A mum has sparked a fierce debate online after she told her kids to eat "cereal for dinner" as a form of punishment after they made a mistake with their food prep.
The woman explained she has two teenage kids aged 16 and 14, who were both home from school on Thursday while both she and her husband were out at work all day.
She had told her children to get some chicken out of the freezer for them to have for their dinner, but when she came home at 7pm, she found they had forgotten - so she made them go without.
The mum told her kids to have cereal or a sandwich for tea instead, but has split opinion online over her punishment - as she ordered a takeaway for herself and her husband.
In a post on Mumsnet, she said: "I was at work and asked teenage kids, who are home today, to defrost some meat for dinner. I finish work around 6. Takes 40 minutes to an hour to come back, and then I have to cook.
"They forgot to defrost the chicken.
"I told them I hoped they liked cereals for dinner, and that they could make themselves a sandwich while I ordered food for myself and my husband (who comes home around the same time/slightly later than me).
"Was I being unreasonable? I feel a bit guilty now."
Some commenters agreed with the mum's methods, as they insisted it would teach her kids not to forget in the future, especially when they were at home all day.
One said: "I think it will be a valuable lesson for them. It wasn't a big ask and it's not like you're starving them. They won't forget next time."
While another added: "Not unreasonable at all. You don't reward weaponised incompetence. I would have done the same. I hate coming home from work exhausted and having to cook anyway, so mine would have been instructed to have dinner ready. I would not have felt even a tiny bit guilty at ordering a takeaway for myself and not for them."
But other commenters were firmly against the idea, saying it was cruel of the mum to make her children go without a proper meal while she ate a takeaway, even if forgetting the chicken had been their own fault.
Someone fumed: "We all forget stuff. I wouldn't do what you did in a million years. Stuff myself with a takeaway whilst my kids eat cereal? Nope."
"I think this was horrible," someone else argued, "I have been known to forget similar requests from my husband and vice versa. If he ordered a takeaway while I was eating cornflakes there would be a word for that.
"It isn't going to make them change, it will just make them resent you."
And a third wrote: "They made a mistake. I live on my own and have, at times on a busy day, forgotten to remove something from the freezer that I was intending to have for dinner.
"Who the hell sits there stuffing their face with a takeaway while their children eat sandwiches? Very nasty and spiteful."
In follow-up comments, the mum said her kids forget to get meat out of the freezer "most of the time", and said they could have cooked themselves a pasta meal or made an omelette, but "weren't bothered".
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