Mum's Tuck Box

[ailbhe]

In spite of my gut-reaction being negative, I think I will have a private stash of special food children aren't allowed to raid. They are good about my private things, like my desk and my art materials.

It just feels wrong to do it with food.

But I really need to know that when I stumble irritably towards the cereal bars, they'll be there, and not have the tops bitten off to see which one is nicest.

Comments

[rmc28]

I can see why 'hoarding' food might feel wrong if you had a food shortage generally (although, being a nursing mother means you NEED to stay fed so Astrid can stay fed), but as long as there's plenty of food for the other people in the house, making sure there's "easy food for Ailbhe" around is sensible.

(We try to make sure there is "easy food for Rachel" in the house at all times due to migraine and my own temper / inabiity to work out what to eat when hungry, but I haven't - yet - had to ringfence it from Charles.)

[the-changeling.livejournal.com]

It's not wrong if there is enough food for everyone.

Which there is. :-)

[ai731.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

[barakta]

I can understand your reluctance but if having Private Mum Food helps with your mental health and makes it less likely you'll have scary rage I think your children benefit from that. Your children don't mean any malice by opening everything and eating it - or not - but they are too young yet to understand the implications of that.

I'm also a fan of people having their private things, both adults AND children and have each side respect those things where safe and practical.

ObAnecdata: I find as an adult people who grew up in households with some kind of recognised 'reasonable limit' on snacks are less annoying as adults as they will remember there's X people in the house so each person reasonably can have Y portions of snacks and don't go and eat them all. People who didn't have any kind of restrictions in my experience often eat more than their fair share of things because it just doesn't occur to them to consider anyone else.

In my household there's food I am not allowed to eat, so my partner has guaranteed food that she can eat. Some things I can have all but the last n portions of and some it's "usually none at all". I can eat much more than my partner can, and food being a VeryDifficultThingTM for her means that having reserved food is as much about safety as it is about simplicity, access to it and so on. We have an agreement that if I ask for a share of $snack she is allowed to say "no" if her stocks are low or she is feeling insecure about it.

Hope this works out overall better for you and the bloody awful PMS fucks off soon, it really does sound very horrid for you.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

My mum's rules when I was a child was help yourself to the fruit bowl, tap water & squash that she'd made up & put into a jug in the fridge. Anything else had to be asked for. I respected the rules, my brother used to sneak biscuits & chocolate. He still lives at home & still lives on biscuits & crisps out of my parent's cupboards, so I think you're right. When we go & stay at my parents, I ask permission to use any food that we haven't bought.

[sfred]

This sounds like a good arrangement. There are some foods where I'd be upset to find I'd run out when I wasn't expecting to have run out.

[eavanmoore.livejournal.com]

My mother used to discourage us from drinking a lot of cranberry juice, because she genuinely needed it for health reasons. I could respect that.

[(Anonymous)]

Tis Maria

I must confess, I keep private food stashes (note the plural) in drawers, unused handbags, etc. I need to AND so do you, I think.

[euphrosyna]

I have private food stashes from my boyfriend; you're definitely allowed one from your kids! :)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

In our family -- and I mean back generations -- everyone tries to develop a liking for at least one food that everyone else hates. My grandmother liked prune yogurt. My mother likes canned beets. I like Moxie.

For Lis's part, she gets the benefit of this because I hate hazelnuts, meaning that I'll never eat her Nutella.

So, yeah. In my family, having "ONLY FOR ME" food that you can rely on when you need it is not only accepted, but we do our best to brain-hack ourselves to ensure this.

[tassie-gal.livejournal.com]

Its allowed and in fact probably advisable. I live by myself and have 2 food stashes in my office at work in case I get "ARGH KILL" urges.
When my Dad was alive, my mum used to hid her chocolate in the back of my underwear drawer after I left home so that there would be some left if dad found the main stash.

[barakta]

I have food stashes at work, and some specific people are allowed things out of it cos I know they won't nick it all and will return the favour.

[sfred]

I have a bag of nuts in my drawer at work, which means I give way less of a damn about the shared biscuit supply.

[thereyougothen.livejournal.com]

I keep some things hidden from the boys, so that I know if I get a sudden craving, it will be there. Actually, I suppose it's hidden from Bill as well.
I think it's a perfectly healthy thing to do, just the way you want your art things to be there when you feel the need, it's the same with food. Just make sure it's food you really like, so that you can have a treat sometimes. That's important too, I think.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

I think it's healthier to be really really explicit about what isn't for general consumption than to tacitly expect a certain consideration and get angry every time your family members can't live up to it.

(Examples from my life: don't finish the frozen lemonade without making another pitcher or at least getting a can out to thaw, don't cut into an un-started pie without checking whether it's for us or a party, don't help yourself to the special bottle of an obscure flavour of alcohol that was a birthday present to someone else*, don't use my sewing scissors even if you can't find the kitchen scissors, don't use my fountain pen, don't write your name in my books even if you want to take them to school).

[juliet]

The Good Scissors! my mum had a pair of Good Scissors too, which we weren't allowed to use for other things (they were in her sewing box). Although some years later, I mentioned this, and Mum laughed and said that in fact, those weren't the *really* good scissors, which were hidden someplace else :)

I can understand you feeling uncomfortable about private food stash, but as long as there is also plenty of food for the kids, I think it's not only legit, but in this case, sounds like a really good idea.

I have private chocolate stashes from the rest of the adults in the house, and can well imagine that I'll still have them when L is old enough to be after chocolate. Also snacks in the fridge that others are welcome to but not to finish all of & to tell me if they're getting low. (And then there's the stash of M&Ms that doop keeps somewhere on my behalf after I kept demanding M&Ms at odd hours during pregnancy, & if he left them in the kitchen I'd have gone through that stash already.)

[sfred]

"Don't use the sewing scissors for other things" is familiar from my childhood and from my adulthood. :-)

[ailbhe]

"Not even if someone is bleeding to death and you need to cut bandages" was my mother's line.

[sfred]

Nice!

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

Nods, what everyone else said. It's perfectly fine.

Hereabouts, I simply put food I want to keep for myself in the vegetable crisper, since the rest of the household rarely goes looking for vegetables ;)

[nitoda]

Ooh, thanks, great new hiding place idea! :-)

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

It's fine, the girls know that they have to ask for snacks in my house, there's no helping themselves even though everything is in reach. If they tuck into anything without asking & I find them, I take it off them. If I get really peeved, I take the money out of their pocket money, as they've broken the rules. I did this the last time Holly made a potion in the bathroom, there've been no potions since as she had to buy the replacement mouthwash & toothpaste.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

I agree - keep your own private stash! Our rule was simple - fruit was there to be eaten; anything else, you checked first in case it was wanted for a future meal. Still applies.....

[ailbhe]

No fruit between meals here, bad for teeth.

[flybabydizzy.livejournal.com]

Look on it as your stash of urgently needed tasty MEDICATION!

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's not so much food as medicine. It's to make sure your blood sugar stays stable. It's to help alongside the hedmeds. It's to prevent a number of symptoms. Mentally reclassifying it as medicine may help with the 'keeping it away from the children' thing.