To be hurt by granddaughter’s comments

[4seasons]

Looking after GD at the moment as her parents... my son and DIL are tied up by work commitments during the school holidays. She’s a great girl and I enjoy her company.

Today she has laughingly told me some of the things our DS has said to her about when he was a child. Complaints about the sort of food I cooked for him etc. For background my DH and I worked FT .... professional jobs which didn’t pay well when we were young so money was tight. In spite of this I always cooked fresh vegetables etc from scratch and my DC were fed and dressed well . I bought all my clothes in sales and paid for private education for my son ( daughter went to a good all girls state school ). We also budgeted so that he could follow his hobby and have the equipment he needed.
I feel very hurt that he has complained to his daughter about his childhood like this. As a result of his education and his hard work he now has a good job and earns well . I am thinking back about the things we couldn’t afford or do for ourselves because our spare cash was going on our children.

AIBU to feel upset by his comments?

I remember upsetting my parents as a 20 year old by saying to a boyfriend that we never went on day trips etc when I was small. They insist we did but I really don’t recall more than one or two such trips in my whole childhood! I also have no members of them reading to me at bedtime though they assure me they did. I do believe them but as soon as I was 4 or 5, I was reading to myself at bedtime... and I really annoyed my dad by saying we were poor growing up too! We weren’t well off at all but we were always well clothed and warm and fed, in a house they owned and to my dad, poor means having none of those things. I still was a happy child and look back on my childhood warmly! But kids remember things differently.

Oh OP not nice for you.

I think that there are a couple of key points here...

First DGD lacks social etiquette due to her age I assume and may well have misrepresented how it was said

Secondly, the food marketplace, much as the technology one, has changed unrecognisable.

My mum used to cook pigs trotters and boil pigs heads, not something my kids would have any clue about. We were fed and the food was good. My mum was a far more accomplished cook than me. Nowadays there is a lot of convenience foods and ready meal options.

Also I often reminisce about returning bottles for cash, paper wrappers instead of plastic. I think it is important that children understand how privileged their lives are compared to my poor mum.

You did absolutely you could and you should never doubt it was enough
Xxx

I had a similar thing recently with my dad StarlingsInSummer who swore blind he attended all of our parents evenings. I said he didn’t, he was working 12 hour days commuting to London and as much as I was sure he’d have liked to it never happened. He kept insisting till my SM told him not to daft, of course he hadn’t! He remembers it differently but I, my several siblings, mum and step mum know otherwise. Bless him.

My Nana made truly awful food. Everything was dripping in grease, and we had to eat it whilst my grandad smoked his pipe at the table right in our faces. It used to make me throw up sometimes. She would also wear ridiculous hair and make up like it was still the early 60s. I often tell people these stories. My Nana was a wonderful woman who I was extremely find of, and I miss her terribly. Even just typing this comment has made me well up a bit.

I think when you love someone you can look back on silly things like food that wasn't great and laugh about it. It's not always complaining, sometimes people are just remembering something fondly and laughing to themselves about it. I would imagine that if you did this in the presence of a young child they wouldn't quite grasp the nuances of it, and might repeat things to someone in a way that makes it sound negative. Maybe this is what happened here?

Another possibility is that he's just doing the standard parent thing of "we didn't have that in my day! I was never as lucky as you! I was raised on cabbage soup and rusty nails because that's all we had back then!". I think most parents do this to some degree. We're all keen not to spoil our kids.

I do have to take issue with your about your DD's education; you have treated your children differently and I hope you have balanced up the amount you spent on your son's education by providing your DD with a cash equivalent

Funniest thing I've read on the internet today

leghairdontcare

• I suppose it brought back feelings of inadequacy because we couldn’t afford all the frills/ luxuries
• Apart from private school.

Except some people place more value on education rather than a new games console or foreign holidays; especially Asian, Oriental and African migrants who have moved to this country for the opportunities afforded. There is no better investment than education.

Oof, this really can't have felt good, but please, PLEASE don't make an issue out of it.

Now I have a nephew, my mum is constantly playing up the differences between her parenting and my sister's parenting, and it's beyond annoying.

As PP have said, your son was probably just making some comments about the difference to his children and trying to encourage gratitude in them.

Good parents just deal with the hand given to them, and the advice of the current day. It's not a value judgement to do things differently, or to explain the differences to a child.

So you lived frugally and worked hard to spend all your money sending your son to private school while sending your dd to state school, and he's grown up to be a spoilt entitled brat? Bet that's a surprise, eh?

Do some people read a completely different thread?

I would be hurt too but I think I would gently say to your granddaughter that you were doing your best at the time (he was very very lucky to go to private school). Probably best not to go overboard but I don't think it would do any harm to state how hurt you are.

Agreeing with almost everyone that this is just the sort of chat you have with your child to help them feel grateful "back in my day.....etc". Don't read too much into it. No-one expects perfection from their parents. If he thought you were a terrible person, he wouldn't let you care for his daughter. Let it go and think of it no more.

I can’t see if you mention her age but bear in mind she might be exaggerating a bit because she thinks it’s a funny story. Equally, he may well have deliberately exaggerated to her: ‘Eat all of that. When I was your age my mum made me disgusting food and I had to eat every single bit and it never did me any harm...’ He might not mean it at all but has said it for dramatic effect. I bet he thinks you are both wonderful and is hugely appreciative.

Ismellbabies, that’s such an incredibly nasty comment.

My mum is Indian, so our 70's diet was devoid of all crispy pancakes/boiled vegetables etc! We were desperate for plain food, but we'd get as a concession shepherd's pie but she'd put spices in the mince, overcooked stir fries, again, spicy. When I left home, I ate a lot of fish fingers and pasta in sauce basically the crap she now feeds my kids Now I do curried mince shepherd's pie for my kids. They love it! (I hope) but kids will always find something to moan about. However, in your position, I'd be tempted to point out that you couldn't afford to buy dad a new bike because you were paying for the private school education that only he got!

Oh my kids do this - take something I've said totally out of context and then throw me under the bus with my Mum!

I bet it was a "aren't you lucky to have a new bike! It's a treat so you have to take care of it - when I was little we were lucky to have a 2nd hand one... I put my birthday money to it" etc.

"Eat your avocado! We didn't have anything like that when I was a kid - we used to just have boiled cauliflower all the time "

Honestly, don't worry.

I think every generation talks about the old days and tells their kids how much better they have it. It’s partly nostalgia, partly jest.

Food is better now due to more sophisticated supply chains. It’s no comment on you personally.

When you think about it, wasn’t your sons childhood better than your own in material terms? And wouldn’t you want your granddaughter’s to be even better than his?

I agree with the others, it's likely the comment has been a bit misunderstood and lost in translation so try not to worry.

@ISmellBabies seriously? I know I can be a bit near the knuckle at times but your comment is just rude.

Think you’re being over sensitive but can totally understand why.
The big compliment is that they’ve left granddaughter with you because they know you’re great and trust you so much.
My daughter had great life with me and her father, and I always knocked myself out to make everything great-getting her to parties and having her friends over to stay- even hosted a New Years Party when they were under age to save them going into town and having to stamp round town with no id getting into bad situations! Other parents were so happy as no one else were prepared to do it...../ they ruined my carpets but never mind-they were all safe!
anyway, daughter is still arrives on her few visits once a year from the other side of world and complains about her miserable/deprived life! Ha ha you couldn’t make it up! X

My son likes to tell stories about his childhood that are truly eyerolling, and many of them involve food (we tragically were no fun and did not let them have pizza/pasta/takeout food for every meal, but insisted on regular meals, etc.), our cruel restriction on television watching when EVERYONE ELSE had all the cool shows, and so forth--and even though I know that brat is humblebragging, it still gets under my skin a little bit.

I think grown-up kids like to whinge about how tough their parents are on them, by which they mean they are proud of their parents and themselves for those things.

YABU
Even a Michelin starred chef could not please a toddler/small child. There will always be a childhood story about hating tuna or always having carrots with chicken, or the fact you thought hard boiled eggs were really called horrible eggs so refused to eat them.

We always have a bit of a laugh with my mum about her and dodgy 70s and 80s concoctions, the same with my Dad, he made custard once when we were small, it didn't go well . Our kids are always floating about listening, we tend still to descend in hordes to my parents once a week. My mum had a desperate habit of making something once, it being wolfed down in our house then her continually making it for six months. We refer to the summer of beans with paprika added, the endless months of French toast my sister didn't eat French toast for 25 years, the year of onion salt being added to everything!!

My kids are always asking and teasing my parents about it. My mum and dad love hearing my kids talk about how I talk about my childhood. Same with the same second hand bike that both me and my sister got for Christmas on different years. I'm not having a go at how my parents brought us up and they know that and how much I love them. They talk about their parents in the same way.

“My mum used to cook pigs trotters and boil pigs heads, not something my kids would have any clue about.“

So did my mum. She’d make this goulash with whatever veg was about to go off, tomatoes from the garden, pigs trotters and eyes.

The pigs head she’d boil and she’d skim the fat into an old tin can to use as frying lard. The broth would be used in soups.

I remember when she’d get the giblets out of a chicken, I’d argue with her for the heart and liver because she wanted to feed them to the cats and give me the neck. She’d even break the chicken bones and scrape out the marrow (when eating it after cooking).

Also, she’d come home with a cow tongue and slice it up for sandwiches.

Kids today have no clue.

Depends on the context and how it was said. I can honestly say i disliked my mom's vegetables and some dishes she made but she knew this later on we joked about it but in no way is it a reflection of her as a mom or my childhood. Hope i make sense

Not given much detail about what the complaining is about. Perhaps he has said he had to eat awful food when he was young meaning foods he didn't like eg the usual vegetables. If that is the case you are being too sensitive. As parents we shouldn't expect our DC to be grateful for what we did for them. They had nothing to do with what we decided and did. It is heartwarming when appreciation is shown but should not be an expectation on our part.