Thank you, DCUM: parents and ILs weird with food

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My ILs are so messed up about food that my MIL and my FIL are 70 and 80 and each do their own grocery shopping and each has their own set "time" in the kitchen which means that FIL only eats breakfast and dinner and MIL only eats lunch. It's very, very weird.

Ooh, I thought I’d heard it all as a connoisseur of these kinds of threads, but I think you may have found a New Weird.

[Anonymous]

Haha this makes me feel so much better. My mother never makes enough food for holidays but also still wants to host. Once she showed me
8 spears of asparagus and told me they were for me and another family member to split at holiday dinner. I told her the other person could just have them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love this thread. My Dad is super weird with food and enjoys controlling the refrigerator and monitoring who is eating what and how much of what. OMG! "Why don't you have a kale smoothie instead of juice", " No sugar at our place. You should feed your children seaweed and edamame for snacks. Apples with peanut butter is just apples with lard over top of it.", All food should be eaten by 5p. Eating after 5 makes you fat. It never ends! We now stay at a hotel and do what we want. The hell with that. Thanks DCUM for helping me take a stand to this Kitchen Bully.

This and the "20 baked chicken legs" thread literally had me howling with laughter. I had been so down today. DCUM is better than Comedy Central. The fact that your dad enjoys kitchen patrol duty is just so priceless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who are these people that limit food? I don’t think I am sheltered, but I don’t know anyone like this.

My MIL was like this, whereas my mom tries to get guests to eat constantly throughout the day and night.

Could be a cultural thing. MIL grew up rural, farmers, Midwesterner, grew and raised most of their own food. My mom grew up in a city, community of European immigrants. My dad says her relatives have always been like that. Both MIL and my own mom grew up pretty poor.

No I don’t think it’s a rural or city thing as plenty of women from both types of backgrounds do this. I think it’s a generational thing. Many of these women grew up with crash diets, smoking and restricting food during pregnancy, and Twiggy and Audrey Hepburn as ideals.

Child of immigrants here. Most European cultures have high expectations for feeding guests. The idea of someone being hungry in your home is the worst of the worst. We did not have much growing up but if people came there was plenty of food on the table always.

X100000
Yes!!! Thank you!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No I don’t think it’s a rural or city thing as plenty of women from both types of backgrounds do this. I think it’s a generational thing. Many of these women grew up with crash diets, smoking and restricting food during pregnancy, and Twiggy and Audrey Hepburn as ideals.

Generally, but I know a lady like this and she is only 43. She is so restrictive of food for her kids, and even her kids' friends if they are visiting.
She has major food and anxiety issues.

That stinks for her kids. I had a friend whose mom was like this and the daughter would binge cookies at other people’s houses

X100000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Kitchen is closed” was a thing in my house growing up, but what my parents meant by it was that they were done cooking and cleaning in the kitchen for the day (or until the next mealtime) so if you made yourself a snack you better not leave any evidence.

I get this, especially if you like to keep a clean kitchen. But why can’t the folks with the weird parents-in-laws just bring grocery bags of snacks and even a cooler with food? We have food allergies so we’re always bringing food anyway. You know the crazy rules where you’re staying so just bypass them!

I'll say this gently -- please grant the respect to understand that people have tried this. They didn't just sit there and expect food to be brought to their mouths for them. These are deeply food disordered settings, and there is some sort of high energy charge some people get from controlling the food choices of others. It is really, really weird.

If you really want the question answered, IIRC, the "No one eats in this house" thread linked earlier would be enlightening.

X100000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have the opposite problem. My in laws bring a bunch of random things when they visit and leave them with us. Ham hocks, super fruity wine and beer, a load of bacon, "this pineapple on sale," mango salsa, etc. Nothing for a full meal or dish. They do also bring the full snack shelf from Trader Joes, so that's a plus.

I adore them and my husband and I think this is hilarious.

I'm still not sure what to do with the collection of cherry wine and pumpkin beer we have accumulated, however.

They sound like they are actually fun (not controlling or weird)!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who are these people that limit food? I don’t think I am sheltered, but I don’t know anyone like this.

My MIL was like this, whereas my mom tries to get guests to eat constantly throughout the day and night.

Could be a cultural thing. MIL grew up rural, farmers, Midwesterner, grew and raised most of their own food. My mom grew up in a city, community of European immigrants. My dad says her relatives have always been like that. Both MIL and my own mom grew up pretty poor.

No I don’t think it’s a rural or city thing as plenty of women from both types of backgrounds do this. I think it’s a generational thing. Many of these women grew up with crash diets, smoking and restricting food during pregnancy, and Twiggy and Audrey Hepburn as ideals.

Child of immigrants here. Most European cultures have high expectations for feeding guests. The idea of someone being hungry in your home is the worst of the worst. We did not have much growing up but if people came there was plenty of food on the table always.

X100000
Yes!!! Thank you!!!

These weird food issues seem to be common among a certain type of weird, cheap WASP person. Not sure what it comes from.

My family are Eastern European immigrants, and the idea of guests going hungry would make my mom, aunt and grandmother die from shame. That’s been my experience with Asian, Latino, African-American and White ethnic friends, as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who are these people that limit food? I don’t think I am sheltered, but I don’t know anyone like this.

My MIL was like this, whereas my mom tries to get guests to eat constantly throughout the day and night.

Could be a cultural thing. MIL grew up rural, farmers, Midwesterner, grew and raised most of their own food. My mom grew up in a city, community of European immigrants. My dad says her relatives have always been like that. Both MIL and my own mom grew up pretty poor.

No I don’t think it’s a rural or city thing as plenty of women from both types of backgrounds do this. I think it’s a generational thing. Many of these women grew up with crash diets, smoking and restricting food during pregnancy, and Twiggy and Audrey Hepburn as ideals.

Child of immigrants here. Most European cultures have high expectations for feeding guests. The idea of someone being hungry in your home is the worst of the worst. We did not have much growing up but if people came there was plenty of food on the table always.

X100000
Yes!!! Thank you!!!

These weird food issues seem to be common among a certain type of weird, cheap WASP person. Not sure what it comes from.

My family are Eastern European immigrants, and the idea of guests going hungry would make my mom, aunt and grandmother die from shame. That’s been my experience with Asian, Latino, African-American and White ethnic friends, as well.

I posted several times in this thread. My ILs are Catholic.

[Anonymous]

I can't figure out what the common denominator is. My mom is Polish and she always makes sure there is way too much food when she has guests. Her sister is obviously from the same family and people starve at her house (wasp husband though). My aunt is Mexican and she will invite people over for burgers and have literally nothing else. Dozens of burgers but no side dishes, drinks or dessert. We know now to bring our own but it was never spelled out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't figure out what the common denominator is. My mom is Polish and she always makes sure there is way too much food when she has guests. Her sister is obviously from the same family and people starve at her house (wasp husband though). My aunt is Mexican and she will invite people over for burgers and have literally nothing else. Dozens of burgers but no side dishes, drinks or dessert. We know now to bring our own but it was never spelled out.

Instead of "bringing your own" why not bring a dish to share? Kind of like a potluck? Your aunt is providing the main course and she'd like each guest to bring a side dish or dessert to share.

[Anonymous]

I feel like there's a master's thesis in here somewhere, maybe in a gerontology or sociology or psych program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't figure out what the common denominator is. My mom is Polish and she always makes sure there is way too much food when she has guests. Her sister is obviously from the same family and people starve at her house (wasp husband though). My aunt is Mexican and she will invite people over for burgers and have literally nothing else. Dozens of burgers but no side dishes, drinks or dessert. We know now to bring our own but it was never spelled out.

Instead of "bringing your own" why not bring a dish to share? Kind of like a potluck? Your aunt is providing the main course and she'd like each guest to bring a side dish or dessert to share.

Yeah, people know what an potluck is. They generally get that communicated up front!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have the opposite problem. My in laws bring a bunch of random things when they visit and leave them with us. Ham hocks, super fruity wine and beer, a load of bacon, "this pineapple on sale," mango salsa, etc. Nothing for a full meal or dish. They do also bring the full snack shelf from Trader Joes, so that's a plus.

I adore them and my husband and I think this is hilarious.

I'm still not sure what to do with the collection of cherry wine and pumpkin beer we have accumulated, however.

They sound like they are actually fun (not controlling or weird)!

This sounds like a Chopped basket of mystery ingredients. Like they want PP to whip something up from the random basket ingredients and surprise them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't figure out what the common denominator is. My mom is Polish and she always makes sure there is way too much food when she has guests. Her sister is obviously from the same family and people starve at her house (wasp husband though). My aunt is Mexican and she will invite people over for burgers and have literally nothing else. Dozens of burgers but no side dishes, drinks or dessert. We know now to bring our own but it was never spelled out.

I kind of wonder if it stems from trying to host outside of your traditional group. Your polish aunt with the wasp husband probably had a lot of WASP friends. So she likely had to host parties that were very unlike the food at the celebrations she grew up with, and she probably didn’t have a lot of direction from her husband. Internet forums didn’t exist. Maybe that created a lot of anxiety over what to serve when she hosted.
As she got older, hosting seemed more and more like a PITA, so she stopped doing it. But she still hangs on to that feeling of shame whenever people don’t eat her food or bring their own food. Not wanting to serve food + shame and anger when people bring their own food = hungry guests.