To refuse to ever eat in my mum's company again

[Botanic]

Regardless of the impact on family dynamics.

I’m nearing 40, with 5 kids, and I’m on the upper end of the healthy weight for my height. Probably a large size 12, but I am 5ft 9. I’m also fit, I can cycle miles of hilly ground with the youngest two on the bike. I can run, jog and swim to a decent degree and I do yoga daily. I am strong with some bulky muscle, I can push a double buggy up a step hill when others can’t move it.

My mum has always been commenting on my weight, I used to be really thin. Up to my 3rd I was a size 6-8. I wasn’t massively happy though and stressed at work. I was unfit with very poor eating choices.

The bigger I have got the more my mum ramps up comments and comparisons. She’ll tell random shop assistant apologetically in changing rooms I’ll lose some weight when I stop breastfeeding for example.

It’s really giving me the rage. I have told her I’m not actively dieting or trying to lose weight. I have been really clear. I’ve told her my concern is I’m fit and healthy and eating a good diet (relevant as I used to eat so badly to keep thin- 7.5 st at my height at one point).

Dad wants to meet in cafes, and the kids love the treat. She literally counts mouthfuls and tells people, for example counting the number of strawberries my dad ate when everyone else had said they didn’t want them (ended up chucking a load he would have eaten as he was annoyed). Typical exchange yesterday in a cafe:
Dad: come and see what cake you want
Mum: what to you want?
Me: open my mouth to answer...
Mum: cuts across me with- or nothing? Try to get slim?
(I walked out and went for a walk while others ate as I’m so fed up of this on repeat. It was awkward but it’s hard to choke down mouthfuls while she shares the number on the scales that morning and lists everyone’s food choices)

She also comments on small portions and tries to give me more, then later comments.

I try to ignore her but it’s incessant. She’ll also do things like try to give me items of clothing a bit to small and go on and on about it. Even to the neighbours! She’ll know they are a bit small as she’s a few inches smaller across the bust (she’s 5’2, we probably have a similar bmi). She actually eats more than me in terms of cake and meal volume. She was heavier but recent medication means her weight has gone down a bit.

Most our meets though involve feeding kids, I’m still thinking of a text along the lines of:

‘I no longer wish to meet up around food because despite being asked you do not stop commenting about weight. It is upsetting but I also feel as the girls grow older I don’t want them to associate eating with constant comments about weight. I know this makes meeting for longer periods difficult’

She’ll have a real drama over it, deny she says it etc. But I will literally start screaming at her in the street if it carries on.

Aibu unreasonable, is there a better way to handle this? I’ve got my ‘I don’t care if I don’t see you’ head on...

She isn’t unhealthy. But nor is she perfect. I reckon our eating habits and bmi are really similar. She was overweight but after cutting alcohol due to medication she’s lost a stone

She sounds a lot like most of my mother's side of the family- they are constantly commenting on people's weight. It gave my mum an eating disorder in her teens, and then the behaviour passed down to my sister.

I would lay out the boundaries with her- no meals together, no clothes shopping together. And I'd also brief your kids as well: "Granny has a really weird attitude to food, it's her problem,pay no attention to any comments about what or how much you eat." It sounds like you are already modelling good behaviours, which is brilliant.

Your DM has a very poor relationship with food.
It's sad and so unfair on you,does she realise the effect it's having on her relationship with you?

I wouldn't even meet this woman again never mind call her Mum ?! and I agree with EVER comment on here regards the impact of this bullshit on your kids eating habits in the future, she is dangerous idiot and I wouldn't be anywhere near her company ever again OP. She's a fucking idiot.

I would definitely limit meal time meetings. Also I think I would say to her "Stop making comments about my eating weight or size. The next time you do it, I will walk out, I do not want my children affected by what you are saying". Then if she does it again, gather up your children, without comment, and leave. She needs to know how serious you are about this. I worked with a woman who used to make comments like this about other people all the time. When her husband joined us he was the same. They had two children, and by the time their daughter was 14, the poor girl was extremely overweight. I often wonder what she's like now, when she will be about 30. I'd be really surprised if she doesn't have issues around food.
One of the things her mother said was when we had taken a client about 190 miles on a break, and I mentioned that we should eat. It was about 1pm. "Oh , I couldn't possibly eat yet, I had half a slice of toast before I came to work". (We started at 7am) She then sat with a black coffee while the client and I had lunch, commenting on the amount we were eating, then spent the afternoon eating sweets.

I think that in her mind, she is trying to help you.

Maybe... but I'm too cynical to believe this. My mum can be a lot like this too - not just about weight, but about dress sense / outfits, make-up, behaviour in general. And it's not because she wants to help my sis or I be slimmer / better dressed / well-behaved for our own benefit: it's because she doesn't want to be the mother of a daughter who is overweight / badly dressed / acts "common". It's not about us - it's all about her own perception of herself and how other people might judge her for the choices that my sister and I make. It's utterly damaging - and very common.

"were you always so fucking dull and obsessed with food, mother? I suggest you get a hobby"

End of. She sounds like she has a massively unhealthy relationship with food.

So because she lost a stone she thinks she's gods gift pretty much. Maybe remind her that she was overweight so therefore not perfect herself.

Have you got siblings botanic? Does she treat them the same? This sounds serious , did her parents seek to control her with nagging continually? How does your Dad stand it? Sorry too many questions.

But I would go NC if it were me.

It's bullying.

She clearly has major issues with food even if her eating habits seem relatively normal.

This is not something you can sort out by text though!

You need to sit her down and explain that she has a problem, you’re sympathetic to it, but it’s annoying you and you need to make sure it doesn’t affect your kids.

Tell her to fuck off! She can keep her toxic fucked up views to herself. Don't let her poison you and your family

Do we share a mother? Text/write//say something like was posted up above
If she does it again, just leave

Oh god, my mum was like this until very recently. She had anorexia between having my brother and having me (a four-year gap) because she got obsessed with trying to lose her "baby weight" and, although she never became dangerously underweight during my lifetime, she had all sorts of weird and damaging behaviours around food. She wouldn't eat with the rest of the family, for example, and she had a habit of making or buying big fattening puddings and then watching with distaste as the rest of us ate them - she never touched them, of course.

There was also the constant commenting on other people. We couldn't pass a fat person in the street without my mum hissing some sort of expression of disgust, likewise people on the telly. Obviously I developed an eating disorder of my own after having that example set to me.

I think the only reason she stopped nagging me about food and my weight was that I spoke to my dad about the impact it had had on me, and he must have taken my mum aside and told her to pack it in. It was too late for my self-esteem and I blame my issues with eating and body image for my never having had a real relationship or any children.

That obviously doesn't apply to you, but I think the only way forward is to either speak to a family member who could then maybe speak to your mum, since she doesn't seem to listen to you, or just go NC. I'm serious about that. It's not for your benefit but for that of any daughters you have - with an attitude like hers, I doubt if she'll be able to resist treating them the way she's treated you, and an eating disorder is a very real possible outcome for them. I think that if I had ever had a daughter I would have tried to keep her away from my mother because I wouldn't have wanted her obsession with looks and weight to appear in any way normal or acceptable.

Yes Brigid it's almost coercive control.

Dear mum
Please read this text carefully
I am fit, strong and healthy, I and my family eat well and as such have no problems having a treat when we feel like it.
However, when we meet you and have our treat your incessant commenting on calories and counting mouthfuls manages to completely suck the joy out of the occasion and has made me leave on occasion too.
I'm writing to give you the choice,
A-Me and the dc will meet up with dad for a cake and enjoy it, will meet you later or
B-We can all meet up, have a cake and you can keep your thoughts to yourself.
C-We can meet but not eat.
However, if you choose A and pass comment then you won't be invited to our next meetup.

Hi OP You sound amazingly fit to me - to have 5 children and to be able to do all that excercise that you do!!!

I haven't read the whole thread but I totally agree with other posters. Your Mum is projecting her own food/guilt back story whatever it is onto you. I would be inclined to include something along the lines of..
Does it make YOU feel better to put other people down?
I may not be stick thin but that does NOT make me a bad person. I am raising your wonderful grandkids and I would rather have support than you nit picking at me about my food intake. You are actually driving me (and others) away from wanting to spend time with you. I would rather be happy and healthy than miserable and guilt ridden about food all the time. Life is for living - because you are a long time dead!

While some of the texts here are good, I would take a different approach. Next time she wants to make arrangements, just say no. If she asks why, tell her that you dread the idea of eating with her because she goes out of her way to be unkind to you and you don't enjoy it. If she tries to justify it by saying she's trying to help/encourage/inspire you just say 'No you're not, you're being horrible to me and you don't care that it upsets me. Why would I agree to that?' and keep repeating it.

You're not unreasonable at all. If it makes you feel better, I'd think most would agree that it's your responsibility to protect your children from that atmosphere. Of course they might, probably will, hear people say things like that through out their lives, but their mum and grandmum should be safe, comfortable people they don't have to worry about being judged by. I'm sorry you are put in that position at all.

Gah I'm angry just reading this. Wtf is it with so many of this generation of women commenting on their daughters/DILs weight constantly.

I would’ve screamed at her by now. YANBU. She’s sounds like an utter pain in the arse and I’d be keeping my children away from her if I were you.

Put up your boundaries!!

Strong, clear, unmovable boundaries are nesercary for your health and your kids !!

The kids absolutely do t benefit from being exposed to that toxic behaviour and neither do you, and neither does she cause it means she thinks she can get away with it

Be firm and DONT FEEL BAD.

"were you always so fucking dull and obsessed with food, mother? I suggest you get a hobby"

I agree with Andy.

She's vile. I'd go in strong and tell her that none of you will be seeing her in future if she dares mention weight or food in a negative way ever again. It's so awful that shes saying this shit in front of your daughters.

Yanbu - she sounds absolutely poisonous, and I think you're very sensible to protect your kids from that.

My mother did this to me for years. She would try and feed me and then constantly comment that I needed to lose weight and I did but it was my weight to lose not hers. I would ask her to stop nagging, I would tell her to fuck off and one day I just had enough, I looked her square in the face and says "If I worried as much about my weight as you did, I would be anorexic".

She never responded but that was the last of my weight being mentioned. I don't think it wasn't mentioned incase I became sick but more about what would people think if I became sick because. But her problem with my weight was also what would people think of her having a fat daughter. A fat son is ok btw but not daughter.

These mothers are evil and need to be told. I am now NC for this and many other reasons!