Jenn is convinced I'm being unreasonable.

[conuly]

I was starting to make dinner, and Ana got into a snit because there wasn't a spare burner for her to make her Nestlé Mexican hot chocolate she had picked up at the corner store. I say that 8 ounces of chocolate milk - that's 256 calories, I went ahead and checked - is a dessert or a snack, not something she should be preparing right before dinner.

Jenn seems to think that drinks don't count, that they don't take up any space in the stomach that could go to actual food.

She also thinks that my occasionally buying 20 oz of soda to split among four people while eating pizza is comparable to each person getting 8 full ounces of hot chocolate. Never mind that that is 60% more to drink!

Then, of course, she pulled a classic Jenn trick of alternating between snapping and bitching at me or talking to me about something unrelated like she hadn't just done that, and got pissy and called me an "asshole" for telling her to knock it off. Yeah, when I am working at a hot stove, using a knife, I don't really want to chit-chat to somebody who is off-and-on angry at me. I cut and burn myself enough when I'm calm, happy, and by myself!

Comments

[andrewducker]

Of course liquids affect the amount you can eat! That's why dieters are supposed to drink water when they feel hungry!

[conuly]

And stop drinking cocoa and heavily sweetened coffees with milk.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Chocolate right before supper? No frickin' way! In what alternate Universe was that ever acceptable? Whether food is liquid or solid when one ingests it doesn't matter; it's all reduced to liquid in the stomach.

Children have no business messing about the stove when an adult is trying to cook. In my household, nobody is allowed in the food-preparation area but the person preparing the food - that includes me staying strictly out when my daughter is cooking. YMMV; if I were you, I'd be responding with a long and detailed rant of the self-righteous guilt-tripping variety, titled "Here Iz Me Doing My Best To Provide You With Good Healthy Food While You Sabotage My Efforts With This Childish, Irrational Interference", which would doubtless affect the supper rather adversely.

By ancient tradition, disrespecting the Cook is the way to become the next Cook. It might get the point across if you just abandoned a meal in mid-preparation - let someone else finish, or let 'em eat chocolate, ramen noodles, whatever. If Jenn isn't going to back you up about reasonable standards of nutrition, or insist that the girls respect your work-space and show appreciation for your cooking instead of bitching about it, why keep doing this? I'd say they were treating you like a servant, and servants who are treated that way quit.

"She also thinks that my occasionally buying 20 oz of soda to split among four people while eating pizza is comparable to each person getting 8 full ounces of hot chocolate.

Obviously it's not, but even if it was, how is that even relevant? Does Jenn want you to stop buying them soda? It doesn't make any sense to say "I don't like it that you buy them soda; therefore I condone their disrupting your cooking supper to demand chocolate" - especially if she never objected to the soda until now. In any case, agreeing not to buy the stuff any more seems like a pretty minor concession, but if they won't agree to respect your cooking, stop cooking for them.

[conuly]

Thank you, I'm pretty sure I just won $13 and an infinite supply of "I told you so". She was sure nobody would agree with me when I posted this.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

So, now you can afford to buy pizza, right? *ducking*

'Kay, here's my continuing thought, because $13.00 and I-told-you-so isn't going to suffice. What's Jenn really upset about? Because it seems like when she does this, it's generally not that she's really mad at *you*, or is trying to be a bitch, but that she's having a hard time with parenting and/or work and/or Life, the Universe and everything; y'know how that goes.

Didn't you have a tiff just about the same as this, last year at just about this time? Maybe your sister's got Seasonal This-Sucks Disorder, and feels bad because she knows she *should* enforce the healthy nutrition and blah blah, but all she wants herself is chocolate and carbs, and ohgawdpuhleese to not have to listen to her kids twitching out about yet another stupid thing. It's hard to maintain standards when the days are getting short and chill, and times iz hard, and one's daughters are doing that prepubescent thing all the time, and... and... and.

Motherhood is a permanent condition of doubt and guilt about whether one's doing it right; Jenn may be just feeling kinda stomped by it, temporarily unable to care what her kids eat for supper, if only they don't throw a fit, and dissing herself for feeling that way. But we all feel that way sometimes. Motherhood is awesome, but it also sucks, there's no getting around it. So don't I-told-you-so Jenn too hard, because she may be feeling bad enough already, and could do with a sympathetic ear.

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

Jenn here - Connie neglected to mention an important caveat in this argument. I did not suggest Connie abandon her needed burners to accommodate Ana - I told Ana she could have her hot chocolate after dinner (although I DID wonder why Connie was making a dinner that needed all four burners and the oven; the final tally was pasta with tomato sauce, a largeItalian sausage each, string beans, cauliflower, AND salad, for a total of five separate food items, I'm a grown woman who had eaten almost nothing and even so I didn't have even a single vote of salad due to being stuffed once I finished my plate). Connie then proceeded to throw a huge snit because how could she possibly make the dessert she had planned if Ana made hot chocolate since that, in Connie's view, constituted dessert in itself. My point about the soda is that Connie will order pizza with soda AND zeppoles for dessert (of we can afford it) so therefore soda /=/ dessert but hot chocolate = dessert and THAT logic I found lacking. As is often the case, Connie gets immensely upset if I suggest a thing when she herself does a very Similar thing on occasion, a habit I find hypocritical and frustrating. For instance, the "alternate between snapping and making casual friendly banter" is actually a very typical thing she does, but somehow if I do it, it is suddenly unacceptable.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, okay, so let me see if I understand. First of all, you and Connie agreed that Ana's having chocolate before supper was out of the question - yes? So there was no dispute on that point. And you both also agreed that Ana was not to be messing with the stove in the middle of Connie's cooking supper, so no dispute there either.

A salad, two vegetables and an entree of meat and pasta sounds like a pretty standard supper to me - could have done without the pasta, I suppose. I don't see why it's a problem, though; presumably you save your leftovers for lunches, so the food isn't going to waste. People who aren't doing the cooking don't get any say in how the cooking is done, nor in how many burners it takes to do it.

"Connie then proceeded to throw a huge snit because how could she possibly make the dessert she had planned if Ana made hot chocolate since that, in Connie's view, constituted dessert in itself."

Well... I would definitely agree that the hot chocolate constituted dessert in itself, and also that there's no point making a second dessert if people would rather have hot chocolate. If the person who cooked the supper has planned a dessert to go with it, it's really Not Done to pull a last-minute substitution. What is the message you want to convey here? I have to say, if it was me, the message I'd be receiving loud and clear would be "Don't plan any more desserts."

"My point about the soda is that Connie will order pizza with soda AND zeppoles for dessert (of we can afford it) so therefore soda /=/ dessert but hot chocolate = dessert and THAT logic I found lacking."

I'm still not seeing what you mean here. Are you saying that you think soda is a dessert, or that you think hot chocolate is not a dessert? I don't agree with either of those statements. Soda pop is not a very healthy beverage, but I have never heard of anyone calling it a dessert. Hot chocolate is a beverage in that one drinks it, but it's a dessert beverage, served after supper, not during. I don't see how the soda and zeppoles of previous occasions have any bearing on this occasion, though. If you don't want the girls to have both soda AND zeppoles at the same meal any more, fair enough, but that would seem to be a different conversation.

"alternate between snapping and making casual friendly banter"

Sounds like it's a bad habit you both have, and both really don't like when the other does it. (I sympathize; it's the same in my family.) The reasonable solution would be for both of you to regulate your own behavior instead of trying to regulate the other's, or excusing your own with "Well, she does it too." What kind of example does that set?

Being cooked for is a great boon, not to be taken for granted. There were many nights, during my own years of single motherhood, that I'd have cried tears of joy to have someone in my kitchen fixing a fine home-cooked supper for my girlie and me, whether or not there was any dessert afterward.

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

I do not drink anything but water with my meals, and to me to make a distinction between one sweet beverage and another is a complete artifice. Further, plenty of people, my mother included, drink coffee - with sugar and milk, often a significant amount of sugar - and no one would suggest that coffee is a dessert in that situation. I see no substantial difference between coffee with milk and sugar and hot chocolate.

Thursday is Connie's Dessert Day. The kids know this well. If Connie had told Ana "hey, I'm planning to make butterscotch pudding, did you really want hot chocolate for dessert INSTEAD?", the entire conversation would have been a very different experience, I'm sure. Connie gave Ana no indication that she had dessert planned and, it being Friday, Ana has no reason to expect her to.

Leftovers are all good and well, but we have limited fridge space and moderate appetites. To be left with an almost-completely-full second-largest-pot full of pasta is way too much. There were a minimum of ten very generous servings in that pot, and no one here is fond enough of pasta to eat it three days in a row, particularly when Connie has full meals planned already for each of those days. That's not even counting the salad, which is an entire serving bowl full. Connie herself acknowledges she often way overestimates and "cooks for an army", the problem being, two adults, two kids, and one adult with a kid-appetite do not an army make. Just yesterday Connie took the roasted fennel and carrot leftovers out to eat, left them on the counter for ten hours, with several reminders to eat and assurances she would, and ended up throwing the whole untouched bowl away. "Ideal leftover management" and actual in-practice leftover eating in this family are some ways apart.

[conuly]

That's not true, Jenn. The last day of the week is dessert day, and the kids know, because I explained it to them at the start, that that means Friday on the weeks that they don't go to Queens. I have explained this to you as well, but you never seem to retain that information.

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

So what was ice cream Thursday? Breakfast?

[conuly]

We didn't have ice cream on Thursday.

[conuly]

And you are also forgetting that Mommy gets dinner as well. Aside from the fact that there aren't more than five servings of pasta left in the pot (and the box only makes six servings to start, not that I cooked a whole box), you left an entire person out of the dinner equation.

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

No, I included her as the adult-with-kid-appetite. Because she never eats much.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

"plenty of people, my mother included, drink coffee - with sugar and milk, often a significant amount of sugar - and no one would suggest that coffee is a dessert in that situation. I see no substantial difference between coffee with milk and sugar and hot chocolate."

Coffee is an adult beverage, and one of the primary advantages of being an adult is being able to have dessert whenever one pleases. I like my morning coffee with a shot of Irish Cream in it; that doesn't mean I would let a child have the same. The argument that since adults do X, it's okay for children to do Y is fallacious.

Srsly, why be disingenuous about it? Yes, you're the Mom, and if you say it's okay for your children to have chocolate for supper, that is your choice. But in that case, it's for you to cook their supper, and then there can be no possible dispute.

This whole portion-control question is a side-issue, not relevant to the original dispute. It seems clear that you both would do well to disengage your sibling power-struggle programs, apologize for being hot-heads, and sit down to plan your meals and grocery budget together every week.

In my household, the cook rules in the kitchen, with complete autonomy about what to cook and how to cook it. No one is allowed in the food-prep area without the cook's permission, even to get a cup from the cabinet. No one is allowed to give the cook advice unless asked, or to otherwise distract the cook. Thanks are given for the meal beforehand, and to the cook at the end of it; food is not discussed at the table. Those who didn't cook wash the dishes and clean the kitchen afterward; the cook is expected not to have left a disaster area.

Your mileage may vary - if you don't like those standards, talk amongst yourselves about what standards you do like. Since the quality of the food depends to such a large extent on the feelings of the cook, it's important to set standards the cook is happy with, and then to keep to them. This whole tempest-in-a-teapot could have been avoided through better communication.

Sheesh, you guys, do you really want to go at it like this, having snits and calling names over such minor issues? It's not even Thanksgiving yet; if you start the season this way, what kind of shape are you going to be in by January? And if Mom and Auntie can't resolve their differences courteously and fairly, without snark and snipe and tit-for-tat, what will there be to say when Eva and Ana fuss and fight just the same?

I say nobody won the bet and nobody gets to say I-told-you-so, because all that noise is just silly. However, I will uphold two basic premises:

1. Chocolate=dessert. Adults may eat dessert whenever they damn-well please; children get dessert after supper, if the adults are pleased to give it to them, and if not, then not.

2. The cook is totally in charge of how the meal is prepared and served, and is not to be criticized, advised, argued-with or otherwise distracted while doing so. The cook has a right to not cook for people who don't respect this.

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

I should clarify: Personally I very rarely drink any soda (ever really) with meals - but I recognize that many people find nothing bizarre about drinking soda or coffee with their meals. (And I do drink coffee with my breakfast, although I now have it black, unsweetened.)

[conuly]

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