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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

My Australian MIL

253 replies

WS12 · 10/04/2018 10:49

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 Hmm... 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.

OP posts:
peacheachpearplum · 13/04/2018 17:33

For all your talk about racism, you sure know how to make people feel extremely unwelcome. I've never been to Australia and I don't think I've met any other Ausralians so just my SIL, I do realise that there are bound to be Australians who aren't like her, although thinking about it I do know their kids but then being like there mother isn't surprising wherever she comes from. She looks down her nose at other Australians as well, she is from a wealthy family and went to some prestigious boarding school and refers to people who aren't well off as trailer trash, which I thought was an American expression. She is also vile about aborigines.

LiquoriceTea · 13/04/2018 17:36

Haha peach. I've got Australian relatives and that's it exactly! I've never quite encountered anything like it. Comparison on every single thing.. And similar in Aus. But lots of lovely normal people too!! I used to think it was just my relatives until i realised others had had similar experiences!

My relative that lives here (uk) thinks similarly to above of Australia as coming of age. But maybe a teen rebellion where it has to prove everything is better! Whereas we aren't even aware if the issues until you meet Australians!

peacheachpearplum · 13/04/2018 17:37

JassyRadlett, I could forgive her the sand, it was a sandy beach in Cornwall, but did she need to go on and on and on about it? I really don't think so. She also managed to take my kids out on a sunny day, obviously not as sunny as Oz, and bring them back with sunstroke and blisters as she decided her children needed sun cream and mine didn't. I could have cheerfully murdered her that night as I was up with both of them really unwell, she made a tactical withdrawal when she realised what she had done which probably saved her life and me a prison sentence. I haven't seen her since, I think she feels England is unsafe. She's probably right as when it comes to my kids I do bear a grudge.

LiquoriceTea · 13/04/2018 17:38

Ah they're like your first post actualky not the second. Mine are v politically aware and horrified at the govt and Nauru s well as aboriginal issues. Their superiority tends to be reserved for English and Americans.

peacheachpearplum · 13/04/2018 17:39

I should point out that I haven't seen her in 20 years so I must be scary.

LiquoriceTea · 13/04/2018 17:42

She probably talks about the truly awful English experience ;)

peacheachpearplum · 13/04/2018 18:06

She probably does, the trauma of a 60 minute wash cycle and inferior sand. Maybe she isn't scared of me and just can't face England.

peacheachpearplum · 13/04/2018 18:06

She liked our shops and shopping seemed to be her main interest.

JassyRadlett · 13/04/2018 18:11

She does sound like a total twat.

In my experience the proportions of twats in Britain and Australia are about the same.

Sunshinewater · 13/04/2018 18:22

Oh look another Aussie bashing thread! Eagerly awaits the next American bashing thread as well.

JassyRadlett · 13/04/2018 18:38

It’s curious, isn’t it, Sunshine? For a country and people apparently so beneath the notice of British people, there is a remarkably regular flow of threads about the awfulness of Australia and Australians.

Davros · 13/04/2018 18:39

It's just as much a Brit bashing thread

FreshsatsumaforDd · 13/04/2018 18:41

ThumbWitchesAbroad
The White Culinaire peeler is indeed the best vegetable peeler in the world. I have two here in the UK.
Grin

Sunshinewater · 13/04/2018 19:13

Jassy, we aren’t the same, so we aren’t as good. LOL

RedDwarves · 13/04/2018 20:34

I often wonder whether the Aus bashing (as I notice NZ doesn’t receive it) is rooted in envy. Ship off all your criminals and other undesirables with the intention of never needing to deal with them again, only to have the colony thrive, and in a very short period of time become one of the most successful countries on the planet. There has to be a reason Australia(ns) gets bashed so relentlessly when other pommie offshoots (NZ, Canada) don’t.

TryingToGetFired · 13/04/2018 21:01

When we lived in Oz - we took a few amazing holidays in NZ much to the horror of our Aussie colleagues - who expressed shock that we would want to holiday anywhere but Australia - and they weren't joking!!!

LiquoriceTea · 13/04/2018 21:05

Red that is such an Australian thing to say ;)

I do nt think it is I'd bashing though - is bashing would be I do nt like Australians coffee/beaches/ weather/whatever. This thread is mainly talking about those being on the receiving end of bashing from Australians!

LiquoriceTea · 13/04/2018 21:06

Aus not I'd/Is. Typing from phone!

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 13/04/2018 21:30

Freshsatsuma - they are very good, aren't they! Grin

OCSockOrphanage · 13/04/2018 21:30

Some of my dearest friends are Australian, but |British born. They are still lovely people, but a few have become intoxicated with Aussie fever. Mostly men, who seem to love Crocodile Dundee macho and are dismissive of the women who keep their lives and families afloat while being rude about their contribution to family and community life. I wouldn't want to live in Australia. It seems to centre on disliking everyone who is 'not like us'.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 13/04/2018 21:41

I think the important thing to remember is, as has been said, there are twats in every country. And some areas of some countries have a higher proportion of twats than other areas.
I have met lovely Aussies, and Aussies who just want to take the piss out of me for being British. I don't tend to associate with the latter much, because it's tiresome. I have a lot of Aussie friends who don't feel the need to do it, so it's not like ALL Australians take the piss out of the Brits (or others). I have met some Aussies who are very racist, and some Brits who are very racist. I don't tend to associate with them either.
I know "little Englanders" and I know "little Strayans" (Is that a phrase? Does it work?) - and I know people who aren't like that.

But as another poster said, people do tend to post the downsides rather than the upsides because "they're all lovely and it's a great place" is short and boring as posts go.

RedDwarves · 13/04/2018 21:49

Mostly men, who seem to love Crocodile Dundee macho and are dismissive of the women who keep their lives and families afloat while being rude about their contribution to family and community life

Yep, I'm sure this happens. Hmm

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 13/04/2018 21:59

Again, there are people like that. But then there are people like that in other countries too.
My own DH (who is Aussie) has a tendency to revert to "Aussie male stereotype" after he's been away on conference with work colleagues. Takes him a couple of days to get back into the swing of partnered married life when he returns, as opposed to letting the "little woman do all the wifework". Thing is though that we can laugh about it, and he comes out of it fairly quickly.

Sunshinewater · 13/04/2018 22:16

Right, because all British men are feminists that share the housework. Hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!

GreenEyedGoose · 13/04/2018 22:23

Liquorice it's tiring though. There is a thread every few weeks on MN about how shit Australia/how terrible Australian's are.

This is another with just a different title

But I think Red might have it.