My Australian MIL

[WS12]

So I just wondered AIBU to be peed off with my MIL, or am I just being precious...

I am from the UK, born and bred in northeast England. Met my DH there who is Australian and got married had kids, lived there together for 7 years. Then we moved to Aus in 2016.

I get so annoyed at the digs all the time from my Australian MIL (culture clash I think) about England (she always loved visiting us though and came regularly often twice a year!).

Yesterday she said she was concerned about my DHs health when we lived there as he was always ill with cold ... ummm 60 million people manage to live here just fine....

Tonight's digs are (she's staying with us for three nights). Out potato peeler is old fashioned and she will bring me a new one "I'm going to bring you a new peeler. This peeler is so old fashioned. This is from England" and I said it actually isn't it's from Woolworths...

Second dig. My son is receiving speech therapy to help his clairity and sounds. She asked if it was to help him learn to speak Australian. I could've punched her. She isn't saying it nastily, but it's like she just doesn't think of how offensive that actually is to me as a native English speaker.

My DH says she has no filter, like the rest of his family. She still also insists we have a ghost in our house.

👊👊👊👊 I feel like moving back to England just to piss her off.

I get the same from my MIL here in Sweden. She tells me I am so lucky to live in Sweden instead of that dangerous dirty city - London which she refused to visit when her son lived there with me for 10 years.

Apparently Sweden invented everything and England is good for one thing only 'Midsomer Murders' which she and watches with Swedish subtitles.

If it really gets no worse than this I should just grow a thicker skin and ignore. I don't think the pride of the UK rests on the design of our potato peelers (so who cares if she doesn't like yours) and I expect people do get more colds in the UK in the same way more Australians die of sharks or snakebite. Just geography innit?

I live abroad in Europe and get this all the time too, not from MIL specifically, just from anyone! Digs about the food, the weather, etc. It used to wind me up no end, now I just shrug it off as ignorance and pity them

I'm English with an Australian dh but we live in England. Your post confirms in my mind (if I needed confirmation, which I dont) that I made the right decision not to move to Oz. My MIL, whom I see the most of, isn't that bad, though her casual and constant racism makes me see red, but I know other members of the family would make digs such as you describe. It is meant to be funny, I get that, but it must be so wearing.

I'm from the northeast so I have a broad accent and my DS who was 3 when we moved is now transitioning between the two - a mix of both. My DD is also a mix but she was 1 when we moved - my MIL asked the other day what accent she was developing and was it Australian 🙄 As if it'd be good news if she didn't speak like me 😂

No it doesn't get any worse than that... I'll just try and let it go over my head. England is the best country on earth and always will be special to me 💕😊

My son is receiving speech therapy to help his clairity and sounds. She asked if it was to help him learn to speak Australian

Tell her there's no such thing as Australian, only Australian English. Emphasise the English bit. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Ask her what's in the top left-hand corner of the Australian flag. 🇦🇺

LOL!

Yes it's because he says lee instead of wee and lock instead of rock. It has nothing to do with accent. And he's been speaking very quickly, also nothing to do with accent 👊

It's so odd because she loves London and loves England. But then criticises it so frequently...

he asked if it was to help him learn to speak Australian. I could've punched her. She isn't saying it nastily, but it's like she just doesn't think of how offensive that actually is to me as a native English speaker

Sounds like a joke, and you are way OTT.

(grin] oh you could have so much fun winding her up. Love that she weirdly thinks a crap tin opener is crap because it's from England!

*.

I’m English and live in Australia and have had a couple of comments about “what on Earth do children do in England with all the rain?” which I find quite funny, but they mean well.

I do think Australians are quite blunt though, although even I’m struggling to find what she said about speech therapy offensive (maybe I’ve been here too long!)

Apparently Sweden invented everything and England is good for one thing only 'Midsomer Murders' which she and watches with Swedish subtitles.

Hahahah! Yes I have a MM obsessed MIL as well. Swedes are really quite something aren’t they...? The Svenska är bäst attitude is pretty wearing sometimes. It’s a very blinkered view of the world (no your tea is not better, it’s like pot pourri...)

Is there any chance you would move back to the UK? Giving her the benefit of the doubt, could she just be trying to tell you how much better it is living in Oz rather than the UK (her opinion) as she wouldn't want you to leave?

I'd say it's more about her having a chip on her shoulder re England (not uncommon) and her comments reflect that.

Just ignore the comments or even laugh at them - they are about her not you.

Maybe she thinks if she knocks the UK enough you will never want to move back there? I would ignore her

My DD is also a mix but she was 1 when we moved - my MIL asked the other day what accent she was developing and was it Australian 🙄

That sounds like a perfectly valid comment/question, regardless of what country someone is (now) living in. Very young children who move to a new country usually do adopt the accent of the people around them as they're exposed to it on a daily basis.

One of my friends and her DH have totally different accents to their children as they moved overseas when the kids were small.

It sounds like you're looking for offense where none is intended.

Ooh lol! I have an Aussie MIL and I am also a Northerner living in Oz with Aussie DH.

Mine says things like "Well, the food here is obviously much better than in England. We DO eat well."

With an awful, smug look on her face.

She's generally lovely but I hate that attitude.

Hah, Finns are just like this too. My problem is that it still winds me up even though I've lived in the UK for 20 years now.

Finns are the best nation in the world and it is the best country in the world too. They love all the UK tv-series though but constantly put anything British down. It's really wearing and I don't really mix with Finns as I'm not interested in their favourite conversation which is how dumb are the Brits and their silly ways.

Few years ago my Finnish step dad gave me a lecture how backward the Brits are. This is from a guy who doesn't shower, only has sauna once a week, has never travelled apart from a brief stint working in Russia (this was when it was called the Soviet Union) but he is a Finn and therefore superior.

Sorry OP, this is not helping you, the comments about the Swedes just touched a nerve

It sounds like classic culture clash. You do realise that all the whinging you are doing about 'Australian' things is the exact opposite side of the coin of the behaviour you are so annoyed about?
Something to consider too, although it may be a bit too deep for MN, is that especially during the 1960s to 1980's there was what was known as 'cultural cringe' - a tendency to always see mother England as superior - in language, culture, education etc etc. Around the 200's this swung back the other way and for the first time in history Australians started feeling pretty chuffed (and quite frankly, there are a lot of good things to reccomend life over here, so about time too).
A lot of the things are quiet joshing, especially anything about accents - it's not that we're proud of our accents, we are actually taking the piss, it's a joke. We mock, you're dry - a stereotype but says a lot about how senses of humour clash.
All of you who are like I'll take my DH away from his family and that'll teach them, what assholes, you're just like my SIL, who has successfully isolated my DB from his family and gone overseas, and we're unlikely to see much of him or the kids ever again. Well done. I haven't got much family, and it is an eternal sadness to me and my mum. If you want to marry someone from another culture, a little give and take with the cultural differences between families goes a long way.

My MIL has no filter and she only lives a few miles away. MILs are either lovely or a pain in the @r$e - mine is the latter!

Put on a faux concerned look and say "yes, im worried about his accent, we're thinking of elocution lessons for them to stamp out any bad habits." 😉
I grew up in Australia and had a barrage of Australia is the best, much better than cold, cramped, dirty, dangerous Britain. One of my. Primary teachers was particularly adept at it and singled out all the Poms for his xenophobia.

I lived abroad for a while and got super irritated about this sort of comment - is it just me who found a new sense of patriotism when living abroad? Like if someone in the UK now said to me "English food is dreadful", I would just laugh and probably agree somewhat, but when in Austria I actually could've stabbed someone for the same

Maybe tell your DH to make it clear to her that you find these comments hurtful as you miss your country, and she needs to stop them before you move back!

I spent some time in Australia quite some years ago now and came in for a lot of stick from Aussies - they do seem to have a bit of a chip about England and the Poms and have rather strange misconceptions about England if they have never been. One girl commiserated with me about how awful it must be to live in a country with no trees. I tactfully responded and she said, "Well, England has no trees". I kindly didn't point out what an idiot she was and said that we did have quite a lot of trees in places, for instance, near my London suburb is a forest that was given by Queen Victoria to the people. Sadly, this sparked off an angry diatribe against monarchy "Why did she think it was hers to give? - How did she get it?" etc. I also hitchhiked with my Aussie friend and a truck driver picked us up once and, finding out I was a Pom, called the news through to his truck driver mates on the CB radio and said he wouldn't have picked us up if he'd known one of us was a Pom (he was joking, fortunately).

Just change the subject to the cricket.

I had Scottish in laws who could never stop insulting London: the water, the air, the people, the traffic, the food ... never the weather though . I switched off. It is rude and even dh looked puzzled by it all.