To think my mum was ridiculous about a slice of pie

I what universe does a pie (or a crumble) last more than one day????????????

Not in this house.

There were so many women who loved showing off about their slim figures and trying to make normal women feel like gluttons in the recent past, things are so much better now, well said.
my MIL is the same, but she is very fat, and scoffs cakes when she thinks nobody knows!

That often happens, doesn’t it, and we had a difficult couple of years when mum became very nasty towards me in particular. Somehow we weathered the storm and now, like her own mother at the same age and stage of dementia, she’s settled into a very happy little bubbie. Her link worker has said it’s unlikely she’ll revert back at this stage. We’ve been lucky! (Sorry for any derail OP)!

That's really interesting @Flamingfelinethe people I have known with dementia almost became more themselves, like the filters had gone. A friend's mum is currently saying really nasty judgemental things but she was always an bit like that, she just held there tongue more.

That’s very sweet of you to say, thank you. My mother and I had a difficult, uncomfortable relationship until the last few years and food was in fact an issue in that she would refer to me “struggling with my weight” which I never have … the progression of her dementia has in her case meant all that has fallen away and we enjoy a better relationship than we ever did! Sometimes there’s a bright side to dementia 😊

I'd go with option 2. She sounds just like my mother, and so I'm confident in saying she'll never change. My mother used to make a huge exhibition of having tiny portions, but would then have extras or scrape the dish at the end of the meal. I still remember the comments on the size of the meals I served ('All that? No wonder you've got a weight problem' was a particularly barbed one). Honestly, she is what she is, just try not to let it get to you.

Nice

Oh no mine is deliberate , there would be no feeding her up she’d be disgusted. She eats the same meals every single day. Not unhealthy ones just as my husband says bloody joyless. When she comes for Sunday lunch or Christmas dinner she won’t have a Yorkshire pudding or pigs in blankets, if one is put on her plate she won’t eat until she’s got someone else to take it.

you paint a nice picture of you and your mum x

@BettyCrockerClinic - that reminds me of a joke:

I’d like you to imagine one of those big, glass demijohns - the ones used for wine making, with the wide body and narrow neck. Inside the demijohn is a duck - a full size, adult, living duck.

How do you get the duck out of the demijohn without hurting or killing the duck, and without breaking or damaging the demijohn?
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Well - you imagined the duck into the bottle - so you just imagine it back out again.

Sorry.

What’s to imagine? You know what an apple pie or a cherry pie looks like, right? We’ll just “imagine” that with strawberries and rhubarb instead of apples and cherries.

Number 3 all the way. If you do anything else it’ll just enable her appalling behaviour.

She is feeling hurt and left out and a bit jealous of your in-laws. Maybe all the time so this is probably not so much about the piece of pie but maybe she feels left out generally and thinks you spend more time with the in-laws than her and maybe like them more. I would have saved a piece for her and sent a pic online and said “your piece Mom. Come on over”. I would say “Aw sorry you were hurt there was not a piece left for you, I was thinking of saving some for you but it got all eaten up! I think you generally do not feel all that warmly towards her and this is what bugs here maybe so it comes out in small things. I maybe getting it wrong so please accept my apology if this the not the case. I think saying let’s not fall out over a piece of pie maybe justified though.

My mum is 94 and has shrunk to below five foot. I don’t think she’s actually been dieting as such, but at her last GP check up she’d lost a few pounds in weight and the GP said to try not to let her lose more (she was down to 8 st from about 8 st 4lb) as it’s better for very old people to keep their weight up! I’ve been feeding her nice creamy puddings and tea cakes slathered with butter since then saying “doctor’s orders”!

Years ago I had two female friends, one of whom went to stay with the other one's family for the weekend. She came back and told me that after dinner the mother got chocolates out of a bix, cut them in half and have everyone half a chocolate. That was ut. Half a chocolate after dinner. Some people are sadly very mentally disordered around food and use it as a kind if metaphor for their sense of agency in life I think. It's really sad.

Also so sorry this is your life. It's hard when our parents didn't provide the love and safety we so desperately wanted and still need.

This is a bit harsh on you :) but perhaps you need to practice responding immediately. You have been trained by her for years to not rock the boat. At some point you know you will have to but it's impossible. On the first "did you eat all that pie in two days" perhaps the response is well not just us mum but yes it's all gone on the next you just say something like "i don't want to talk about the pie mum." Now she may want to talk about the pie but you don't so you keep saying I don't like talking about food in front of the children. Alternatively you say I'm sorry I assumed you wouldn't want pie, I can save you some next time? Also don't send her pictures of food, it's an issue for her and for you so just don't.

Yes mine is silent generation rather than baby boomer. It was currency being thin and keeping a clean house when one was otherwise quite powerless so left school at 15 etc.

mine At 83 proudly told me a couple of weeks ago that she’d got down to seven stone four. She’s doing that because she thinks it’s healthier , I’m not convinced at her age it is. She was five foot two had shrunk a bit with old age but still thatchers s low weight.

Number 2.
Make another pie, don't mention it and eat it all.

Stagger round with the most humongous fruit pie ever seen to humanity, with a big smile on your face.
Or, 2.
You’ve done your best by a difficult mother, and it would be in your interests and the interests of your kids to keep your contact with her to a minimum, I would think.

It's interesting how much of a thing this can be with older people. My mother (not a boomer - born pre-war) was similarly obsessive. I had a tendency to put on weight, so she would quite ostentatiously give me smaller portions and tut if I took cake at teatime. Her reactions if anything pushed me into wanting to eat more. She had a tendency to get hold of us on our own as children and harangue us, in my case about my weight, to an extent that was just ridiculous - I remember once she claimed my father was worried about me going into his office in case the stairs wouldn't take my vast weight - I was all of 9 stone! If she saw someone large when out and about she couldn't resist commenting loudly about how fat they were, with a sort of relish in her voice. I did once tell her that the reason I wouldn't go on any diet at home was that I knew she would make a massive production out of it with loud comments to the rest of the family, and she was quite taken aback. I think she was pretty surprised that I got and stayed married, she'd written me off as the fatty that no man would ever look at.

When she got older it became ridiculous, she couldn't have a meal served to her without claiming that it was far too much, she couldn't possibly eat that. When she was in hospital for a longish spell I used to time my visits for mealtimes because the nurses had no time to try to persuade her to eat, so she would have eaten nothing if I wasn't there to jolly her along. She became skeletally thin and unable to walk and had to go into a care home, where they did try to persuade her more but I suspect still weren't very successful. With hindsight, it was all quite sad - I think it started out as a way to validate herself and became an unhealthy obsession. It certainly didn't make her any happier.

You sound v thoughtful and a very good mum. I'd go for 'let's not row' and move on, if you still want to see her.

This sounds like my relationship with my mother. She never changed. Sure, she had her own issues, but she was very controlling and I sympathise with you, OP. However, I never had children, so I can't advise you there. My instinct is that you put them first and let them form a relationship with grandma when they are old enough, and secure enough, not to be influenced by her.

Absolutely agree. My mother was the same (well, both parents) and I had to eventually cut off contact with them because I could see how damaging it was to my children. Their other grandparents were incredible but I only reconnected with my parents once my children we teenagers and could understand better and had been brought up in a healthy household. My parents behaved just as badly but my teenagers gave it back them! They said that they understood why I had kept them out of their lives and were thankful! We stopped almost all contact after that with them and although it was sad to do so it was absolutely the right decision for our family. I am afraid that people don't change and it took a lot for me to shake off their bad parenting and grow up to be a healthy adult. I didn't want to inflict anything on my kids. Yes, it is a lot to limit your relationship over a piece of pie incident but I think you already it is more than just this. So let her know you are not going to put up with her behaviour anymore and stick to her guns. You never know, she may change but be prepared for if she doesn't.

I think the only thing you can control here OP is your reaction to her words. It sounds like she’s triggering an insecurity in you so I think it’s that you need to tackle rather than her. She won’t change and she definitely won’t change because you tell her she needs to. We can only ever work on ourselves. If you have a healthy, happy relationship with food in your house your kids won’t be impacted by her occasional oddball comment, they’ll see it for what it is. You can remove the power of her words with how you react to them.

4 Tell her you don’t want your children to grow up worrying about their appetites or food intake, without accusing her or calling her ridiculous. She’ll probably push it, and then you can say words to the effect that “you did, actually, although you probably didn’t mean to. Let’s move on”. Makes the point, but avoids the drama.