Aibu to ignore school mum from now on!

[Yepyep333]

My ds has a best friend at school so I am friendly with the mum but don't socialise outside of school with her, she is a lovely lady and we make small talk every morning, today she said to me 'Can I ask you something?' So I said of course, she then said 'why are you getting fatter? You are so pretty but you are fat WHY would someone say this?!! I have never discussed my weight with her, I'm not grossly overweight neither have I put on lots of weight recently for her to notice a difference, I'm just gobsmacked and I still can't believe it, I just looked at her when she said it and then she starting saying I need to drink water and lemon as I must feel really heavy and lazy I'm not sure what I should say to her when I see her next as the doors opened for school and we went our separate ways!

for example I know a lot of Deaf people and this would be a typical comment in the Deaf community.

Really? I'm deaf and this is NOT something any of my hearing friends would say nor my deaf ones. In my circles of friends people are not rude! Please substantiate your comment on why you think people who are deaf would say something like this?

Some cultures wouldn't have a problem with this conversation. I have worked with nurses who are lovely people but sometimes would say something like this.

Meggy I certainly don't think Deaf people are rude and I don't think that's what the other poster meant.

I suspect it was a comment on some cultures having different values regarding some things and I think that is true of Deaf culture in my experience. Sign is a visual language and quite often physical descriptions of people are used - I know loads of people who's sign names refer to them being bald or tall or having really long hair or even in one case large breasts. So in that context perhaps commenting on someone's physical appearance might be less rude? Although I've never been told I'm looking fat by a Deaf person, they have lied that I'm looking slimmer though.

There was that whole argument on the appropriateness of the sign for a Chinese person - and that was based around a physical characteristic and as I recall the proponents of the old signs basic argument was 'in sign language we say what we see and no one should be offended by that'. - I'm not saying if that was right or wrong but it was at least a branch of Deaf culture.

My mother has a friend/neighbour who is French, she often comes out with gems like this!

I'd say to her that you found the comments a bit off and could you avoid personal remarks in future as you don't consider looks etc up for public discussion

I am foreign and in my home country it is completely normal to comment/ask about stuff that here in the UK is precieved to be private or rude. I have learnt to adapt but it took a while! Give her another chance.

Ps: on the other hand, if you are putting on weight, try to control it now, it's much more difficult later on

My late nan was German and said what she thought.

She told my very thin friend this... "you're a lovely girl but you look like a greyhound"!

Be completely honest when you see her next "have been thinking about what you said and I'm truly mortified, did you mean to be so rude? "

I remember seeing someone I used to work with a few years back. She said to me 'ooh you don't look any different. Except you've put on some weight haven't you?'
I couldn't help but reply 'yes I'm almost catching you up'

Perhaps that is why Netherlands is the only country in europe where obesity is declining?
Perhaps we need friends to look out for us?

My friend married into a Kuwaiti family. The first time I met her sisters in law they remarked that they could not understand why my husband had left me as I looked ok and wasn't too fat!

I think if you value the friendship up to now, it would be great if you were able to 'suspend offence'

That doesn't mean you can't revisit the conversation and explain in our culture it's rude to comment on appearance.

I have a gem for you op. I am fat (currently losing, but it's not going away overnight) and I volunteer at an English conversation group attended by a mix of refugees and asylum seekers.

Each week we start with an ice breaker, so I was chatting to a stick thin man from Eritrea. He was supposed to ask me three questions about myself. He started with 'do you go to the gym?' Now the thing is, I've got health problems that have prevented me from using the gym and I'm recovering from a major surgery, but I didn't want to go into that, so just paused briefly before replying 'no'

'Well, you should,' replied the man, with a kindly smile, 'because you are very fat. You should go to the gym, and then you will be thin, like me.'

I had two choices in that moment - laugh or cry, and I chose to laugh. I was gutted but I understood he did not mean to be rude or hurtful.

'Next question.... Do you go swimming?'

I will fully admit to bawling my eyes out when I told my Dp the story that night.

I second the Asian thing. Worked with a someone who was Asian and she was by far one of the loveliest and friendliest person I've met and even she told me it's completely normal to call someone fat and not mean it as an insult.

I always had another work colleague who would go on about how tired I looked and had I gone out the night before etc. I eventually snapped and told her how rude she was and she was genuinely shocked .... and English was her first language.

I have a lovely Austrian friend who comes out with gems like this. She is my personal barometer. She will also tell me if she doesn't like my choice of clothes or shoes. Going clothes shopping with her is hilarious, she disses nearly everything and says English people have no sense of style (oh the irony!) I've known her for nearly 20 years, it's just her way and I love her for it!

DH Austrian great aunt often tells me how it's good I'm fat unlike her because it makes me less wrinkley!!!
And as for going clothes shopping in Hong Kong I don't think be recovered from that one 15 years later.
If you like this woman then you should try to explain to her that it's not acceptable to say things like that here before she loses all her friends