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 am married to an Australian, we live in the UK, visit Aus regularly. Our Aussie rellies love the UK. I tease them when they wrap up in hats and scarves when the temps drop below 20 and they tease me when I visit them because I’m in flip flops and t shirts when the temps hit 24. I have, however, also faced the English bashing too.

The first time I visited Australia I was humiliated when a young man entered into a tirade directed at me in front of a group of people about England and how awful it was, our dreadful beaches, our dreadful weather, our lack of culture (really?). It went on and on. I was completely taken aback and flummoxed. I’d travelled extensively and had never heard anyone be so rude about another person’s home country. Especially as I really like Australia and loved the Australian people.

Both countries are great for different reasons. We love England, the history, the more gentle climate, the long summer evenings, the proximity to so many European cities, having so many other cultures all within striking distance ... but we miss Australia too - the ocean, warm winter days, coffee shops, beautiful Sydney harbour, the big skies, Australian people.

We try to enjoy each country on its own merits and comparing them is a bit daft - they are entirely different places geographically and culturally.

RedDwarves, a post commented on how racist the UK is and I pointed out the there is racism but what was being said here about Australians wasn't racist, that is because Australians, outside the Aboriginal population, are a mix of races that are much the same as the racial mix in the UK. Obviously if we had been talking about Aboriginals we could be accused of racism as I don't think we have a big Australian Aboriginal population in the UK.

So in short yes racism was brought up and you missed the point about Aboriginals.

onemorecup good post