To get a bit peeved at MIL/PIL tightness?

thats what my parents send but the kids dont eat it all, i give most if it to british friends,neighbours and husbands side of the family when we visit as they like scandinavian snacks and sweets. My parents know this so they send things they know aquintances here like

You could have been writing about my parents - I refuse to go out with them anywhere because of it. Im not a huge eater, but im not going to NOT ORDER to make them feel better. I have had them guilting me with food and image as a child for as long as I can remember and it had to stop.

But equally, can't they just have extra "sneaky" snacks for the week?

It all cuts both ways: everyone on MN gets too wound up about having to do things differently for a relatively short space of time. It's actually good to teach children to be adaptable. That' not to say the GP are in the right; they should be adaptable too - and more aware. But all this "this or that MUST happen" is quite OTT. Sometimes we mend and make do in life; it's actually a skill. These days many people seem to need trauma counselling if their "food preference boundaries" are infringed for a few days. you can keep children fed without it needing to be at the dining table with cutlery for one week.

A week of starving small children! Seriously, what is more important? The sensitivities of miserable gits or keeping the kids fed.

Do your kids not say anything? My 4 year old would be moaning he is hungry if he only got one crumpet for tea 😂. He would get the message across to them without me needing to say anything lol.

So many questions! Apologies if you have already addressed them
Did you ever pull them up on any of this?
What did your other half say/ do?
Why didn't you just refuse to feed them ( oh what a lovely surprise, sorry we don't have enough, if you just wait, we will be done soon)
What happened when you changed lunchtime?
What are PILs like?

For my MIL it to do with perceived gluttony/dieting obsessions.
We went out for a meal when DD was under 2 and there served her a huge plate of pasta, enough for an adult. She didn’t finish it but ate loads. MIL was FURIOUS she hadn’t cleaned her plate. Very disordered view of portions in the end.

My kids rarely saw their GP. On a rare visit one of them asked for a biscuit....Help yourself I said. MIL furious.

is it a tightness thing, or just that older people have smaller appetites and they’re not realising / believing they need to up portions for you?

IL were in 50s when it was worse - they had DH young- now in 70s I think it is appetite decline but they tend to feed us now.

Honestly think they just had issues - I did at times think it was a dig at me but then saw it was done to others as well - so no idea what was going on really.

I do agree that it hugely helps if DH is on side - to help you manage situation with extra food or to have a quiet word.

DH needs to speak to them.

I’m curious OP…what do you do have do you fill the time when visiting in-laws? I’m Italian and we have always “done” meals. Plan food make food enjoy food. And we are all normal sized adults. At times it seems the visit revolves around food too much because of course Italian love is often expressed via a shared meal and in general what I call hospitality. How do you spend your time there?

is it a tightness thing, or just that older people have smaller appetites and they’re not realising / believing they need to up portions for you?

They could also passively aggressively saying you’re overweight.

All I was saying is what I believe (and hope) helps enable our kids not to have issues with food as they get older.

All you are doing is saying that other people do what they think is best because they have issues!

I am more than happy to be told about the better ways of encouraging kids to have healthier relationships with food than our way of trying to do it... but I am sure we have it much more right than OPs PILs do.

When our DC were about 7 & 9 there was an argument about food when I was plating the dinner: "She has more carrots than me", "I wanted more peas". I had had enough of the arguments. I opened the cupboards and put all the veg in bowls and the meat on a large plate, gravy in a jug. Everything was put on the table and we helped ourselves. That was what happened on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday from then on. Anything new was to be tasted, i.e. a tiny bit on their plate and they were encouraged to dip their fork in and lick the prongs. If they didn't like it that was fine. No problems with food/portions etc.

But surely when you are hosting a family, your 'approach' takes a back seat. The priority is ensuring your guests/family are comfortable during their stay.

You can go back to your approach when your guests have left.

Also off topic, but my brother once did a 4x4 trip across Namibia for a travel article he was writing, and he stayed with an Afrikaans farming family for a few days. For every breakfast he sat down to a table laden with steak, boerewors (sausage), lamb chops, eggs and bacon, fried potatoes, and porridge with hot milk!

There's a joke about Afrikaners that for them, chicken is a vegetable 😂

Also, when they do eat vegetables, they are mashed up and mixed with copious amounts of honey and sugar! (My husband is Afrikaans so I'm allowed to mock them)

@JamieCannister every family has its own peculiarities (or particularites if you like). You are doing what you believe works best for your household. That's great but someone else may take a different approach because they believe it works best for their household.

These approaches could be very different from each other. But each will think they are right.

The OP's DPIL are taking what they believe is the right approach. IMO this is a household where there is and always has been a lot of secret eating. The meagre portions are there because the mealtimes are for show. They may be assuming that everyone will fill up on whatever private stash of food they have.

I may not agree with that approach. I didn't agree with my DM's approach. Does that make me right or just different?

At first I thought you meant you all shared one egg between you. But now I realise it was one egg each, well that's all right then! 😂

This can't be real?? Was it during a war or something?

I feel lucky that my family and in-laws are/were very generous with food, insisting on making certain everyone left the table satisfied. (And that include all generations!)

It's ridiculous that they're offended that people have bigger appetites than theirs. They didn't spring out of the ground just yesterday. Even if they are small eaters, surely they're familiar with the reality that not everyone else is. I'd try not to care if they're offended that you provide some of your own food, because they've started it by failing to take everyone's comfort into consideration.

My DPs were war babies and DM was a typical grandma going mad with sweets with my DDs. If anything my parents overfed with love. Me, our cats, their dog, specifically. None of us were huge but definitely a little on the solid side. They remembered rationing, no sweets when they were little and made up for it all their lives!

Yes, I hate the "finish your plate" mentality. It just made me eat more than I needed to as a kid and teenager. I tried to teach my two to not at least take too much food when you have a choice, but also expected that they would sometimes get it wrong, as I do as an adult.

Yeah my MIL can be a bit weird/off with portions at times. I remember when I was breastfeeding and she had invited me for lunch and gave me one small piece of toast with a spoonful of scrambled egg (covering about half the toast or less) for my lunch. Having a small bit of food just made me feel more hungry and frustrated. I went home and made another piece of toast and a big dollop of scrambled eggs made with two eggs, milk and cheese, to go on the top, and a big spread of butter on the toast.

Even MIL though was generous compared with some of the examples. Most of the time there was plenty of food when we went round there, just sometimes it could be a bit off. She lost a lot of weight a few years ago and admits now that she can hardly eat anything without putting weight on, so I think she lost perspective at certain times.

My DDs we'ren't afraid to set her straight when they were old enough anyway "Granny, I'm still hungry!" Then as teenagers they can generally eat a scabby horse through the barn door, DN ever more so, and her portions have definitely taken a turn for the better!

This is our IL challenge. My FIL is adamant that our kids need to finish what's on their plates. They dish up for them too so it's not like the kids have a choice in their portion size. If we are there I will always stop it, we are clear that we do not force anyone to eat anything, but it happens when they have the kids and caused massive arguments with DD. I will address it every single time, and tell the kids that that is one rule they do not have to abide by.

I remember a visit to my SIL house when my boys were 9,8 and 6. For dinner one night they served one large pizza. For 4 adults and 6 kids under 9. We had to cut the slices in half. After we had cleaned up I went into the room we were staying in and my oldest was crying in bed because he was so hungry from swimming all day. I told my SIL we had to run an errand and took all my boys to eat. My SIL wasn't happy that we ran out, but there would have been no sleep that night had I not. Again, this was not a money thing. My boys still talk about it and they are young adults! It has become family folklore! :)