Where do you keep your white bread, and other aggressive questions I've been asked this weekend.

[Anonymous]

The last time my sister visited she was bothered by the bleach stains on our towels. DS was doing laundry and managed to splash bleach on a load of towels. She was also put out that our sugar bowl was chipped. She took a bust to Friendship Heights with my niece and bought me six new towels and a sugar bowel. So thoughtful.

[Anonymous]

Oh, I forgot to mention she cleaned out my fridge and threw out leftovers from the previous night.

[Anonymous]

So sorry you are dealing with this irritating person. I completely understand what you are going through, OP.

There's nothing you can do about this person's obnoxious questions. She's just being herself, and you have to let it roll off you. You are expecting her to understand your point of view, but of course she can't see things from your perspective, as her questions show.

My MIL once said to me, "Oh, there's no ketchup in THIS house" in a particularly nasty way, implying that I am a pompous food snob rather than a conscientious mom trying to feed my kids healthy food. It took me a long time to let it go, and realize it was her way of making up for her own insecurity. In time, she's come around to accepting my way of feeding my children, so it's possible this person can change, OP. But don't count on it.

[Anonymous]

So sorry you are dealing with this irritating person. I completely understand what you are going through, OP.

There's nothing you can do about this person's obnoxious questions. She's just being herself, and you have to let it roll off you. You are expecting her to understand your point of view, but of course she can't see things from your perspective, as her questions show.

My MIL once said to me, "Oh, there's no ketchup in THIS house" in a particularly nasty way, implying that I am a pompous food snob rather than a conscientious mom trying to feed my kids healthy food. It took me a long time to let it go, and realize it was her way of making up for her own insecurity. In time, she's come around to accepting my way of feeding my children, so it's possible this person can change, OP. But don't count on it.

I'm not fully caffeinated yet, but just out of curiousity is this a joke post? Do you really make an issue of withholding ketchup from your kids in order to be "a conscientious mom trying to feed my kids healthy food"??

[Anonymous]

During which administration was ketchup declared a vegetable for the purposes of school lunches?

[Anonymous]

Must have been Reagan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So sorry you are dealing with this irritating person. I completely understand what you are going through, OP.

There's nothing you can do about this person's obnoxious questions. She's just being herself, and you have to let it roll off you. You are expecting her to understand your point of view, but of course she can't see things from your perspective, as her questions show.

My MIL once said to me, "Oh, there's no ketchup in THIS house" in a particularly nasty way, implying that I am a pompous food snob rather than a conscientious mom trying to feed my kids healthy food. It took me a long time to let it go, and realize it was her way of making up for her own insecurity. In time, she's come around to accepting my way of feeding my children, so it's possible this person can change, OP. But don't count on it.

I'm not fully caffeinated yet, but just out of curiousity is this a joke post? Do you really make an issue of withholding ketchup from your kids in order to be "a conscientious mom trying to feed my kids healthy food"??

Oh c'mon. I feed my kids ketchup. I feed them whatever they want. But yes I get where this poster is coming from. I bet ketchup is just one example of something she doesn't have in her organic kitchen and her POINT is that her MIL makes these little remarks.

Ketchup I think has high fructose corn syrup which is considered a "bad" food nowadays. Yes my kids eat foods with HFCS anyway.

[Anonymous]

We buy organic ketchup, without high fructose corn syrup. That just might make us more pretentious than those who forgo it altogether.

[Anonymous]

New Poster. I have nothing against ketchup itself but we frankly don't make a lot of foods at home that require ketchup so we may not have some at any given time. I love ketchup when I'm treating myself to fries at a restaurant, but we don't have fries at the house and we rarely do burgers or hotdogs at home and we don't do chicken nuggets (though I keep meaning to get a recipe and make them).

If we are having a cook out yes we'd get ketchup.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We buy organic ketchup, without high fructose corn syrup. That just might make us more pretentious than those who forgo it altogether.

Shit, I hope not. We buy it too, for the same reason. Come to think of it, though, we are pretentious.

I think the most irritating trait is deciding other people are criticizing your decisions because they are defensive. Yeah. You are so very perfect that everyone aspires to be you, and faced with the recognition that they cannot measure up, their grief comes out as anger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, I forgot to mention she cleaned out my fridge and threw out leftovers from the previous night.

On the other end of the spectrum - my coworker's in laws fight every time they throw out leftovers (wasteful). So, no matter what, you can't win these battles. Don't fight them and write down causalities as just a small loss. Makes things less stressful for you in the long run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New Poster. I have nothing against ketchup itself but we frankly don't make a lot of foods at home that require ketchup so we may not have some at any given time. I love ketchup when I'm treating myself to fries at a restaurant, but we don't have fries at the house and we rarely do burgers or hotdogs at home and we don't do chicken nuggets (though I keep meaning to get a recipe and make them).

If we are having a cook out yes we'd get ketchup.

we are the exact same way

[Anonymous]

hahahahaha

[Anonymous]

I agree with the others; it's the phrasing "where is the X" that is aggressive.

My MIL was at our house for brunch once and as I was clearing the table, with a basket of my homemade mini-muffins in one hand, she put her hand on my wrist and said, "oh, don't clear those - I'll take them home for later; I love them so much."

I'm glad she likes them, but it would have been nice if her phrasing had been, "I love those so much - could I take some of them home with me?"

This is very indicative of many of our interactions. It's the over-familiarity that gets me. It's like she needs to establish herself as The Matriarch, including in my home.

[Anonymous]

minor league (except the chair).