AIBU or mean to stop MIL cutting up DDs meat?

[TheHouseOnTheLane]

Lovely MIL doesn't get much chance to see our DDs....well she didn't but we've just last week moved to MIL's town so now she has.

She's very happy and so are DDs.

But MIL keeps cutting up their meat for them...they're 11 and 7! Both can handle cutlery well.

Today I finally had to say "They can cut their own meat up you know MIL." and MIL said "Oh I'm only taking it off the bone for them." so I said "They can do that too."

I can't have them babied like that...it just looks daft! AIBU and should I just let her baby them?

I think it annoys me because it removes my DDs authority over their food.

There...I've only just worked that out.

It's because...if she hurtles in, chopping and dicing it up, they have no autonomy over HOW they choose to eat it!

Hmmmm maybe I should have started my own thread there.

Small rant complete. As you were.

Your daughter coming home and speaking like a toddler and having tantrums is what you should be dealing with, not a granny who's probably thrilled the children are nearer.

Ive had the same battles down the years. I found a gentle "thanks but they are capable, we have been working on it" repeated every time accompanied by seating the dc out of reach worked.
Mil would have a different dc next to her and ds1 does a great which did the trick.

She's their grandmother, let her baby and spoil them a little if your DD's like it. It's not as if she's doing something really bad like offering them cigarettes and alcohol so she can be the cool grandma.

If they can do it, but someone else does it for them occasionally, I don't see the harm. I like it when I'm not feeling well or it's my birthday and my DH fetches a cup of tea or something for me. I can do it, but it's nice for someone else to baby me occasionally.

let it go, she's being caring. my nanna used to wash my face when I finished dinner and buy me smarties even when I was a teenager. I look back on it with such fondness because she was being caring.

I would leave it the DCs to tell her they will do it. Just make it into an affectionate family joke.

This reminds me of when I went to a friend's house for tea (we were six).

Her mum brought our tea out on a plastic plate and proceeded to cut up my fried egg with scissors. I was mortified because I felt like a baby.

I don't think YANBU, OP, but then I have recently quietly asked my MIL to stop giving ds2 (7) the special baby cutlery he used when he was little. He didn't want to say anything to her because he adores his grandma, but he felt a bit put out that she didn't think he could manage 'grown up' cutlery.

fastest way is to invite your daughter friends over for a meal they will be mortified if she does that in front of them and get her to stop you wont be the mean one and get your own way

win win !

or she could cut their food up too

Shodan MIL STILL gives them bloody plastic plates and that annoys me too as they never drop a plate! Eating from plastic is awful too.

I'm a grandma and I think she's barking!

You need to say something.

I get a little bit nervous about this kind of thing, tbh. In my experience, such habits can continue and start to cause problems when children are older. You can end up with children not wanting to go to grandma's because she still perceives them as infants even though they are well into their teens.

It would irritate me but I can imagine bith my mum and mil doing it. My mil insisted on giving my dc plastic cutlery recently - oldest is 8! And plastic beakers instead of a glass. And insisted they were too young to go in a pool with a wave machine. My mum babies them too, faffs about doing things they're more than capable of doing. Irritates me because it infantilises and disempowers them. I try to breathe deeply and let it go!