For many families, mealtimes feel like an uphill battle. Kids have vastly different food preferences, and cooking a nutritious dinner that everyone will eat can seem impossible. Recently, a mom on Reddit vented about her husband making quick food for their kids after they refused her home-cooked meals – and she’s so done.
In March 2025, a fed-up mother took to the AITA subreddit. She explained that they have three children: a 9-year-old daughter, an 8-year-old son, and a 6-year-old daughter. A difference in approach between her and her spouse has caused quite a dilemma.
The mom explained her meal policy.
“Whenever I cook, the kids may or may not like it,” the original poster (OP) explained in the post. “If they don’t like it, that’s fine. They can go eat some fruit or something because I’m done. If they don’t want fruit or something, they’re not hungry 🤷.”
Her husband, however, does it differently.
The problem: Her husband doesn’t uphold the same policy.
“When my husband cooks, if any of them don’t like it (usually just the youngest one, in both my case and his case) he’ll make a whole other quick meal for her,” the OP detailed. “That’s fine for him.”
Her kids now expect her to do the same.
Now, the kids who refuse to eat what she prepares for a meal also expect her to make them a separate quick replacement. And dad keeps saving the day.
“They say, ‘But dad does…’ and my husband will come in and cook the complaining person something,” the OP wrote.
The OP asked her husband to stop with the quick food when the kids refuse her meals.
“I asked him yesterday if he could stop that, because I don’t want them thinking because they can ask him if I say no,” the OP shared.
She continued, “He said, ‘It’s food,’ and kind of brushed me off and that started an argument we kind of decided we’d just postpone til today.”
So, is she being a jerk for wanting him to stop?
In the comments, Reddit users were divided.
One Redditor was on the mom’s side, writing, “NAH, but you and your husband need to get on the same page one way or another. It is undermining your parenting style for him to come in and cook something else.”
The same user also pointed out, “But on the flip side he’s not inherently wrong for wanting to give the children something filling and nutritious they’ll eat. I get not wanting to be a short order cook, and wanting to expand their palates, but I also get wanting to fill their bellies in a healthy way. Communicate with each other, come to an agreement on a plan forward!”
On the other hand, a different Reddit user was more blunt with an opinion, calling the mom an a–hole.
“You’re not taking your child’s nutrition into account, and it seems like you just don’t care because it’s your way or no way,” the person declared. “Kids need to eat 3 meals a day, not two meals and an apple.”
The OP later clarified that kids who don’t want the meal she prepared can actually grab “fruit, last night’s leftovers, sandwich, etc.”
Another Redditor also thought the mom was out of line, writing, “You can be off duty if you like, but there’s no reason you get to tell your husband that he can’t make food for his kids if he wants to. If they pull the ‘but dad does’ routine, then tell them to ask their dad. But telling any parent that you’re demanding THEY don’t make food for their child because YOU don’t want to make food for them is BS.”
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