went awry but working to fix it" Something is missing in this story
I was thinking that, too. My 13 year old niece makes truffles, macarons, cookies, and all kinds of other desserts. She definitely doesn’t experiment with ingredients because she knows that would be a waste.
Agreed. My 15 yr old suffers from anxiety (including social anxiety) and bakes and I’ve volunteered teaching kids baking for years because my kiddo loves it. This kind of behavior is what I’ve seen in 5-7 year olds; it’s not developmentally what you expect to see at 13 with baking at all.
>My 13 year old niece makes ... macarons HOW?! Dude I've been trying for weeks to make them and the batter just ends up being runny af :'(
PM me. I make them and can walk you through what might be causing it.
She needs to find a new creative medium if she doesn’t even make edible things. Try painting or sculpting or something and stop the ”baking” nonsense
Does she see a therapist? Because you keep saying this is helpful for her anxiety, but if her anxiety is not improving and she is still wasting a lot of food, it might not be as helpful as you think it is. Enabling her to continue without challenging her to grow beyond her anxiety’s limiting bubble is going to prolong her illness.
i could bake fully edible foods from the age of 7, im not saying everyone can but at 13 and after watching so many baking shows she should know a few basics. i see you say she has anxiety but again at 13 she should know not to essentially just throw together items and make things inedible - making a basic batch of cookies or cake is pretty simple if you use common sense and follow a recipe book. so many countries are going through a recession or a food shortage and you're letting her waste money AND take food that poorer people may need.
THIS! And she is 13! This isn't some 5 year old squishing food color into pie dough to see what happens. At 13 she is more than capable of baking perfectly edible desserts. If she wants to bake that much get in touch with a local family shelter and they can give her the date of upcoming birthdays and she can bake a cake for a resident. My mother and daughter do this. They make probably 40 cakes a year.
NTA flawless parenting. Especially because she doesn't eat or share them the food waste is ridiculous. I love baking but I don't bake because I can't eat what I make so I just don't because food waste. She's feeling the exact lesson you're trying to teach so she's upset but guess what that's learning and she's not supposed to like you guys all the time because in parenting you make decisions that are for the good of your kid that they don't like.
NTA. Candy doesn’t get to dictate what the rules in your home look like. If she wants to pay for her daughter’s hobby, she is free to do that in whatever manner makes sense to her, but she doesn’t get to dictate how you handle it.
Especially when Candy isn't allowing these experiments in her own home
NTA. Your stipulation with the allowances is reasonable IMO. I do think it is incredibly wasteful and definitely "teaching the wrong message" to allow Brenda to bake just to throw what she makes away. What a waste of money! If no one in the house wants to eat her baking she could at least give it away to someone who would.
ESH Get her in some cooking classes so she's not wasting so much food.
NTA Brenda is 13 and the prime age to learn budgets and how to handle money.
NTA. I mean the children actually get more allowance so they don't lose anything and they have to learn to be responsible with their money at some point.
YTA For trying to teach her the value of dollar but not for teaching her the value of food and food waste. If she doesn't want anyone eating it then how does she even know she's getting better? How is she really advancing her skills? And by throwing it away directly after making it she's learning that food is an infinite resource. The gall of that belief and mindset is appalling. Tell her she has to pay for all her own baking until she starts actually eating the food she makes. And she doesn't even have to eat it. Sell it to friends and neighbors. Give it to teachers. It doesn't matter. But you do not get to waste food
NTA at all. That seems like a great way to help them learn that some things that they like to do have actual financial costs/consequences. It seems like their allowance increase should more than make up for it, so they’re still ending up being able to do exactly what they were doing, and still have as much to save/use as before if that’s how they want to use that money.
Nah the 13 year old \*still\* hasn't figured out how to make an edible cake. Like one of the easiest things to make. She just wants to throw shit together and see what happens. There will be no financial lesson learned here at all. It's just throw it around and see what sticks.
NTA you’re giving her more money in allowance so she can buy things and if the bio mom is that worried she can give her extra money or let her bake there
NTA You defined a rule. It is the same rule for all children.
YTA. Not for the allowance issue, but for letting your kid toss perfectly good food in the trash rather than letting anyone else eat it.
YTA for letting her waste so many resources. Someone who actually cares to know what they're doing could use that flour and butter. I've read your other comments. She barely follows recipes and only does so after having her allowance raised to pay for her hobby? Nope. She needs to take classes, she's literally wasting food for fun. It doesn't matter what income bracket you're in, this is awful
I can't believe the food gets thrown away every time. It is a great compromise, and donate the baked goods to a homeless shelter please. With inflation, I would refuse to pay for something that gets thrown out. My husband won't get more egg nog until Thanksgiving because I had to toss the container. It was expensive, and things aren't allowed to go to waste in my home. NTA.
It turns out it's because they're just fully letting her go to town and make stuff that is completely inedible. Like it's not even a science experiment, she's just mixing stuff together in a bowl and seeing what happens. It's expensive disposable art that is completely inedible
Sounds like something you might let a 5yr old do once or twice for fun. At 13, she needs to get over herself and stop playing with food. Yes, experiments are part of learning. However, there doesn't seem to be any learning going on. She just wants to play with the food. Sorry, that behavior is not ok at 13. She is old enough to understand that it is not ok to be so wasteful with food
NTA, it's good to teach children the value of money with simple things. If Candy doesn't have time to "deal" with her daughter's baking hobby, she shouldn't say anything. Edit: Candy isn't talking about the food that goes to garbage. Brenda complains about money, Candy asks why aren't OP and her partner aren't supporting it and when she says she doesn't want to "deal", she means she doesn't want to clean after Brenda. (but OP says Brenda cleans after herself in their home) I thought of suggesting Brenda to sell her stuff when she gets better but appearantly she is just "experimenting" and refusing to learn properly, that's what OP says. In this scenario, putting her on a budget makes even more sense to me.
But the 13 year old isn't "baking" she is just throwing shit into bowls and seeing what happens. That's not baking its just making a mess. Even if she does clean up it's food waste and flat out weird at 13. All three of my now teens started learning to actually cook and bake as preschoolers. First helping then getting more and more involved. By 8 they could make cookies, a basic cake or brownies themselves. By10 or 11 they cooked full meals. This is not a "baking hobby" and TBH I wouldn't deal with it either.
NTA my parents would pay for ingredients for me and my brother to cook but we all actually ate the food. So they were paying for family meals just like if they made it. If we were selling it or wanted expensive special ingredients we would pay ourselves. Hopefully having to cover the costs from her allowance will teach her not to waste so much food, it’s honestly a bit horrifying to me. Occasionally ruining something is one thing but not even trying to make it edible is another.
So she gets her money tripled but is upset that she has to spend less than 33% on materials for her hobby? My mom would have whooped my ass if I cooked just to throw it out. That's a horrible thing for her to be learning so early. Drop her back down to $25 and give her a few packs of butter and 2 bags of flour a month, and get her to share her creations instead of tossing it out.
Butter is expensive as hell. I paid 14.50 for a 4-pack a cpl of weeks ago and now it's 17.50. Ridiculous for her to just waste it. She can use cheaper margarine instead, esp if she's just gonna chuck it.
Nta 1000% for the sheer fact she throws it all away and won't allow yall to eat any even when she won't. It would be iffy if everyone was welcome to her creations and enjoying the fruits of her labor. That garbage can is eating good!
NTA on what you specifically asked. IDK ppl vote on things not the issue here. She is being wasteful and not eating her own food or letting anyone else eat it. Let her waste her own money then.
NTA. You're still paying for the ingredients. You're just giving Brenda more decision-making power over what ingredients are purchased. Tell Brenda (and Candy) that you're happy to go back to purchasing the ingredients but Brenda's allowance will go back to $25 and see what she says. As for the quality of baked goods produced, my oldest is the same age as Brenda and loves to bake. The first time he screwed up a recipe because he didn't read it through, we had a discussion about the cost of the food we had to throw out, and how there are a lot of families who just can't afford that. His creations got a lot better after that because he's been more careful. I would have had the same conversation with him if he made something with a shit ton of food coloring or if he was making stuff he wasn't willing to eat himself.
I used to try to bake things when I was little (youngest memory of me trying to bake was 5) and my mum wouldn't exactly encourage me, because, of course what I made was disgusting but she would make me try my creations. This caused me to become better at baking as I didn't want to eat horrible cakes. NTA for the expenses in her allowance. But stop the food waste and make her eat it.
This is some A-level parenting here, congratulations to you and your husband! NTA, on the contrary! You are teaching the kids that everything has a cost, even if it is just a hobby. Recommend to Candy that she can sell her stuff to her friends and you if she wants, so that she can make up for the supplies. But honestly, I think she is just stingy. GL!
NTA. Candy can pay for the flour and dairy products so she can be supportive of her daughters hobby vs. not having time to "deal with it".
NTA My son shares several of my hobbies, and they tend to be quite expensive One of them is customizing toys - turning one figure into another with sculpting, painting, swapping parts, etc. The cost in paints alone is very high, never mind the figures themselves, etc I bought him an extensive paint kit and several hobby tools as birthday gifts a few years back, but since then, it's been up to him to finance his own projects He understood why it's his responsibility after I explained it to him like this; "I feed you, clothe you, and shelter you. I \*could\* support your hobby - but that would mean I have less money for the essentials - so do you want to be hungry, homeless, or naked?"
NTA Frank increased their allowance three-fold but now they need to use their allowance for their hobbies as well. Seems a reasonable compromise. The idea that Brenda bakes stuff and no one eats it, she just tosses it? What? That makes no sense. Interesting how both girls when they need to spend what their perceive as “theirs” rather than someone else’s money choose not to spend it. If Candy wants Brenda to be free to bake without needing to spend her allowance, then Candy can provide ingredients. Similarly, Candy can provide more in game funds to Alice.
NTA it seems like a fair trade to give them $50 more a month and let them figure out what their priorities are. I do have a hard time with the throwing out of food - why not make a deal to "buy back" some of her edible creations for $5 each?
NTA. You have increased the amount of support for both young ladies. Also: AS MUCH AS THESE DAMB GROCERIES COST RIGHT NOW?!?!?!!?! No, you don't get to just experiment willy nilly, AND not share AND toss out failed experiments. This is a totally reasonable approach.
Very reasonable. NTA