Keto Mom Refuses to Prepare Carb-Heavy Dinners for Her Husband and Kids

It can be hard when one person in a household has to follow a certain diet but everyone else doesn't. I get that. But there's got to be a little give and take on both sides, and that's unfortunately not what's happening for the family in this "Am I the A-hole?" post. 

OP explains that she's a stay-at-home mom with a husband, 2-year-old twins, and two middle-schoolers. She does most of the cooking around the house, and last year, she started following a ketogenic diet. Keto diets are high in fats and proteins and low in carbs. Lots of meats and dairy and oils and vegetables and very little bread, pasta, rice, etc. 

On the keto diet, OP lost over 100 pounds and feels "healthier and more energized than ever." She's much healthier and happier on this diet, and that's great! But the problem is that now that her husband works from home and the kids are doing school online, there is so much more cooking to do. 

Since she does the shopping and cooking, she started buying and prepping keto meals for the whole family. Makes sense, right? She's not going to make two completely different sets of food. 

At first, it seemed not to be an issue. She even said that if her husband or the kids wanted some carbs, she would make some rice or grab rolls. But then her husband started to complain that she doesn't make heavy, carb-based meals at all ("things like fried rice, pasta, sandwiches, mashed potatoes, pancakes, etc."). 

She said that if he wanted those things, he could make them himself. A novel idea, isn't it?! That a man would cook for himself?! She even volunteered to buy what he needed at the grocery store if he gave her a list. But that's not what he wants. He really wants his wife to make meals that only he and the kids can enjoy, even now that she's doing much more cooking and much more childcare than before.

She even agreed to add carbs to meals after she takes her keto-safe portion, but he didn't like that compromise either! Sounds like she's bending over backward trying to find a way to make him happy, and he's standing there with crossed arms pouting that his keto wife won't make him a lasagna. 

"Honestly, I'm tired," OP writes. "I don't see why he can't prepare his own food if he isn't happy with what I make. My kids don't seem to care." She still buys bread and rice and other staples, and she lets her kids eat whatever they want. It isn't like she's forcing them to adopt a keto diet. She just wants to prepare meals that they can all eat.

"This might be a wonderful opportunity for Dad and middle school kids to take on more cooking themselves," one commenter wrote. "Why can't he make a lasagna on the weekend with the kids? Why can't they learn together to make fried rice and the other dishes he wants?"

That's a very reasonable answer! OP is clearly already doing so much of the work for her family. Dad and the older kids should be stepping in to help out as much as they can. It's not a mom's job to do everything for her family. That's a wildly outdated and harmful belief, one that is still unfortunately widely held today.

Many commenters jumped in to judge OP for "making" her children eat keto, but she very explicitly says she is not doing this at all. She provides them with non-keto meals and snacks. She just doesn't want to make a whole dinner that she can't eat, which seems extremely reasonable. 

Some commenters got it, though. And this one person kind of beautifully and very briefly summed it up: "100 percent NTA. He can make his own pasta. He is an adult."