To not want to see SIL ever again!!!

[han3459]

My SIL and I have always differed completely on how we raise our DDs. Both of our eldest girls are 12 and it's become a constant issue between us.

Whilst SIL is a controlling psycho stricter parent (in my opinion), I am much more relaxed with my DD. For example, I let my DD wear some make up, paint her nails, has two ear piercings and occasionally will go on trips to town with her friends. I try to let my DD have some independence by letting her make decisions such as what to wear (within reason), choosing the activities she wants to participate in, and how to spend her pocket money.

SIL totally disagrees with most of these and has made this known on many occasions. She refuses to let DD go anywhere without adult supervision, won't let her wear anything she doesn't like and is totally anti any kind of make up/hair straightening etc. I do feel sorry for my DN as she is constantly not allowed to do things my DD can do, which must be hard for her.

I totally understand people have different ways of raising their children and DD is respectful of different rules in other people's houses. However, my SIL is constantly criticizing me and my DD in front of us about parenting which drives me insane.

Lately things have got much worse. A few weeks ago, SIL and BIL took DN and DD out for the day. When they stopped at a restaurant, SIL repeatedly told off DD for eating with her cutlery the wrong way round and forced her to use them the other way. I could not care less which way she uses them as long as she doesn't use her fingers and was furious as DD said she struggled to eat her meal. When I rang SIL about this, she said it was my fault for not teaching her proper social etiquette.

The last straw was a few days ago. SIL and DN came over as we were planning a family trip out. My DD was wearing a knee length dress with some mid calf length boots. It was a very cute little outfit in my opinion. However, SIL instantly made her opinion that it was inappropriate and asked my DD to change because she didn't want her daughter to thing it was an acceptable way to dress.

This led to an absolutely huge row, with SIL storming out after I refused to tell DD to change. I am so sick of having to put up with the constant judgement from her and don't think it's fair on my DD to be criticized all the time. I do feel for my DN but AIBU to stop seeing SIL so often??? All it causes is stress

was it the knee high boots with knee length dress that got your SIL riled? eg the boots combined were considered sexual? I think your SIL has the slight problem there as she's reading things into this re that outfit being sexual.

Just sounds like she is very much a control freak and wants to put same onto you and your DD.

Also sounds as if she won't listen if you say you're not happy with her talk to your DD. So I'd avoid, limit contact. Not cut off completely. Maybe a short word about the above just so she knows why the avoidance.

Please,please teach the table manners!Know of a' greedy, slobbering,slurping first at the dish hound' with no self awareness.

He is in a senior position and leaves multi- national clients and colleagues reeling at any food related event.So embarrassing!

It is (cringingly) defended that he is from a different region...will not say where,as bunfight will ensue.

Bourgeoise? Snobby? Sue me then!

I really feel for your DN - I was that child, whose mother never let me do anything for a good few years after everyone else was allowed to do it, I was bullied for my "sensible shoes" - really, horribly bullied - and I was miserable.

Whatever we think about other people's parenting styles, it is the height of bad manners to criticise them, and especially to undermine them in front of their dc. Personally, I would limit the time you spend with them - it doesn't sound as if it is making anybody happy.

But - and I have read all the cutlery hand-wringing here - I grew up in a very "normal" family and then, because of the career I chose and the man I married, ended up attended a lot of very smart social occasions, where it would have been frowned upon to use the wrong set of cutlery for the wrong dish, let alone in the wrong hands. I agree with JellyStrawberries that it is nothing less than looking down on people and considering them socially inferior - and this is something I try not to do - but I don't want other people doing it to me either and I was grateful that my parents had insisted I used my cutlery in the conventional way.

As an aside, there is a reason for this convention. If you are packed around a dining table quite snuggly, cutting meat, for example, the person cutting with their left hand will continually bump arms with the person next to them. If everyone cuts with their right hand, everbody's fork arm is tucked in a bit more.

I think this is actually worthy of a thread about a thread... takes the term pitchfork to a whole new level

in all seriousness, in a society where eating disorders are on the increase and where it is incredibly easy to create issues surrounding food, there is a very real risk that such anal comments as calling those who eat with cutlery the wrong way round morons could lead to actual self consciousness and in the long term could have an impact on someone's relationship with food.

There are table manners e.g. not eating with your mouth open/talking with your mouth full/throwing food everywhere etc which are important and should be learned from an early age. but eating with a knife and fork the wrong way around is just semantics and anyone who has the energy to get worked up about that needs to get a life. Why does it matter as long as the food is eaten politely? seriously?

Fwiw I eat with my cutlery the correct way around but my mum doesn't. I am however VI, and sometimes it might happen that I am presented with food which I might not have anticipated e.g. fish which happens to be whole/meat which is served on the bone etc and then I might struggle a bit. Now I do pre-empt by asking a waiter if the fish is filleted/whether this can actually be done in the kitchen rather than me having to struggle and be an embarrassment both to myself and others, but one particular incident comes to mind:

about fifteen years ago I went to a restaurant with my now xh, we ordered steak on recommendation of the waitress, I think it was rib-i or new York strip or some such. Anyway it was a cut of steak I wasn’t famillliar with and as it turned out had a streek of fat running through the middle of it. All very lovely in terms of added flavour and so on but a nightmare when you can’t see what you’re cutting and what is fat and lean meat... So i tried, and struggled to cut up this piece of steak and became a bit exasperated. Dp (we weren’t married at this point) became increasingly quieter and I could tell wasn’t happy about something. When I asked what was wrong he blerted out that my table manners were “apawling!” he really was quite angry with me. I was mortified and embarrassed but also deeply hurt and all I could do was say sorry, I put my cutlery down and didn’t finish (I had bearly started) the steak so as not to embarrass him any further.

I didn’t say a word for the rest of the meal because I was afraid I would just burst into tears if I did. When the waitress came to clear the plates she made mention of the fact I hadn’t eaten the steak, and again I just apologised while trying not to cry.

Since then I am always extremely cautious what I eat out in terms of meat which might contain unseen fat because I don’t want to be an embarrassment and yes, I realise that social skills are important especially when you can’t see and you can’t see the disapproving looks of others when yu get it wrong.

But even now writing down that story makes me want to cry, and I was 25 back then.

Food is a vitally important part of living. There are ways to address how someone eats without making them feel that food needs to be an issue for them. And things like the correct way to hold cutlery are not important enough in the scheme of things to potentially turn them into a food-related issue.

Nail polish doesn't bother me (dd2 at 2 sports some occasionally) but make up on a 12 year old isn't great for their skin and isn't a great message to your daughter about her looks and worth in society imo.

I would rethink that.

If SIL pisses you off stop seeing her.

wannabe, you won't embarrass anybody unless ypu spear the food and wave it around your head, I promise.
Your ex sounds lovely, I can't understand why you ever let him go!

I'm struggling to imagine that anyone is so fucking stupid as to think that a person cannot eat in a well mannered way whilst holding their knife in their left hand. It really beggars belief!
There is a world of difference between having no table manners, and using the "opposite" hands to hold ones knife and fork. Holding your fork in your right hand does not mean you're stooping over your plate shovelling in whole slices of meat or slurping soup from the side of the bowl.

Ultimately it is only as important as it is to those in whose circles you move.

If the people you associate with either personally or professionally deem it important, then you would probably wish to conform.

If you never come across those people in your life (and you may not wish to - fair enough) - then it's not.

I was taught by my parents that it was important. I can't think of anyone in my circles that eats with their cutlery the opposite way around to me. And I am from a fairly working class background, maybe with delusions of middle classness from my Mum haha.

Carryon. there is no correct hand with which to hold cutlery! its petty outdated semantics. Who is anyone to insist that people hold their cutlery in a hand which feels alien and uncomfortable. It is the height of bad manners and imo possible insecurity of social status as the upper classes really do not care in my experience.

My father used to have his left hand tied behind his back and used to be beaten if he tried to write with it. Nowadays we acknowledge that this was abusive and damaging yet a few people still use the same stupid approach when it comes to eating.
I would be appalled if any guest or employee of mine was made to feel uncomfotable whilst eating because of such a ridiculous insistence.

My daughter was raised in the US and they use the other way round as a matter of course which goes to prove that there is no right or wrong hand.

Only on mumsnet would a poster pose this problem, then be responded to with pages of people huffing and puffing over the 'correct' way to hold a sodding fork. Not that there IS a correct hand to use for your fork of course...except on here.
I wonder what those posters younger selves would think of their older selves getting sanctimonious over bloody cutlery.
Jesus Christ.

Anyway OP - I think your sil sounds like an arrogant, disagreeable, self important nightmare. How rude! Yanbu. Time to employ the major bodyswerve there in my opinion. I wouldn't spend an extra minute in her company than was strictly necessary.

Haven't read all replies but I hold my knife and fork backwards. I'm not let sure that anyone has ever noticed but I also have very good table manners. Being a leftie is not bad manners in my opinion.

Wannabe. If you'd decided to imbed your fork in his neck after that,I think no jury would have convicted you. That's a terrible way to treat anyone. I'm so sorry that he was such a twat,and humiliated you like that when you did nothing wrong.

Long gone are the days when it was socially acceptable to force children into using cutlery the right handed way, just as it is no longer acceptable to force a child to write with their right hand, throw a javelin/discuss/shotput with the right hand, or to force children to do anything that was traditionally right handed.

Even at formal events it is socially acceptable to swap cutlery round and use it in the hand that is correct for you.

Is this really still going?

Seriously - all of you posters snooting about the bloody cutlery, shut down your computers and go out and do something spontaneous and carefree at once. You need it.

I've had similar issues with a friend.

We both have 12 year olds, I'm more laid back and tend to pick my battles. She's controlling with her children to the nth degree.

We were on holiday a few years ago and she ended up having a massive hissy fit because I let my children do things she doesn't let hers do and I refused to bow to her mad rules (like no towels on sand)

We just see each other without the kids now, I couldn't stand listening to the constant nit picking, she felt I was undermining her parenting by not parenting mine the same so it all got far too awkward

FWIW, my 12 year old goes into town on her own, if she wanted a 2nd ear piercing I wouldn't get my knickers in a twist over it, and as long as she wasn't chewing with her mouth open, lolling all over the table, spilling food everywhere, I really couldn't give a shiny shite which hand she holds her knife or fork in

I'm RH but have LH tendencies, i wear a watch on my right arm, i eat both ways and often switch while i am eating. I'm actually more comfortable eating the 'leftie' way, i often lay the table the 'wrong' way round. A few people have commented on the way I've laid the table to which i have replied 'just because its 'wrong' for you doesn't mean it is for others, and how bloody hard is it to move a knife/fork?' but no one ever in any social event has commented or made me change (I wouldn't either).

Your SIL is out of order for criticizing the way you parent your daughter and is certainly out of order for doing it in front of any child. You each have a difference of opinion and you both have to accept that, maybe send her an email/tex saying that and just leave it there. If she continued to go on then i would just distance myself from her. If the girls get on and like spending time then maybe arrange for them to see each other but be respectful of the others choices/boundaries. However if SIL asks your daughter to change her outfit then i would ask SIL to change hers as you don't like it and see how she feels.

Nail varnish on a two year old?!
A child is a person, not a fashion accessory.

*Noodle, she's 12, not 2! Genuine question for those of you who wouldn't let a 12 year old go into town without an adult - assuming their road safety is ok, what do you honestly think is going to happen to them? 12 is secondary school age when kids are expected to make their own way to and from school. If they're ok to do that, how is going into town on their own or with a friend different?

And as for the cutlery angst, words fail me. I can honestly say that I've never noticed what hand people hold their fork in.

A PP stated that she puts nail varnish on her 2 year old daughter

I am a person not a fashion accessory. But I like nail polish as it's colourful and fun. I'd imagine a 2 year old feels the same.

I don't see anything wrong with nail polish on children of any age. I don't like make up on younger girls as I think it changes their appearance to make them look older but nail polish doesn't do that. It's just a bit of fun.

Oh well strike her down. It's the worst thing she could possibly do. Or something.

OK sorry.

No, actually I'm not sorry. Make up on a two year old - probably not unless it was part of dressing up or pretending to be Mummy but I don't see an issue with nail polish, it's just a bit of fun.