Why The Fuck Is This Wrong?!

[AtheistMommy]

Yesterday, my mother-in-law’s mother came to town. She’s going to be eighty something tomorrow. She came to spend her birthday with her daughter. Today we were invited to dinner at my mother-in-laws house. We sat at the table. Now, keep in mind the table in their house is reserved for “special” occasions.

 

Everything was going fine. We were called to the table to eat. My daughter on my left, between me and my husband, and my son on my right, between me and my mother-in-law. Now, before I go on I’d like to tell you a little bit about my mother-in-law. She’s high-strung and tends to overreact. My son (who is five years old) started eating without his utensils. My mother-in-law yelled at him and told him it was rude of him to eat like that at the table. This coming from a woman who pretends noodles are worms to get my daughter to eat.

 

Needless to say, an argument broke out between the adults at the table while I was trying to get my son to calm down because he becomes angry when he is yelled at. So he had stomped off and was pouting. I took his food to the living room, turned on the TV and asked him to calm down and stay there. Believe it or not, he listened pretty well.

 

I’m not saying that all kids should eat with their hands when ever they want, but why get so fucking crazy about a child not using a fork? All she really had to do was ask him. So they (my mother-in-law and her mother) continued to tell us that we need to teach our kids manors. Because if we don’t then they will be embarrassed for the rest of their lives. They told us about my mother-in-law’s brother who apparently never took to obtaining manors, no matter how nazish his mother got.

 

Is it me? I’m I just a horrible mother who’s fucking up my son’s life because I’m not beating him for not using a goddamn fork? I mean, how serious should we take that? This seems to keep happening to me. First it was his fucking teachers now it’s the old women in my husband’s family.

 

My husband often tells my son to pretend he’s a (insert animals name here) to get him to eat his food. It works, but that’s exactly what got him in trouble with his nazi grandma and her mother tonight. He was pretending to be some kind of animal (can’t remember which one). Now my husband’s telling me that he agrees with them, that we should be more strict and make our children eat with utensils. It’s total bull shit! Its not like they don’t use utensils at all. This was one fucking incident. This was a little boy playing around, how the fuck is that rude!

 

I’m sorry, this just really pisses me off. It pisses me off even more that my husband is submitting to their fucking logic.

[Legion]

I don't why I'm posting in on this topic. I really don't. I should stop now. I have my inclinations on this but I'm not about to step into a disagreement between a husband and a wife. Can't you guys work this out? Isn't it a rather small thing? Come on. You can do it.

[AtheistMommy]

I don't why I'm posting in on this topic. I really don't. I should stop now. I have my inclinations on this but I'm not about to step into a disagreement between a husband and a wife. Can't you guys work this out? Isn't it a rather small thing? Come on. You can do it.

 

Right now, it's looking like a, no. If you know my husband you know that when he thinks he's right he won't listen to a word you have to say. To top it off, he picked up a few beers. Needless to say, I feel like I'm in some kind of a dysfunctional family movie.

[Legion]

I don't why I'm posting in on this topic. I really don't. I should stop now. I have my inclinations on this but I'm not about to step into a disagreement between a husband and a wife. Can't you guys work this out? Isn't it a rather small thing? Come on. You can do it.

Right now, it's looking like a, no. If you know my husband you know that when he thinks he's right he won't listen to a word you have to say. To top it off, he picked up a few beers. Needless to say, I feel like I'm in some kind of a dysfunctional family movie.

None of this is my business, so I'm not expecting answers. Might this disagreement over this small issue be an escape valve for other things?

[JGJ@ReligionisBullshit]

More than likely there is more history here than meets the eye.

[hatepirate]

I'm no expert on parenting, but I'd say it's pretty weird for a 5 year old to not be able to eat his food with eating utensils. It's something that, in my family, kids pick up at a pretty young age (parents and grandparents gave us those little "baby safe" spoons and forks and taught us to eat). I mean, consider that he's 5, most kids start kindergarten around 5 or 6, you don't think it'd be odd at lunch time while the other kids are using utensils (even if a bit sloppily) your kid is pretending he's some kind of animal?

 

O_o

[pandora]

How old is your son?

 

If he's young, it's not a big deal at all. If he's like 6 or older, I'd say it's time to teach him basic table manners. My husband wasn't taught table manners and it's very difficult for him to follow basic table manners when he's eating out, or anywhere (even at a business meeting). He chews with his mouth open (as both his parents do) and doesn't know how to cut a steak with a knife. Manners aren't everything, but when he's older, it will be easier for your son if it's a habit and not something he has to think about all the time to do correctly.

 

I do think it's silly to make a big deal out of it though... I mean really. It's not THAT important! Like the others, I suspect tensions from something else were boiling over for some reason.

[garrisonjj]

Yesterday, my

 

As presented, it does seem like a small matter. A 5 year old does 5 year old things like eating with his fingers. Of course you teach manners, you must let the older person's comments slide and not take it personally. I would just have agreed with her to disarm the situation and ignore her remarks. If you were visibly upset, that was just fuel on the fire. Relax and don't let her neurotic behavior control you.

[riverbank]

I’m not saying that all kids should eat with their hands when ever they want, but why get so fucking crazy about a child not using a fork? All she really had to do was ask him.

 

Ha, yes I agree with you on this one, I used to get nagged at by my mum for not eating the correct way or something and I fucking hated it.

 

I'm no expert on parenting either, so won't comment on those matters.

 

I actually lived with an Indian couple for a short while, and they ate their food with their fingers. To me that was a bit odd, but that's just the culture.

[panglossian]

ok I've had 4 kids and right now one is a 5 year old and he's eating behind me...now he can use utensils...but some food to a child (like chicken nuggests etc) can be more tempting to eat with fingers...over here in England we eat our chips and pizzas without a knife or fork, so what!

 

its not a big deal and for your mil mother to even mention it is out of order, it is not her buisness to come down on you like that or your son, she needs to use good manners herself to receive some.

 

Not making an issue out of it (the opposite of what this women has done) is more likley to achieve the desired result and finally...

 

 

NO, your not a bad mom.

[Japedo]

 

Hi AM!

 

Are manners important? Yes they are to me, but being 5 at grams house a child should feel comfortable enough to act like he's at home. The Gram (or MIL) way over reacted by yelling. Had it been me, I would have handed his behavior over to his father and said, Oh.. well Husband encourages him to eat this way to make it fun as he's a picky/difficult eater. (This puts your husband already on your side, and letting his mother know he's supported this behavior in the past) I would have matter of factly stated that there was no need to yell, upsetting the grandchild and ruining dinner and handed my son the fork and said lets make gram happy and play the game another time, I would have then asked someone to please pass the peas, and REFUSED to talk about it until after dinner.

 

This is where I feel for you and understand completely how you feel. My husband didn't use to stand up to his mother when and I felt she publicly disrespected me. He would expect me to 'just try to understand' or smile and let his mom say whatever. Well I had about all I could take of that mind set and set them both in their places. If he agrees with me behind her back, I always make him face the music to her face when she tries to be critical. Her nit picking has sense stopped and so has his bending backwards to agree with her.

[scitsofreaky]

So they (my mother-in-law and her mother) continued to tell us that we need to teach our kids manors. Because if we don’t then they will be embarrassed for the rest of their lives.

Wow, nothing like trying to use shame. Coming from someone who has few manners and uses utensils like a retard, I think it's more important to learn to not be embarrassed by pointless crap like this. Yes, it is good to know when and where to have good manners, but good god, it isn't that important. Jesus christ, he's five, get over it.

[mwc]

My husband often tells my son to pretend he’s a (insert animals name here) to get him to eat his food. It works, but that’s exactly what got him in trouble with his nazi grandma and her mother tonight. He was pretending to be some kind of animal (can’t remember which one). Now my husband’s telling me that he agrees with them, that we should be more strict and make our children eat with utensils. It’s total bull shit! Its not like they don’t use utensils at all. This was one fucking incident. This was a little boy playing around, how the fuck is that rude!

 

I’m sorry, this just really pisses me off. It pisses me off even more that my husband is submitting to their fucking logic.

If your son is still eating all his meals with his hands when he's your age then you screwed up. Big time. He's five. If he was "in character" when this meal was going on then I'm not surprised. Sure it's annoying when you're not around kids and they do that but whatever. My youngest nephew does stuff like this (he's just turned 6) but he can eat with utensils too. It's not like you were all at a 5 star restaurant or anything.

 

Is this really about the manners thing or the fact that your husband, who encourages your son to act a certain way, pulled a double-standard and left you hanging in front of his family?

 

That pissed me off so much I don't see my wife's family anymore. She goes solo. We don't even have kids. I just got tired of being low man on the totem pole. The one that was patronized and condescended to by them and she'd "switch teams" once we'd get around them.

 

mwc

[Dave]

It looks like you turned out to be a good mom in spite of your family. THEY are the ones that are wrong here, very wrong. Yelling at a 5 year old is not going to produce the results they want. He's 5 and has quite a few years left to learn manners.

 

The way I'd handle it, with is probably not the best for everyone, would be to sit the relatives down and tell them a bit about manners, one of them would be to not yell at my children that way. If they do not like it, then they do not have to see the child again.

[Fweethawt]

Hell, I'm 37 years old and I still haven't figured out what the big deal is about having your elbows on the table while eating.

 

What's the big deal? Why is that "rude"?

 

[-Demona-]

I'm 23 and I still find finger foods more scrumptious than most foods you have to use a knife for. Like Fwee, I don't get what so insulting about having my elbows on the table either. As long as I'm not knocking anything over, it's all good.

 

The kid's five years old. If he wants to eat with his hands, he should be able to do it. He should not be criticized for his table manners when he's only in front of family. If he were in a public restaurant, then... yeah, he'd need to be encouraged to use his utensils as best he can.

 

And your husband needs to be less wishy-washy in front of his family. "A son is a son until he takes a wife," and all that jazz. You're his wife. He should be presenting a united front with you in front of others, whether they're family or not.

 

It blows my mind too. All this family drama over a fucking fork?!? Something deeper's obviously going on here, and you might want to sit down and have a long talk with your hubby.

[AtheistMommy]

I'm no expert on parenting, but I'd say it's pretty weird for a 5 year old to not be able to eat his food with eating utensils. It's something that, in my family, kids pick up at a pretty young age (parents and grandparents gave us those little "baby safe" spoons and forks and taught us to eat). I mean, consider that he's 5, most kids start kindergarten around 5 or 6, you don't think it'd be odd at lunch time while the other kids are using utensils (even if a bit sloppily) your kid is pretending he's some kind of animal?

 

O_o

 

He is able to eat his food with a utensil. He actually didn't use his hands he was just using his mouth. He likes to play around. And one of his favorite things to do is act like different animals.

[AtheistMommy]

It blows my mind too. All this family drama over a fucking fork?!? Something deeper's obviously going on here, and you might want to sit down and have a long talk with your hubby.

 

I did sit down and talk with him last night. He got upset because I ranted about it. So he felt he had to defend his mother. We had a long talk about it. In the end he agreed. This morning he left me a "I'm sorry for my behavior" letter.

 

There is a deeper issue. In fact, I'm not very sure how deep it goes. His mother has been a thorn in our side for a long time. She's tried to buy our son religious books, told him things about Jesus and talks often about angels. Which is, ok, but I'd like to be the one talking to him about these things or at the very least she should ask before she takes it upon herself to teach our kids about these things.

 

We've had lots of problems with his parents. And even though they've been pretty good to us, helping us when we need help, they still manage to stab us in the back. His mother has the tendency to say the most hurtful things to me. I'm still not really sure what her problem is.

 

I have theories though. For one, I think she doesn't like me because of my skin color. I don't know if it's subconscious or not but she comments a lot about it. She talks about my hair color allot too. And what's worse is she does it with a pleasant tone and a smile on her face. She told my husband that she was scared of me.

 

I know for sure she doesn't want to be around us very much. I'd love if she'd admit to her own faults.

 

Someone on here said I should have just let them have their say, yeah I suppose I should have taken the higher road. I guess I have old emotions that were drug back up. I did step away for a little and concentrate on calming my son down. It seem to help because by the time I came back they were talking about something else.

 

Its just there are two parts of me fighting over what to do. Should I let it go? Should I make them fess up to their own ignorance? They pretty much said if he doesn't learn now, he'll never learn. Yeah, I know how irrational that is. I can see my faults just as well as I can see theirs. I suppose it just ticked me off more that my husband didn't stand up for us.

 

But since our talk he said he'd talk to his mother about her place in our children's lives. I'm not sure how well this is going to go over. Last time they had a talk like this, his mom didn't visit us for a year. She clams up.

 

It's been six years and I still haven't found a good way to handle this. It's gotten somewhat better, but not quite as good as it should be. She use to tell my husband that I was very rude. Why was I rude? Because apparently I never said "Thank you" or "Good bye." The thing about it is my husband did all that so I thought he represented both of us. She failed to notice the times when I did say it (usually when I was there alone).

 

I just have mixed emotions about this whole thing right now. I still have to go back for her birthday party today. And the way she made it sound before, we weren't invited. Now, it's like she's commanding us to come over. I feel mentally ill right now.

[StewartP]

I have theories though. For one, I think she doesn't like me because of my skin color.

 

Woah! You're black?

 

I'm not talking to you any more!

 

 

He actually didn't use his hands he was just using his mouth. He likes to play around.

My best friend and I (when we were about 9 or 10) used to pretend to be neanderthals at the table. This involved squishing mash potato in your fist so that the mash squirts out between your knuckles, and eating face into the plate, no hands.

 

What really killed us was putting gloves onto our feet to make monkey feet. We couldn't breath with laughter. All thanks to a Time/Life book on the "ascent of man"

 

Today I am a model of good manners.

 

Except when I fart.

 

 

 

 

No seriously, reading between the lines, you sound like a fine, normal mom. Your mother in law has some issues tho' and I hope you get your husband's support. The nuclear family revolves around you, him, and the kids. That's where the loyalties lie. If other stuff falls in place that's cool.

 

 

best wishes

 

Stew

[Dave]

....There is a deeper issue. In fact, I'm not very sure how deep it goes. His mother has been a thorn in our side for a long time.....

I was married for 10 years. I finally got a divorce because of my mother-in-law. It got so bad it was screwing up my life. If I had set down the rules in the beginning the marriage would have been much shorter... which would have been better.

[Alice]

I have parented my children in very different ways to the way my Mother and MIL parented theirs. An unexpected problem I encountered as a result was that both took my decision to do things differently very personally - and they felt 'criticised' as parents by my decision and became rather touchy.

 

Feeling criticised as a parent really sucks and can lead to to emotionally fuelled behaviours. I just wonder if your MIL is feeling your very different parenting style as an implied criticism of hers? (Even if this has never been your intent she may feel this)

 

Some pre planning might help similar occurances - maybe institute a 'game' your son can 'play' during mealtimes with Grandma that will keep her happy, that involves 'eating posh' - but only if you and your son can see some benefit in this for you ... that's all manners are about ... mutual benefit.

 

You did well to remove your child from a situation where he was being yelled at for not meeting a set of culturally created expectations.

[AtheistMommy]

Woah! You're black?

 

I'm not talking to you any more!

 

No, I'm American Indian and Spanish. But my skin color is more of a moca gold. My husband keeps telling me I'm being paranoid and that his mom doesn't hate any race or skin color. But the woman talks about witches like she wants to kill them. I wouldn't put it past her to hate someone because of their skin color. It's the way she acts, what she says, and how she behaves that makes me think this.

 

LOL! My son would love to eat with his feet. I'm just glad he hasn't got that idea yet. He likes to run around the house like he's a monkey and build things. Its the influence of movies. Its cute when he does it.

[AtheistMommy]

I have parented my children in very different ways to the way my Mother and MIL parented theirs. An unexpected problem I encountered as a result was that both took my decision to do things differently very personally - and they felt 'criticised' as parents by my decision and became rather touchy.

 

Feeling criticised as a parent really sucks and can lead to to emotionally fuelled behaviours. I just wonder if your MIL is feeling your very different parenting style as an implied criticism of hers? (Even if this has never been your intent she may feel this)

 

Some pre planning might help similar occurances - maybe institute a 'game' your son can 'play' during mealtimes with Grandma that will keep her happy, that involves 'eating posh' - but only if you and your son can see some benefit in this for you ... that's all manners are about ... mutual benefit.

 

You did well to remove your child from a situation where he was being yelled at for not meeting a set of culturally created expectations.

 

Like I said before, I have taught him to use utensils and he sometimes insists on having one. It's just this one time he just wanted to act this way. I suppose because he was at his grandmas and he was feeling very happy. He gets excited around her. He doesn't see her much.

 

I had actually warned him before this that if he didn't eat correctly I was going to remove him. of course, this worked for a short while before he started to eat with his mouth. When I talked to my husband about this we both realized that he did it because we told him not to eat with his hands. The boy's smart and growing up with two parents who like to debate, the boy is good at finding arguments against. I think he thought that if he wasn't allowed to eat with his hands then he'd try it with his mouth. Most likely testing us. But grandma jumpped the gun.

[AtheistMommy]

I was married for 10 years. I finally got a divorce because of my mother-in-law. It got so bad it was screwing up my life. If I had set down the rules in the beginning the marriage would have been much shorter... which would have been better.

 

 

This is exactly what worries me. My parents went though the same thing. And at ten years of marriage they divorced. I don't want that to happen to us. I've been thinking about moving to another state for a while now. Maybe that's what's best for our marriage.

[Alice]

It's just this one time he just wanted to act this way. I suppose because he was at his grandmas and he was feeling very happy. He gets excited around her. He doesn't see her much.

 

I had actually warned him before this that if he didn't eat correctly I was going to remove him. of course, this worked for a short while before he started to eat with his mouth. When I talked to my husband about this we both realized that he did it because we told him not to eat with his hands. The boy's smart and growing up with two parents who like to debate, the boy is good at finding arguments against. I think he thought that if he wasn't allowed to eat with his hands then he'd try it with his mouth. Most likely testing us. But grandma jumpped the gun.

 

If there was a way of helping your MIL understand your son's intentions, sounds like this would go a long way to resolving the tension.

 

It seems she has interpreted his behaviour one way (seeing it as 'bad manners' and therefore 'disrespectful') when really its a response to the fact that he gets excited when he see's her. If she really understood this to mean 'my grandson is happy to see me' she'd likely respond differently.

 

For a child who is as ceative as your son its probably better to describe what you would like him to do, than what you don't want him to do. Fewer bases to cover!!