AIBU: the half-cup of tea brigade

[Shedbuilder]

My late MIL used to turn every offer of a cup of tea or a biscuit or sandwich into a major performance. Just half a cup/ half a biscuit / a quarter of a sandwich not a drop or crumb more because 'I can't manage any more than half a cup yada yada yada...' Everyone knew she had a small appetite so we automatically gave her tiny portions — but if you were foolish enough to ask her if she'd like something to eat or drink you'd get the full performance. And once you delivered the tea/ biscuit/ sandwich there'd be a cheery telling-off. 'Oooh, this is far too much. Call this half a cup? I could drown in this sea of tea...' So no matter what you did with the intention of being kind and supportive, you were always in the wrong.

It irritated everyone, even though her family all loved her to bits. This evening I offered my DP some leftover apple crumble and got the full MIL treatment. 'Just a tiny bit: think half of what you'd have and then halve that. And don't go drowning it in custard, I know what you're like with custard...' So I served a teaspoonful of apple crumble in an eggcup with a tiny blob of custard and as I set it down in front of DP I said jokingly 'You're turning into your mother!' Cue a huge row about me insulting the sacred memory of MIL and doors slamming.

What's the half-cup-of-tea things really about? I have no problem at all with someone saying they're not very hungry, they'll just have a mouthful of whatever. Or a small cup of tea. But there's a point at which it slips into controlling behaviour. Or AIBU?

PS Perhaps I should add that my DP isn't on a diet or anything.

I could drown in this sea of tea...

😂😂

sullen baked potato

🤣🤣🤣

It’s incredibly attention seeking behaviour, that’s why we all find it so annoying
Agreed. There's usually dozens of posts on here in the same sort of camp.
You know the types oh golly gosh, I can't believe how impossible it is to go to a cafe and eat what I want to. The portions everywhere are ginormous! There's more there than I'd eat in a week. I can't believe anyone managed to eat portions that are so huge. It makes eating out terrible. Of course people have pointed out that I could choose to eat elsewhere, or only eat what I want to, but why should I have to adapt my fussy behaviour because the whole world is mega greedy. I'm sure we have an obesity problem because some people eat all the chips in their monthly pub meal. Pat me on the back for picking at half a salad. Did I mention that I find it literally impossible to go out for food because it's so difficult to order something I like and stop when I'm satisfied like every other human being.

The egg cup could have been a funny joke, assuming you had actually made him a proper serving in a bowl, but you turned it into a sneer about his dead Mum.

You seem very defensive about the idea that your servings are too generous. Are you trying to fatten him up for Christmas?

YWBU.

My dad drives me insane with this.

“Just a drop of water”
“Just the tiniest glass of water”

I fill him up a bloody pint glass.

Also, if I ask if he wants tea or coffee. There is the palaver of “oh, which ever one is easiest”

Me: “it’s pouring hot water on either a teabag or coffee. The jars are next to each other. Which do you want?”

Him: “Don’t go to any trouble, which ever is easiest” this will go on and on.

I’ve taken to making him both, I haven’t got time to deal with it.

We also have the same with the light.

Me “do you want the light on or off”
him “I don’t mind, what ever is easiest”
Me “I’m standing next to the light switch. On or off. It’s not a trick question”
him “what ever is easiest for you”

Sleep with the bloody light on then.

For my dad it’s attention seeking twattery though. It’s never yes or no. It’s always drawn out, he’s always been like this.

Now my the dickhead that I married, he makes half a cup of tea.

When I ask him why, it’s always “”sometimes you leave some, it’s a waste to make a whole cup”.

A waste of what? A little bit more water? A thimble full of milk?

I look him in the eye as I pour it down the sink and make my own large cup to show him
what waste looks like.

(I sound like a wanker. I am).

Actually, I wonder when my mum will start doing this? She's always been in the 'can you get me a ladder for this tea' bracket if the cup wasn't filled to the brim

My MIL is the opposite and makes me cringe if we go out for a meal. As soon as the food is on the table she's eyeing up what everyone else has.

"Not eating that tomato?" and a fork comes in and its gone. Anything left she'll either scrape onto her plate and eat, or if it''s things that can be wrapped in a tissue she'll do that. It's embarrassing to be honest.

As for cups of tea, she has teabags drying out on the tiled windowsill to reuse. This is a woman that is not short of a few quid.

We once held up the queue in the cafe at Wimpole Hall for ages while someone went to get a jug of cold tap water for her. There was some terrible tutting.
This is one of the most British things I've ever read

My parents are a bit like this now (in their 70s). They often don’t have 3 meals a day, which is fine. Ie if they think they’ve had a late/large breakfast, they won’t have lunch. I don’t have any issue with this but as others have said, the needless/judgmental commentary on what I/my family are eating is tiresome. “Oh I don’t know how you could all be possibly needing lunch after that breakfast” etc. In any instance, that would be our choice but most of the time the context is that we’ve had a smaller breakfast hours earlier than them and our small kids are ravenous by lunchtime! I often also have to smile to myself when my indecent lunch is say a salad or small sandwich whilst they are “just” having a cake and coffee. DH and I just have to laugh it off and roll our eyes at each other.

You all need to get some of these!

I don't know how old you are/MIL was, but thinking about it, everyone I know from my parents' generation (now in their 80s if still alive) only drunk very small amounts . Tea in cups rather than mugs and at set times of the day.

We drink out of large mugs / pint glasses etc. Also have very large dinner plates .

Probably why we are a lot fatter than our parents were

MIL has tiny cups of tea because she knows if she has anymore, she'll spend the rest of the day out and about looking for loos. I can empathise with that personally.

I witnessed a man ask for half an icecream cone at an icecream stand recently. He was very put out when they said they would still have to charge him full price because of the tills.

This reminds me of my mum. One of the best ones was only being able to manage half an After Eight mint as a whole one was too much!!

Does that make it an After Four?

I don't know anyone who does this. My parents only ate small amounts but they never made a fuss about it.
However, my ex MIL used to decide that tiny amounts were right for me (because she decided I was too fat for her son), and so on the rare occasion I had to eat there, I'd be offered a small triangle of sandwich while everyone else ate normal amounts...

@Hardbackwriter

My mum does this. We went for lunch recently. We ordered the same thing. I ate all of it. Mum ate half and said she'd have the rest for dinner. Then said "oh well. You won't need to cook tonight then after that meal". Ummm... dc will still want a meal and ill be hungry again by then

This is the worst bit of it with my (otherwise lovely) MIL - she insists that it is odd and incredibly gluttonous to eat more than breakfast and one other meal a day even at Christmas. I was shocked speechless the first year at their house when on the evening of Christmas day rather than the cheeseboard and Christmas cake that my family had we had - nothing. Because we'd eaten (a normal sized roast, the dinner isn't some huge multi-coursed affair for them either) at 2pm, so that was that until breakfast. We host Christmas now, thank god!

Can't believe that someone would host relatives for Christmas and then provide no further food after the 2 pm lunch ! Did you actually go to bed hungry or did you ask for an evening snack ?

I agree op. C. S lewis calls it the gluttony of delicacy rather then the gluttony of excess

Whilst I'm not religious his take on it really chimes with me

www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/cs-lewis-deadly-sin-gluttony/

When people ask for half a cup of tea I ask if they want the top half or bottom half of the cup filled!

Well of course your appetite declines.

Over here in Germany a "Seniorenteller" is a thing in many many restaurants - it's an older person's portion (so like a child portion but i think a bit bigger?) and they're a bit cheaper.

"Pensioner's Portions" are a thing in a lot of cafes.

Worth noting that that CSLewis quote was written before the effects of rationing - there is a bit in the "editor's preface" which says that Screwtape obviously wrote that bit before rationing was introduced.

I think drinking out of mugs is a modern thing, as a child I can only remember coffee cups with saucers (German here). Milk and chocolate milk was served in normal glasses we also used for other drinks.

But, drinking wasn’t the “carry a bottle around all the time” either, it was with meals and on warm days inbetween and in the evening watching TV.

My cousin is a nurse and when she worked on the geriatric ward she said most patient were showing signs of dehydration as they never learned to drink when your body asks for it.

Food, yes the body is slowing down and not needing that much. That is fine but then either offer to have food around if you have visitors staying with you and not making strange comments all the time.

There's something weird about the way some people love drama. Bizarrely, I've been on the receiving end of this and it's always from the fusspot "half a cup/small portion" types.

I'm pescatarian and it's no big deal, lots of my friends don't even know because I don't mention it. I order what I like and eat as much as I want. If someone is hosting I accept what I'm given or just decline saying I'm fine. I don't expect special meals, I'll happily eat the bits I can and leave the meat if there is any. If people ask about dietary requirements I say I'm vegetarian because that solves the problem and means I don't have to trouble my host by explaining what pescatarian is. But the fusspots can't leave it alone. They always have to comment on my vegetarian meal and make a big drama about what to feed me, comments about how I can't possibly be healthy, about it being "unusual", even comments about how the dog food contains meat as if that's somehow going to cause me to express disapproval etc.

I couldn't care less what the dog eats! Or the other people round the table. I've no problems with animals being killed for food. I don't even care if there's meat on my plate, I'll just leave it or perhaps ask if anyone else would like to have it.

Zero drama except the one they're creating, so incredibly annoying. They seem to relish something/someone else to fuss about, it goes on for the whole meal. I find the behaviour very strange. I've not eaten meat for 30yrs and some who've known me longer than that will still fuss over it. I don't understand it at all and try to avoid eating meals with these family fusspots as much as I can.

YANBU OP it's very draining to be around. Storming off slamming doors etc is also bad. I advise ignoring it, these dramatic types want you to obsess over them and constantly worry if they're ok or if you've done something wrong. Life's too short for that.

Some posters are missing the point that it isn't in any way small appetites or bladder weakness which are annoying, its the attention seeking fuss and drama and the shaming of women who don't join in the "I couldn't possibly drink a whole cup of tea, any hint of having an appetite would be unbecomingly masculine or greedy!" performance.

@UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme

Some posters are missing the point that it isn't in any way small appetites or bladder weakness which are annoying, its the attention seeking fuss and drama and the shaming of women who don't join in the "I couldn't possibly drink a whole cup of tea, any hint of having an appetite would be unbecomingly masculine or greedy!" performance.

Yes!

“I’ll have a small piece please” - not the issue.

“Oh my goodness I couldn’t eat THAT, that’s loads! I wouldn’t be able to walk all day after that, I’d be SO stuffed. No, just the corner of that please, no the LITTLE corner. Honestly I don’t know how you manage eating something that size, that would fill me up for a week! You know what I’m like, I get full so easily. Sauce? Oh well I suppose, if you’re having it, but just a little drop - No a LITTLE drop - oh goodness no not the whole teaspoon that’s enough to drown it, I couldn’t possibly manage all that!” - the issue.