This year, the school my son goes to no longer offers bus rides to his school. (He’s in a special program, so he doesn’t go to the school that’s normally in his district.) So the deal my ex and I worked out was I would take him in the mornings and she would pick him up in the afternoons.
It’s quite nice actually, I enjoy being able to see my son on a daily basis as opposed to just the week ends.
But unfortunately, I’ve come to find out that my kid pretty much lives on a diet of Jack in The Box, Taco Bueno and Dominos. Frankly, I’m a little horrified that I’m just now finding this out. Who knows how long this has been going on?!
And what kills me is; this kid has never met a vegetable he didn’t like. So were most parents struggle to get their kids to eat vegetables, that’s a struggle we’ve never had with this kid.
So anyway, I need to call her and tell her to cut that shit out. But I need to do so in a calm rational way. Because to do otherwise would accomplish nothing.
Since my ex isn’t here to tell her side of the story, in the interest of fairness, I feel compelled to share this with you:
My ex is 54yo, she had her first child when she was 16. My son is the last of five. So she’s been an active mother for nearly 40 years. Also she works late a lot.
Not sure if that matters or not, but I do feel it adds something to the dynamic.
Q: Is there a polite way of telling my ex wife to stop feeding our kid so much fast food?
A: No.
At risk of sounding flippant, I think it’s as simple as that. I have kids with an now-ex wife, and there are a number of things she does that, while I don’t think they’re optimal, aren’t actively harmful. (Things like feeding them more fast food than I would, incidentally.) I’ve tried to come up with a diplomatic way of addressing that, but it ends up covering more than just fast food: it implies I know more than I do, or have the right to make decisions about how busy she is, what her financial situation is, and so forth.
If you can come up with a polite way of doing it, that’s taken in the same spirit it’s given, please let me know.
How old is your son? Or, maybe more appropriately, at what age level does he function? How is his weight? Is it realistic to expect that he could learn to cook some simple dishes on his own? Even just microwave style?
Given your ex-wife’s circumstances, I can see where fast food is simply survival mode for her. That doesn’t mean it’s a good thing, but I can understand. I’m also an “older” mom of kids that are spread out in age and I work a ton. But, I work from home, so I have a better chance of being able to cook or supervise my son (13yo, my youngest and only child at home now) as he sometimes cooks for himself. He’s been doing that for the last few years. He actually likes cooking, though. Your son may be a whole different ballgame and that may not be an option, I know.
Maybe bring him a baggie of cut veggies when you pick him up in the morning? Figure out some healthier recipes (crock pot?) and share them with your ex. One of the things I find most daunting after years and years of planning dinners, is planning dinners! If someone says, “I’d like this,” I’m thrilled! I don’t mind cooking; I hate thinking about WHAT to cook!
Two important things: how old is your son and how is your relationship with your ex? Also, from what you know of her, is it likely that she really wants to cook him super-healthy meals from scratch and just doesn’t have the time, or that she doesn’t think it matters?
If your relationship with her is good and you know she cares about healthy food, then your best bet is to say, ‘Look, I know you’d love to feed Kid healthy meals from scratch, and I know you just don’t have the time or energy to do it as much as we’d both like. Can I share the work? Like, put together the ingredients a couple of times a week and you and son can just throw them in a pot/wok/casserole dish/whatever?’ I think ‘I know you do a lot of the work here, let me help’ is going to go down better than ‘I don’t think you’re doing enough.’
If she doesn’t think it matters, but you’re on good terms, then I wouldn’t try to convince her that it does - just that it would mean an awful lot to you if she would feed him healthy stuff some of the time. If she wants to think you’re some kind of weird alfalfa freak, fine, so long as she’s willing to go with it. Again, you could offer to help out.
Given her age, I’m assuming Son is at least 10. Depending on what he’s like, that’s old enough to help cook. You could suggest that to your ex, and just give him the bag of ingredients and instructions on what to do with them. Depending on the kid, ten is plenty old enough for ‘Dump all this stuff in a casserole dish and put it in the over at x degrees for x minutes.’
Agreed. If you tell her to cut that shit out, the underlying message is, “You know that way you’ve found to feed our kid and still not go insane? Well, I’m not willing to do any additional work toward the feeding of our kid, even though you’re already taking point on it, but I think you should do even more work to feed the kid than you’re already doing.” She’s unlikely to take that well.
Now, are you willing to spend your weekends cooking meals for them, meals that can be frozen and then reheated during the week? If you are, you might make it work. Tell her that you’ve really started getting into cooking, and just start dropping him off at the end of the weekend with that extra lasagna/pot of soup/whatever that you made. No guarantees, and she still might not take it well, but if you’re doing the work, I think you’re going to be in a much better place to advise how he should be fed.
There were a lot of things that went on in my ex’s house I didn’t like. She left me in order to not have to listen to me any more. I learned very early on to pick my battles. Telling her what to do in her own house is likely to not work out well regardless of how you put it.
You are unlikely to win this one. Every single parent chooses something or another that they let slide. This isn’t the worst one by far.
If you can get him a healthy breakfast, lunch and weekends, fast food on week nights isn’t actually going to kill him. Try to help him navigate the menu- some things are a lot healthier than others. If he likes veggies and is otherwise a healthy eater, there is plenty of hope he’ll embrace better habits.
Sven-- who was raised on fast food, now eats reasonably healthy.
I have neither an ex-wife nor kids, so I’m partly unqualified to speak up. Here goes anyhow …
I agree with the advice offered thus far.
How many meal times per week are under your control? You can certainly do the right thing for all of them. Fast food (“FF”) isn’t good, but there’s a big difference between eating it 21 meals per week and eating it 10 meals per week. It appears you already control 5 of them: school day lunches.
Your real goal is to ensure the kid doesn’t grow up thinking FF is a staple diet. A year or two of eating badly now won’t help, but isn’t the end of the world. Provided he learns there are other, better ways to eat. If his only “comfort foods” are Big Macs he will have problems later.
So work that angle. When you do eat together, make it healthful and talk about how & why it’s healthful. Focus on the positive of veggies and portion control and low sweet or whatever diet bias you subscribe to. Focus not so much on the negative of “FF is bad”. When you get together, ask him what he ate since you saw him last. Contrast that with what *you *ate since then. You *do *eat the right things, don’t you?
Regardless of his age & maturity now, he’ll only be getting older & more able to articulate his desires to Mom. So you plant the seed of eating right and fertilize it every week by example and repetition. When he makes it clear to Mom that he really doesn’t want Taco Bueno again, she’ll be more receptive to that than any message you could deliver to her.
This will not be a fast or easy process. You’re sandpapering away a boulder, not blowing it up w dynamite.
ETA: I have a similar problem myself in that I have strict diet requirements but travel 3-4 days per week, forcing me to eat in restaurants and airports. So I end up with a schizoid diet of excessive burgers on the road and excessive veggies at home. It averages to OK.
If the kid likes veggies, he can improve that Taco Bueno dinner a bunch by boiling up a package of frozen spinach or broccoli or whatever when he gets home. It’s easy, quick, and cheap. Once he starts doing it, Mom may join in.
We need more of her backstory. Is this the only child she’s actively caring for right now? What is her work/life schedule like? Did you argue about your son’s food before she was your ex? Was she keen on the kid getting healthy food before? What kind of relationship do the two of you have now?
Without that info, maybe try to approach it as “How can I help make this easier for you? Easier meaning, just as easy as McDonalds.” BTW, if she’s eating that every night too, it’s no good for her either.
One of the hardest things to learn when you have children is that you’re not the final authority on how the child is raised. There are two people, and each carries equal weight. Even in a situation where the parents are happily married there will be times when the two parents are not in agreement. I recently had to acquiesce to my husband regarding paying for our youngest child’s education. (She’s on a 23-year glide path to getting her Bachelor’s degree, and Mama was ready to pull the plug; Dad was not.)
So, unless she’d be receptive to you going to her house and cooking the entire family a delicious, healthy dinner advice, my advice is to butt out.
No, you will only provide here with ammunition to use in court to up your child support because obviously you don’t provide enough for her to provide proper nutrition for your children.
Except that I can cook nutritious meals at home for half the price of fast food. If she’s giving the kid that much Jack In The Box, I’m going to guess it’s a time, convenience, and perhaps laziness matter.
I agree with this, and also with the other posters saying that it’s not that big a deal as long as your son’s getting healthy food elsewhere.
Although I guess that could mean you feel pressured to provide healthy food all the time, even when you’re also tired and just want to do a McMeal, and that should be OK to do now and then but not on top of his regular McMeals.
I’d also be a little wary of what your son’s telling you. Not that he’s lying, but just that he’s more likely to tell you when they went to McD’s or whatever than when they had something healthier at home. Or maybe he’s bigging up the junk food in the hopes you’ll give him more - even kids who like veggies often also like junk food. Or maybe this is just a temporary thing. If this is a surprise to you then maybe it’s not actually what they do all the time after all. I mean, you do know this woman.
If you’re on good terms, you could do something like what someone else suggested above - occasionally texting something like “I cooked waaay too much pot roast at the weekend; shall I drop some off for you and junior when I bring him back on Sunday? I’d rather it not go to waste and I know he likes this meal,” would probably work. Especially if you do actually sometimes cook waaay too much pot roast or stew or whatever; I know I always do, so it’s not actually any extra work for you.
Basically no, there is no way to tell a parent they’re feeding their kid too much junk. Especially if you’re their ex. Is she doing OK in other areas? You were comprehensive and fair in your OP so I assume not. Don’t worry about this one, then.
Teach your kid to cook an easy, healthy couple of yummy dishes to impress his Mom with. So the delivery would be from the kid, wanting to shine and do something sweet for his Mom. How can she resist? She’s tired and hungry and likely isn’t happy about the steady diet of junk either.
You could teach him to prepare a yummy casserole at your place, (purchasing enough ingredients to make two!), sending him home with one to surprise his Mom with. How can she fail to be delighted? (Always send it in a casserole pan that can go straight into the oven!)
Yeah, at least to begin you’ll be buying the ingredients, and some pans, but the payoff is big if it works. Your kid gets both a better diet AND instruction in an extremely valuable life skill that will serve him well all of his life. Your x gets a hot meal ready, and an xhubby who has done something bordering on sweet? Plus, you get an awesome bonding opportunity with your child, as he gets older you can cook more complicated things, it could become a valuable thread running through your relationship.
It’d be worth a try, I think. No matter how young he is, there are things he can put together from a few ingredients, just do your research, ask some ladies for input.
To answer a few questions. He’s 16 functioning on about a 12yo level. (skinny as a rail)
I’ve been teaching him to cook for years. Every Friday night at our house is steak night. He’s gotten so good at cooking steaks, he could give a lot of those chefs you see on the competitions shows a run for their money.
I also taught him how to cook soup and stews. And even rice and frozen veggies from a bag.
So he can cook his own meals. The problem is, his mother and his step dad have piss poor housekeeping skills (that’s a battle I lost a long time ago) and the kitchen is always a mess. I don’t think my son wants to cook in that kitchen. And frankly, I can’t blame him.
Ok, so this is just a rant. Fine. Now that we know that you just want to blow off steam about your ex and how she keeps house, we can consider engaging you on that level.
Line 1 “You poor thing.” <if still talking, pause 15 seconds GOTO Line 1> <if silent GOTO Line 2 >
Line 2 “Nobody understands you! Of course you want the best for your son.” <if still talking pause 15 seconds GOTO Line 1> <if silent GOTO Line 3 >
Line 3 “I’m sure that judging how they keep their house is COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED, you poor, poor man.” <if silent GOTO Line 2 > <if bellyaches more GOTO Line4>
Line 4 “Have you thought of applying for full custody so you can feed him home cooked goodness every single day? Or stepping up what you do as the boys father towards feeding him? Maybe having lunches which YOU have prepared dropped off…” <Pause 30 seconds, tap watch>
Line 5 “Oh, look at the time! I really Must be going. You have a nice day now, ya hear?”
I’m thinking you have never been in a custody fight or you’d know what kind of place this slippery slope argument would take them to. She would argue that when married he would take the family out to expensive restaurants on a regular basis rather than have her cook so she needed more support to maintain the lifestyle that he had established since he was so concerned about the quality of food the children were eating.
I’ve been in a custody fight, and I currently pay child support that is subject to change based on my ex-wife’s and my relative incomes.
If you’ve been in one, and it’s anything like you described above, I am very sorry to hear that. You seem to be conflating alimony and child support; child support has nothing to do with “the lifestyle he had established.” It’s a simple sliding scale based on the number of kids and the incomes of the two parents.
Unlike some folks, I’m going to take you at face value.
It sounds like you’re providing him a pretty solid foundation for doing things the right way. I’d also imagine the kid, even though not a typical 16 yo, is developing his own opinions about which life style he prefers: yours or Mom’s. And this applies to far more than just food choices and housekeeping.
The best thing you can hope for is to win the long term battle to make him a healthy, happy, and productive member of society.
I’ve always believed in the motto “everyone is good for something, even if just as a bad example.” Your son has both examples before him. It seems you’re approaching your side correctly. And that’s about all you can do. And hence about all we can do for you.
