Why I stopped cooking dinner for my kids

One night I served dinner to the chorus of usual complaints and I snapped at Bast “You can eat it, or you can starve to death.” She pushed her plate away, stood up and declared “I’d rather starve to death Mummy,” before trotting off to her room like I wasn’t turning into a warhead in her wake. Something deep inside me – maybe intuition, maybe gas – tells me I am not alone in this experience.

Black Swan always comments how my day ends at naptime (around 2pm) and for the last few years that’s been entirely correct. The goddesses are divine rays of polite sunshine in the morning, bursting with energy and enthusiasm for the day. Half the time they have their shoes on and are chafing at the door before I’ve finished pumping. In the afternoon… well let’s just say there are chaotic Gods too, and my babies put Eris and Loki to shame.

I have tried a lot of different things. Earlier nap. Later nap. No nap. TV. No TV. Snacks before dinner. No snacks before dinner. Flat out bribery. If it can be suggested on a mum blog or published in one of those parenting articles that only serve to show you how much of a shit parent you actually are I’ve probably tried it, and most of the time it ends in the same way: Bickering, whinging and most of all small humans not eating their dinner after crying at me about how they are starving to death literally ten seconds before.

“Don’t make it a battle.” They say. I’m sorry all you perfect internet parents who are somehow neither tired nor grumpy at sundown, but it IS a battle. One that I will win. I am not a short-order cook.

For Dear Hart and I, the goddesses’ nutrition is something we are not willing to back down about; nor is them developing the ability to eat in a civilised and timely fashion so we can actually take them places. “If they only eat chicken nuggets make them that.” Is the most common advice I’ve encountered because “Something is better than nothing.” Uhm, no. I don’t even feed my children food from the “kid’s menu” when we eat out because it tends to be just junk, so I’m not going to be bringing that garbage into the house.

If “serve them ‘kid food’” is the worst advice I’ve heard, the best advice I’ve received is “feed them earlier.” That one actually results in a marked improvement. Children get too tired to eat and you can’t convince them that eating will give them energy. Feeding them at 5pm might result in the adults of the house having second dinner at 9; but it is worth it.

Despite the earlier mealtime I am beyond fed up with saying “Please stop poking your sister in the eye/ crying because you wanted purple cabbage and I bought green/ whatever ridiculous shit you’re coming out with today and EAT YOUR DINNER!”

I’m sick of yelling. I hate wondering if they are eating enough. I am over trying to cook a meal that will inevitably taste like stress while tiny demons screech at me and pull my pants down. This isn’t what I pictured parenting to be like at all.

Put simply, I wanted my evenings back. I wanted to eat a meal that wasn’t burritos, while it was hot, in a house where no one was crying (especially me). I wanted to greet my beloved with a smile of joy rather than the cracked face of relief I have presented him every work day since our first child was born.

I want to enjoy parenting for the whole day, not just the first half, and while we are dreaming here I would like to occasionally leave the house without fear in the afternoons. Hades, I’d like to have time to leave the house, but with dinner the way it has been I spend at least an hour every night reminding the goddesses to take the next bite. Fuck that shit, my friends.

So I drew up this brainstorm and looked at what they eat during the day and when. Breakfast is an easy meal because they are rested, hungry, and eager to get out of the house. Recess is even more successful, especially if they’ve had fruit and cereal for breakfast. We are also good with lunch, either at home or out and about; and you can bet your arse if we had lunch at a café they will declare starvation the second we get home, no matter what. So how important is dinner really? Why do I care?

Here’s my brainstorm:

I’m sure this picture means nothing to you, but the conclusion I reached was that dinner is more hassle than it is worth and that the time their main meal takes place doesn’t matter at all.

Yes the goddesses need nutrition, but they eat like horses all morning; as long as I’m making every scrap count would it really matter if lunch became their main meal? Since weaning they have never once woken up hungry in the middle of the night; that’s a good sign right?

So I gave up and declared that I’m just not making them dinner any more. I’ll cook for me and the husband and they can jolly-well starve!

The next day as they arose from their naps like cranky vampire-zombies I dumped one of my salad jars into two bowls, plonked it down on the bench and said “I’m not making dinner. If at any point you get hungry you can eat this salad. If you eat the salad you can get desert. If you don’t eat it, I will eat it after you go to bed. There is no dinner.”

And I’ve done the same thing every night for a week and a half now. You know what happened?

They ate salad every night for a week.

There has not been a single unfinished salad in that time.

I have had to get my own damn salad.

But the most amazing thing? They have both requested and consumed dessert, dinner and then after-dinner-breakfast EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. They are eating at night the same way they do in the morning: constantly.

I’m having success after success with Bast whose eating habits have been so bad at times I’ve had to take her away from the table because not only does she not eat her own food she stops her little sisters eating theirs as well. Example of said success: Tonight when my back was turned she ate half a block of tofu that I’d prepared for another dish. It was there, she was hungry. There was no complaining. No back-chat. Just ravenous foraging like the tiny raptor she is. My lunch tomorrow is going to be the most boring shit ever thanks to her but I don’t even care.

They are happier. They have more energy and less whinge. I cook my dinner in peace and ruin less food, all because I’ve taken the pressure off and handed them control of the hardest meal of the day. They always know what to expect, there’s no disappointment. Salads are all made in advance, so there is no waiting. There’s no repercussion for not eating, so there is no pressure to overcome.

I’ve read that you should never give up because the moment you’re ready to quit is when you will have a breakthrough, but sometimes you have to give up, relinquish control, and let the magic run its course.