to object to italian mil's comments

[earthling]

i live in northern italy and have a 4 month old baby with my italian husband...my mil started to call me fatty when i was pregnant to which i objected after the nth time of her saying it so i thought she'd got the message loud and clear only for her to say something quite hideous when i was 7 months pregnant when we were at a restaurant. a rather obese unattractive woman walked in and my mil asked whether i was eyeballing her coz she reminded me of myself (!?) my dh was sat next to me and heard but didnt react which has since been a source of countless arguments...she saw my crestfallen expression and laughed at me. she hung up on dh when he finally got round to asking her about it (2 weeks later!) so i avoided her for the rest of my pregnancy. when my baby was born she came to the hospital and remarked that she'd never have thought someone like me would have made such a lovely baby (ha bloody ha)...ive since decided i just dont want anything more to do with her and dh takes the baby round to see her once a week....is this simply cultural difference territory to be tollerated by me (as dh asserts) or a nasty person with issues (shes 90 kg) to be avoided from now on?

OP: don't think it is a cultural issue (am Italian married to a Brit), it is a rude MIL issue!

Having said that, I would also add that if she is older and does not speak a language other than her own she probably has no understanding of (1) the challenges you are facing (being a new mother abroad away from everything that is familiar is not nice); (2) the fact that jokes do not translate and that English is a much more indirect language than Italian. I say this just to remind you that although she may just be plain nasty, it is also just possible that she is just an average MIL (not fantastic, but no ogre) whose failings are magnified by cultural differences.

I certainly know that still now, after more than 10 years in the UK, I often find what others tell me is well-meaning teasing quite offensive. Rationally I understand where the issue is, the irritation is undiminished. And even though the teasers (ILs too) know, because they have been told, they I do not find it funny, they go on, because, the argument goes, after so many years here and having such good command of the language (I work in a profession where nuances are essential) surely I must get it. So maybe there is a bit of that in your MIL's behaviour?

And MILs of any nationality to a certain extent almost always grate. Only the other day I was describing the cakes I am planning to make for DS's birthday and the answer was "are you not making jelly?", sort of implying that whatever cakes I make will not make up for the absence of mass-produced coloured gloop. So replied none of the children attending are 100% Brit and therefore are unlikely to expect jelly. And in any event their mothers would not let them eat it, I know I would not let DS. Maybe it was meant quite innocently, but it grated. How does this exchange sound to your British ears? If it sounds quite innocent and I quite easily irritated, perhaps worth wondering if the language/cultural differences at work are also affecting the exchanges between you and your MIL.

Sorry, long post to say I am not sure what's going on, but do consider the cultural difference issue, so that you perceive things differently and more sharply than you would if they were said in English (with English inflection etc).

PS the "how could two average people have produced such a gorgeous baby" is very common, would not make much of it. It is a clumsy way of complimenting the baby, not a way of suggesting you and your DH are ugly.

suigeneris i assure you ive probed hard and deep to try to pass off her behaviour as innocuous and my reaction to her comments i even convinced myself were down to my raging preg hormones hence avoiding her for rest of pregnancy to see how i'd feel once my hormones had settled post birth but if anything i'm more angry with her now for taking advantage of my vulnerable state...and we're not talking comments about jelly here we're talking equating me to a fat,old,ugly, obese woman who'd just entered a restaurant after my telling her i found her repeated "cicciona" jibes upsetting...thats just plain rude and hurtful - not a subtle differnce in perception of language.....

It might be an italian thing, when i worked in a restaurant an italian waiter told me i was getting "fat like a cow"!!!!! He is otherwise lovely so I was bit surprised.

Maybe its a translation thing and they don't realise how insulting the word "fat" is, maybe they thought it was more "blooming"

Although that doesn't explain the "like a cow" bit - maybe he has a fetish, haha

an italian waiter told me i was getting "fat like a cow"!!!!!

I'm beginning to think I got off lightly out in public. My preggo doc was threatening to staple my mouth shut by the end, and most people did a double take and were very worried for my future waistline as I swelled at a terrifying rate from 50 to 90 kilos during pregnancy...but nobody was quite that blunt in how they phrased it.

Negative comments about the weight gain, (Oh I\my wife\the woman in the post office\mia mamma, was so GOOD, only gained 9 kilos blah blah chuffing blah) yes, by the bucketful. Followed by pointed looks at my mega bump.

But by and large people managed to avoid actually calling me a lard arse.

At least not to my Hargan Das smeared face.

My MiL took to calling me fat when I was pregnant. One day I snapped and said "you've piled on the pounds too". It was true and she was gutted, saw her later staring at her arse in the mirror

She sounds like a nasty cow, Italian or not. But it's a bit ironic that you thought it was ok to stare at a "rather obese, unattractive woman". Ok as long as it's not you getting the abuse then?

i wasnt staring at her she was directly in front of me and i was wilting fast due to heat so mil took my pained expression as bein directed at fat woman....whatever its all petty and pathetic and have simply surmised tis better to not see her anymore thats the issue now as its me whos the villain and hencetoforth i'll be known as the touchy english dil depriving her of proper contact wi her grandson..

Gwendoline - you beat me to it. Feeling very sorry for the obese, unattractive woman here.

Although I agree your MIL sounds like a nightmare.

Still smacks of double standards though and you don't seem to see that. Doesn't mean your mil isn't a cow but you don't have to follow her example.

I'm married to an Italian also, and have to say that my mil (batty as she is) would never ever say anything that mean! She might bitch about me behind my back, about unimportant things, but never anything downright nasty.
I think it is a cultural thing in some ways, boys and their Mammina's are a funny thing. Dh and mil have a very love/hate relationship but I get on well with her on a day to day basis (probably because we're 60 miles away!).
I think you need to rise above it as much as possible and ignore her. She's probably scared of losing her son more now that he's cementing his family with children iykwim?

talk about being called fat - asked a shop assistant in asia if they had some knickers I liked in my size - she just looked me up and sown and said, 'Madam, we have nothing in your size!'. I'm a size 12, that'll teach me!

Sarahitaly - can I just say - I think I love you a little bit... looks like brilliant practical advice of actual things to say to the OP's DH.

Can you come over and sort my life out sometime?

oh dear. this whole thing isnt about being fat tho is it?????? i wasnt fat i was pregant..you just dont dis a pregnant woman about her weight..doh...espesh one carrying your unborn grandson

earthling

got a couple of links for you.

www.expatsinitaly.com/phpbbforum

try the kids in Italy or culture shock forums, but you'll find loads and loads of people who'll give you advice and if nothing else, support on the bad days.

and there is this one too, a bit Rome centric but again with people who understand where you are coming from.

pinkitaly.forumotion.com/

I think I just about hated Italy when my son was a baby. The family (and the rest of the country) were driving me mad with constant dire warnings about colpa d'aria etc. etc. and I was out of my depth as a new mummy, in a place that suddenly felt really, seriously alien. On top of that I had my husband pussy footing around his mother who was thrown for a loop by my having his child, instead of buggering off and leaving her "miracle baby" alone with her, as she had hoped.

It is a rough time for any couple, the first baby stuff. But when you do it with one of you abroad, feeling like a fish out of water, all your differences seem less "interesting" and more "insurmountable"..and it is a killer.

Add one MIL with tact issues at best, and Machiavellian intent at worst and ...oh it is not fun.

Most of the time it gets better. You and the new daddy get more into the swing of the parenting thing, you have your "important chats\letters" and while it might seem one step forward and two steps back, most of the time people get there in the end and sort things out.

So while you are on that journey, lean on the people that have walked it before. If nothing else you are going to feel less alone and seeing people who have battled through to the other side is a more hopeful place to be than thinking it is just you, and everything is a bit doomed.

Just to be on the safe side, have you been to the doc to see how you are doing post birth ? I'm not saying your vision of MIL is one brought about by PND, but more that with all the additional pressures you have, you are at a heighten risk of getting really blue after birth. Might be worth a check up just to keep an eye on things.

I've found the little Italy thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/other_subjects/1057615-Little-Italy-23?pg=17and it is great, worth popping over if you want to stay in a mumsnet zone, but one focused on the stuff that is most pressing for you.

This isn't one that gets solved over night, but with a couple of shoulders and a sprinkling of ears over the next few months there is every reason to believe that you'll blink and realise you have a hulking ten year old and be saying the same things I've been saying to you, to some lady with a little baby, who is tearing her hair out.

I've shouted at my husband a bit on your behalf ("you bloody mother obsessed spineless men etc. etc. etc".). Because he is here under my nose and yours isn't... and anyway mine was just as bad when our little one was born...so he deserves it.

"Can you come over and sort my life out sometime?"

Are you married to my husband's younger twin too ? (=

Have horrible feeling somebody has been cloning him behind my back. Just hope that doesn't extend to include his mother.....

mo, it is nothing to do with your weight IMO. If it wasn't that, it would be something else

my idea would be to put some distance in km between your little family and MIL _ like emigrating to AUstralia. That would be my line of thought

sarah i hear you bout blowing things out of proportion and a reason i didnt get too vocal about this at the time was coz i wanted to give myself time to calm down..she even suggested to dh i was suffering from PRE natal depression as i'd been so upset by her comments..ive asked myself whether im just projecting my previous strife with ex partners mother onto her or whether coz italy pretty much disgusts me at present (vis Berluska atc) im exaggerating her lack of tact and courtesy but heh u know what? gut instinct is shes an issue riddled bag to avoid at all costs. dh says she's not nasty etc and she's a good grandmother but apparently all she does when baby goes round is take thousands of pix of him and film him with her phone..i wrote her a letter explaining my feelings but she didnt even deign to reply and instead texted dh telling him to get round there sharpish and phoned her brother in france to moan about me. if I had offende and upset her as she did me i'd have rightly been criticised by all and sundry. how do these things pan out once uppity dil refuses to have anything to do with rude mil?

I would think of some nice insults to say back . . . but then I'm childish like that!