MIL asking DD what is your mummy cooking for tea?

[Veeveeoxox]

MIL regularly face times DD she seems to always throw in a passive aggressive comment such as what is your Mummy cooking for tea? (I ordered a pizza )So she then passively aggressively comments that's unhealthy. Why does she never
ask "What is your daddy cooking for tea ?"
I'm a student nurse doing an integrated masters with two assignments due in I also work on the nursing bank , her dad works from home in a low stress role. The funny thing is I do like MIL just not the expectation that her son should be waited on and not expected to help.

If I ever have a son I will not be asking my GCs what their mother was cooking for tea.

AIBU?

@Veeveeoxox need to ditch the idea that if men do something, they are helping. Who are they helping?

The best way to deal with passive aggressive people is to be direct I find.

''please don't ask what Mummy has been cooking, like it's my job to cook, not H's. We are both busy. It makes me feel like you don't understand that when you ask what mummy is cooking.''.

She'll probably act like you offended her but just say I would be so relieved if you noted that.

Have we got the same Mil? 😅 admittedly Dp does quite a lot of the cooking here as he enjoys it but mil hates that as she's quite old fashioned in her view. She always criticises me. She always asks what the kids has for dinner and quite often it's a quick dinner like fish fingers or nuggets, goujons, pizza . She turns her nose up in disgust!! Nothing wrong with easy dinners when you cannot be assed.

Another time she came over unexpected when I was cooking a roast - with frozen veg. Mil told Dp to go over there for dinner and 'proper veg'. Also she stood over my hob and cooker observing it all and making comments. I would never cook for her, it wouldn't be good enough.

@stingofthebutterfly

Why, oh why, do people always manage to find problems in absolutely nothing? So she asked what you were cooking, big deal. It's conversation. That's it. Just say I'm not cooking tonight, it's my husband's turn/takeaway/whatever. It's a non-issue.

It’s not just conversation when the person criticises your cooking saying it’s unhealthy.

OP is entitled to post here, if you find it irritating, you don’t have to comment.

[quote Immaculatemisconception]@Veeveeoxox need to ditch the idea that if men do something, they are helping. Who are they helping?[/quote]
The amount of times someone's said "is daddy babysitting?" If I was out without kids!!!

Seriously I think you are overthinking this. It's a question to a small child from her nana. Good God talk about demonising the Nana!!!!

It's a DH problem you have, not a MIL problem

Just lean across and say "DH's turn tonight "

Coach your daughter to say oh it's daddy's turn today so we are having pizza.

Also she stood over my hob and cooker observing it all and making comments
You can order people out of your kitchen. I'd have given her her marching orders.

OP, sexism aside, I think you need to knock on the head this thing about 'unhealthy' food. Tell her not to make comments like that as you don't want your DD to have an anxious relationship with food.

You're preaching to the choir here though, we are all outraged- but that's not going to change the world

Each time she says something either you or dh or dd need to say "no it's dh turn this evening" etc

I'd reserve judgement on what you would or wouldn't say to GC/DIL until you do actually have an adult son. It's much harder to get it right than it looks and it seems some people are determined to find fault.

Why not take it that she's acknowledging and appreciating that you do the lion's share?

And the patriarchy is perpetuated by younger other women on MN endlessly criticising their mothers their sisters who just needed a bit of sympathy during difficult times. It rolls on, generations of women keeping each other in line.

I’ll be here Your DDs will all be on here one every day, slagging you off.

There, fixed it for you.

OP my favourite was when my MiL told me that I should be ashamed of not polishing my DH’s shoes because unpolished shoes would leave a bad impression of him by his work colleagues. Oh and the time that she told him it was a shame that I had taken a sip of his tea because it left less for him But her pointed comments were much more dysfunctional than simply a generational women do the cooking kind of thing.

Maybe it's just a simple unloaded question. If it's around dinner time she's probably wondering to put on for herself and is making chit chat? If you usually do the cooking, then it's normal of her to ask what you are cooking.

Your MIL sounds sexist rather than passive aggressive. You say that your DH does his share of the cooking, so what does she say when your DD tells her that her dad’s making her tea?

I thought the complaint was about calling it tea 😂

I had the opposite with my MIL. A few years ago, when my children were mid teens she was convinced my DH came home every night and cooked dinner. At that time my husband was regularly coming home around midnight. My children even tried to convince her she was wrong, but she wouldn’t believe them

You don't have to get wound up about this stuff. Just say I've ordered pizza and ignore the rest. Or, it's DHs turn to cook, I have no idea what we're having.

She'll either get the message or you can stop the FaceTime sessions/let your DH supervise them so you don't have to engage with her at that time of day. I'm not sure why he's not anyway if you're so busy and it's his mother.

My Mil does this. It works both ways though. If she sees me doing any kind of "man's work" she practically gives me a medal and then tells dh off for not putting the bins out/carrying something heavy. The other day she was shocked when we had people round for dinner and dh was cooking and I was putting up the fold up table.

THIS

Why, oh why, do people always manage to find problems in absolutely nothing? So she asked what you were cooking, big deal. It's conversation. That's it. Just say I'm not cooking tonight, it's my husband's turn/takeaway/whatever. It's a non-issue.

I advise you pop on camera and say:
“Oh MIL, I agree and it’s DH’s turn to cook. But he’s nowhere to be seen. Can you have a word with him?”

She won’t have a word and she won’t ask again!!

She is a nice person but I think she just furthers sexism if my OH has to stay over because he has a meeting in London she will get up super early prepare a cooked breakfast for him then pack his lunch he's 34!!!

My MIL was horrified last time she came for a meal because DH had cooked.,when "poor" DH had been at work.
I had also been at work and then looked after our son but apparently I should have cooked.
She will also ask me about the DCs but never DH. It really annoys me.
In some ways she's quite modern but at other times she seems to think it's still 1950s.

We once went to visit for my FIL's birthday and he offered us a drink. I said I was happy to drive if my DH wanted a glass. My MIL asked if I had asked permission to drive my DH's car!

Now, every time I drop my daughter off anywhere in my DH's car, she giggles and says, 'Have you asked permission?'

When we paid off the mortgage, MIL told me that I was very lucky that my DH had managed to pay it off early and give me security. The assumption that I was a kept woman really annoyed me - I put her straight!

A lot of women of that generation think they should defer to men - they often didn't work and their role was to look after their man. Everything has changed, but in their eyes, equality didn't happen - we just took on more!

Perversely, she hates it that I have a management job - she thinks I should work part-time for a few hours a week, preferably what she calls, 'a little job'.

I think the reason your mil asks ‘what’s mummy cooking for tea’ is because she’s aware that lazy git Daddy doesn’t routinely cook tea,
Quite how you can joke you’ve had to go ‘on strike’ about cooking to get your lazy git DH to step up is baffling.