<p>I’m with Marite, oldfort and zoosermom… the apology should be coming from DH to DS.</p>
<p>Perhaps your DH had low blood sugar from not eating often enough, causing his short fuse? :)</p>
<p>Is it possible your DH found it disrespectful since sherbet is a dessert? Would he have minded if your son had grabbed an apple or something?</p>
<p>If only we could be on unanimous on politics:p</p>
<p>NYmama, is your husband somewhat the “controlling” type? Would it have made any difference if son had chosen something other than ice cream to snack on? Somehow, I doubt it. </p>
<p>Btw, it’s extemely unhealthy to routinely eat supper so late, especially if you go to bed within 2 or 3 hours of eating. Usually people who do so will have weight issues, along with very a sluggish metabolism.</p>
<p>I’m wondering whether Dad is so controlling about other minor issues. In my all-too-personal experience, it would be surprising if this was an isolated incident.</p>
<p>In my family, people are welcome to eat when they’re hungry, whether they’re a nursing baby or someone who for whatever reason can’t wait 20 minutes for dinner. My husband has a punishing work schedule and must often miss lunch (and sometimes breakfast, too). It’s not unusual for him to come home and finish last night’s leftovers while dinner is still being prepared. I have more important things to worry about than who eats what when.</p>
<p>In my mind, it would be disrespectful to deliberately eat something else within half an hour of the dinner I worked to prepare, and then refuse to eat said dinner. I can’t imagine this would ever happen with a teen-aged boy.</p>
<p>Dis-grace’s thought occurred to me as well. If the son had said he was hungry and had some salad, a container of yogurt or something else that clearly said “a little something to tide me over, not to ruin my appetite” would it have come across differently? I do think the bowl of sherbet could be a bit in-your-face even if not intended that way.</p>
<p>I don’t think sherbet is really a problem. It is summer, and the OP is from NY. It has been so hot here. Her son is 15 and was involved with athletics all day. I think that it was fine for him to have a soothing cold bowl of sherbet. They weren’t going to get dinner until 9pm. I can tell you that many teen boys are starving by 4pm already, but I realize that you were saying something greener and healthier might have been more acceptable. Frankly, I would not have bat an eyelash. If we are going out to a late dinner, I tell my sons to grab something light a few hours beforehand.</p>
<p>I say pick your battles and this would be very low on a list of battles to pick.</p>
<p>I think dad was being juvenile. My 17 yo son could eat a bowl of cereal 10 minutes before dinner and 10 minutes after. Your H needs to get a grip. I agree…choose your battles.</p>
<p>Son is starving at 7:30 pm, H wants to feed him at 9:00 pm, and then when son eats sherbet, H punishes him by delaying the meal further? Very controlling. </p>
<p>I’ll bet that if your son had to eat a banana or a hunk of bread, that would have filled him up a lot more than the sherbet. I see nothing disrespectful in what your son did. He did not do this in defiance. He was hungry, plain & simple.</p>
<p>Why does H like to eat at 9:00? Does he graze all day long, so he’s never hungry?</p>
<p>I agree with the majority here…that it is unreasonable that your son would be expected to wait to eat until 9 PM at night no matter what, but especially after a long day including athletics. It is not like the snack he had was minutes before they left for dinner but was 90 min. ahead to tide him over. This would play out differently had dinner been served at 6:30 PM and he wanted to eat sherbert right before dinner. I think in this case, your son’s dinner either should have been at a more reasonable time OR he be allowed to have a snack to tide himself over. Perhaps that can be negotiated for next time…what a reasonable dinner time is for him and if it is going to be that late at night, that he be allowed to have a snack an hour or two ahead of time (not right before leaving for the meal). </p>
<p>On a side note, I agree with syrstress’ post about a husband who is 50 walking in the door and dinner is going to be ready in 20 minutes and he starts eating while it is cooking. I have had that happen too. My husband will get mad if dinner is ready 20 min. after he got home and he has to wait. I also don’t like someone eating as the meal is cooking and almost ready, particularly if a grown adult and the dinner is at a reasonable time (before 7 PM).</p>
<p>Didn’t see that many dads so I thought I would chime in: I agree that DH was out of line. Hope he can figure out why it was so important to him, let it go, and apologize to your son.<br>
During the school year the combination of work schedules (I frequently see clients until 8pm) and school activities means that at least 3 of 5 nights we eat around 8:45/9pm. Our 17 year old daughter usually has a snack around 5 to tide her over. I disagree with poetess on bad health effects: we seem to be healthy (thank God) and normal weight . I weigh 164, am 6’, my daughter is 5’8", 120lbs. (My wife says it’s rude to ask for weight, so I can’t be specific about her, but she’s in healthy range as well).</p>
<p>Son not disrespectful…husband disrespectful – of a growing teen’s needs. To expect an active 15 y.o. to wait til 9pm til dinner??? And at what age do we start to let our kids make some decisions regarding a simple dish of sherbert? Wow! I remember coming home from high school and grabbing 3 devil dogs or twinkies to eat in one sitting, before dinner. I was not/am not obese, and if your son does not have weight problems, what is the issue? In a couple of short years, he’ll be making all of his food choices on his own.</p>
<p>It would be close to impossible for me to wait until 9pm to eat and I am far from being a growing teenager. Does your H have some sort of competitiveness with your S? It seems like he picked on him for eating but the problem is something else.</p>
<p>Teenagers, especially boys tend to eat non-stop and could not exist on 3 meals a day…at least not the ones I know.</p>
<p>Sounds like it’s your husband that has issues, not your son.</p>
<p>I’m with Marite, oldfort and zoosermom also. </p>
<p>Athough … I personally might prefer that he had a glass of milk or a PB sandwich, I think that if sherbet is what your family snacks on, what’s the difference? </p>
<p>Athletes burn a lot of fuel … and they need to replenish. H needs to figure that out.</p>
<p>I agree that husband was the culprit here.</p>
<p>Most teenage boys can eat a full meal as an appetizer before going out for pizza. This is not a case of disrespect, but of control. </p>
<p>Personally, I do not eat all day. No breakfast, no lunch. I might have a muffin one day out of seven. One day out of sixty, I may have a sandwich for lunch if I am ravenous, or if I know we’re having a later than normal dinner for any reason. (Please don’t lecture me on the dietary/health issues, as my wife is a dietician. This system works for me.)</p>
<p>Now, if I haven’t eaten by 6 pm, I will go off the deep end. The dogs, kids, wife’s arm are all fair game in lieu of substinence.</p>
<p>Yea, my dad would have gotten some backlash if this had played out. Athletes need their food, and we often can’t control when we get hungry and how hungry we get. It’s not the same as a simple 30 minute workout. More than your average 200-500 calories is being burned, and it needs to be replaced.</p>
<p>Furthermore, athletes often can’t adjust their hunger schedules to their families schedules. I would usually eat a full lunch at school, come home and eat a small frozen dinner (stouffer’s, bagel bites, etc.) then go to practice from 5-8. My parents wouldn’t wait for me to eat dinner at 8:30, so they would always have enough leftovers for me when I would get home. And I would clean house on whatever they had. One time I came home and ate a 6 person frozen lasagna, four bowls of salad, and four breadsticks. It was a particularly hard practice that day lol. If there weren’t leftovers, my dad was always nice enough to give me money to order pizza, and I would usually conquer a large one.</p>
<p>BTW, your son craving sherbert is typical. Though gatorade, cytomax or a peanut butter sandwich would have been better, the sherbert was giving your son the quick energy with sugar that had been depleted during his workout.</p>
<p>That’s ridiculous and kind of narcisistic that he expects everyone else to wait until he is ready to eat. Chauvinism at its best.</p>
<p>You refer to him as DH more frequently than as your son’s father. Is DH actually the boy’s dad? (Might there be stepparenting issues, which often center on perceived respectfulness?) At any rate, DH sounds like he has anger and control issues. </p>
<p>Man, the last thing our young folks need is someone at home picking on them. Sorry, our son has been quite vulnerable this summer, and I can see how easy it would be to tear him down further.</p>
<p>I am mystified with the Hs motivations, like all others. Maybe this has something to do with H thinking he’s planning a father/son dinner - like it’s something special that the H is doing that the son has “ruined” by pre-eating ?? When I was growing up, take-out food or going out was a super big deal. My teens go out so much, that it’s not special anymore. The other day I asked my d if she wanted to stop at Wendy’s after work - she said she’d rather wait until we got home for tacos !!</p>