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 was offended by woman's comment.

Us Brits invented the Internet! We also invented Television, Computers, Telephones, Turned static electricity into an electrical power generator thus discovering or 'inventing' the use of Electricity (Michael Faraday. Some give credit to Benjamin Franklin for discovering electricity, but his experiments only helped establish the connection between lightning and electricity, nothing more).

We also invented the Jet Engine(!), Radio & Transmissions, Geostationary SATELLITES!!, Microchips, DNA Profiling/Testing/Databasing etc, Internal combustion engines and thus invented Cars, Engines for Boats, Motorcycles and Light Aircraft, The new Raspberry Pi Single Board Computer, Radio Telegraphy, Flushing toilets, Tin cans, Cameras & motion picture recording, Lawnmowers, Dishwashers, Kettles.

The following were also discovered/isolated by Brits: Hydrogen, Potassium, Barium, Calcium, Magnesium, Helium etc etc.

I could go on & on! But in other words, we invented the majority of what the world currently relies on in everyday life - and a whole lot more! So these Aussies can give up their Xenophobia! They'd be a bit screwed without us!!!!!

@WS12 PLEASE throw some of these inventions out there next time your MIL starts! Would love to see her face! X

Oh and Clothing manufacturing and Steam Engines!

Dulra I can remember when we used the same currency in Ireland and the UK and the Irish ones had different pictures. Then came the Punt and then the Euro. Not that it excuses the rude stupid comments made by your MIL. It's all just a way to have a dig.
I don't get the weather thing, it's so tedious to hear people moaning about it all the time, including Brits. I like our weather and then you can go somewhere with different weather for a holiday, that's what they're for!

Davros you might be confusing it with Northern Ireland. Ireland's currency the punt was introduced in 1928

No, in the 60s and 70s the currency was exactly the same with some different pictures although interchangeable, until the Irish punt came in

My dh isn't British and I do think that being from a different culture and country plays right into the hands of someone who wants to find fault with another person. It's not about whether your way of doing things is inferior, it's just something she can manipulate to put you down. I've heard the most absurd things from my ILs. It's one of the few things they do that I can laugh off!
I think you mentioned a comment about your dh's health because of the cold here. I know my MIL says that all the time behind my back but honestly, my dc's health improved 100% when we moved back to the UK because they could get out in the fresh air. Dh's dns are always sick because they're stuck indoors in the bloody air conditioning. (It's worse for my hayfever though)
Honestly I think you just have to let these comments wash over you.

Thank you everyone for your comments. I am seeing a psychologist because I'm struggling with separation anxiety anyway (aka home sickness!) so I'm hoping she will help me cope a bit better with these feelings and give me ways to cope when I am annoyed at my ILs!

Tell her with a raised eyebrow that bogans are definitely an Aussie thing, she can have that.
And then stare meaningfully at her.

Dont forget we also invented most of the major world sports, and a few others!

Football, Cricket, Rugby, Golf, Basketball, Volleyball, Hockey, Rounders (which became baseball in the USA), Badminton, Lawn Tennis, Table Tennis, Snooker, Bungee Jumping, Bobsleigh, Curling and Darts

Good god. I’m an aussie in london and if I had a pound for every BRITISH PERSON who said to me “well what are you doing here? Isn’t the weather awful? Eh eh eh” I’d have enough money to buy a lifetime’s supply of umbrellas and wellies.

British people are obsessed by the weather in ways that are mysterious to non Brits - she’s probably just trying to talk about something you’re interested in

Am also laughing at the inevitable queue of MNers lining up to sniff at chippy/arrogant/cultureless/ignorant Aussies. I think it’s mostly the same crew who piled on to the last australian thread to declare that they couldn’t possibly live in a country with snakes and spiders

“well what are you doing here? Isn’t the weather awful? Eh eh eh”

This isn’t having a go at you though - it’s having a go at ourselves - it’s self deprecation dressed up as mockery of the other and the British are very good at it. It looks like they’re having a go at you but in reality they aren’t. It’s the equivalent of saying ‘yeah the weather here is shit, I bet it’s great where you are.’

You should try being British (or Aussie) in Sweden... 😱 EVERYTHING is apparently better in Sweden. No jokes or self mockery, they genuinely believe everything is better here (despite it being like living in the fifties) and get really, really arsey if you criticise anything. I once said something very mild about daytime TV being a bit dull here like in most countries and the person didn’t speak to me for a week because I HATE THEM NOW. Weird. Really weird.

Personally I love Oz. Although yes, your wildlife is breathtakingly lethal. :)

And what about the crocs? And all the men wearing hats with corks hanging off the brims and all that laaager drinking?

Lol

Weather is very definitely an obsession. LOVE this site:

VeryBritishProblems
@SoVeryBritish

Re. dodgy wildlife in Australia - we recently went to see Steve Backshall live in Sydney, and he said in his show that the number of people killed by Australian wildlife, even though they are some of the deadliest in the world, was lower than the number of people who had died taking selfies.

So now you know.

Stealthbanana - might just be a NSW thing but they go on and on and on and ON about the weather on the tv there as well! SO MUCH. Hottest summer in 10 years, most rainfall in March since 2012, wettest June for 4 years, blah blah etc. etc. The weather stats are endless! Far more than the UK. But granted the people don't talk about it in conversation so much!

I once said something very mild about daytime TV being a bit dull here like in most countries and the person didn’t speak to me for a week

A friend who moved here from the US pointed out that the reason we talk about the weather a lot was because it is frequently surprising. He said this at the school gate one afternoon having had boiling sun, hail and a 10 degree temperature drop since the morning drop off. and then while we were standing there a freak rainstorm. We all put our raincoats on and carried on chatting. It was the middle of June.

I know it’s self deprecating but my point is that’s why Aussies always talk to British people about the weather - we know it’s your thing!

thumb I cant comment on NSW as I am Victorian but my (English) dh maintains the Australian obsession is the road toll - he is horrified at how much press and media attention is given to 15 PEOPLE DEAD DURING THE SUMMER BREAK AFTER HORROR SMASH ON THE PRINCES HWY THAT KILLED 3 etc etc

I agree Brit’s are obsessed with weather

Also as we tend to be more socially awkward to small talk with strangers than many other cultures it’s easy for us to talk about not too farmilar (another thing many are obsessed about) we won’t offend and won’t be asked any dreaded questions

There's a lot of prejudice on this thread from people trying to say how silly people from other countries are for being prejudiced.

I actually find the Aussies to be pretty weather obsessed too. The temps have dropped to low 20s in Perth in the last week and everybody is talking about how freezing they are, and getting excited about putting their log burners on. When I tell them 22 degrees is a veritable heatwave in Ireland I don't think they really believe me.

I am British living abroad and also get really defensive when people slag of the UK. I do find the Aussies are some of the worst offenders for this - but I think it is their mocking sense of humour and general bluntness - certainly not personal.

What I don't get though is people continuously saying how bad the weather is in the UK, especially the Brits themselves! I had someone on my FB saying that the UK didn't have a summer this year. Which is complete rubbish. I was over for two weeks in June and it was glorious sunny warm weather (low humidity) for the entire time I was there, stretching from early in the morning until past ten at night. Brits really don't know how lucky they are to get such lovely long summer evenings.

I live in the tropics, and the weather in the height of summer is unbearable at times - the heat, the humidity - you literally have to stay indoors. We can also have weeks and weeks of persistent and at times utterly torrential rain - yet this place is lauded as having a 'great climate'. I don't get it. We never get long light evenings, the sun goes down at 6pm and that's it ALL YEAR ROUND.

I also think Brits are some of the worst offenders for denigrating and belittling ourselves and our country generally.

I have lived overseas for over ten years, with many different nationalities and none of them slag off their own countries as much as we do. Most other nations seem to have a pride about themselves and are not ashamed to show it. Whereas sadly we seem to take every opportunity to tell the world how much the UK sucks...

It can't be surprising other nationalities pick up on this and run with it.

SickofThomas

And you wouldn’t have the following if it weren’t for Australia(ns):
Wifi
Cochlear implants
The hills hoist
Black box flight recorders
Medicinally administerable penicillin
Pacemaker
Permanent crease clothing
Cervical cancer vaccines
Google maps
Refrigerators
Flat whites

And all in a much more condensed time frame.

The most patriotic people I have ever met are Scottish. (I'm looking at you FIL).

The things I have heard border on out right racism.