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?

I don't get it. You said yourself that you cook the meals. Your MIL presumably knows that you do, so that's why she refers to Mummy when she talks to your DD.

She's not being sexist, she's just reflecting the situation that YOU'VE created by taking the traditionally female role when it comes to making meals.

If you want her to stop asking what mum's cooking, you need to get your DH to step up and cook, and let your MIL know that he does.

This OP 'problem' is entirely of your own making.

I would pick her up every single time and ask back DD can you ask MIL to ask Daddy these questions as to what he's doing with cooking / cleaning etc -and point out we are EQUAL here for parenting. Could you also point out the Granny that forcing stereotypes on young people is NOT helpful.

I would say this is she were 14 months or 14 -pointedly and loudly every single bloody time

Really though her father needs to deal with this -not you!!

My DM keeps saying how sorry she is that I have to work, She spent my whole childhood going to coffee mornings, seemingly.

I'm sorry that my DD (mother of a two year old) HAS to work, too. I'd like her to have the option, or to be able to work P/T if she chooses. But the choice is not available to her as it was to me.

I'm not being sexist, I'm not saying that she shouldn't work. All power to her if she CHOOSES to work. But she hasn't had a choice. She has to. And removal of choice is never a good thing.

@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.

This

I don't think it's a generational thing either; I think CERTAIN people of that generation, just as NannyOgg says.

My DF retired at 52 - he had a high-level, well-paid but stressful job so DM did all the domestic stuff apart from gardening. My DM was still in her mid 40s and working P/T. She told DF that certain domestic tasks were now to be his domain including cooking, laundry and ironing. There were some "interesting' kitchen experiments, but his confidence and repertoire grew. It's just as well because DM died very suddenly 8 years later. People asked in hushed tones how on earth DF would manage, but he has coped absolutely fine for over 20 years. He still does his own laundry and ironing, breakfasts and lunches. He has been staying next door for most of the time since March 2020 so I tend to cook dinner. He's in his late 80s and always brought me up to know how to change my car tyres, repair bike punctures and the like.

@TheVanguardSix

I mean, if you're literally standing in the kitchen popping the fish fingers in the oven and peas on the hob and she's asking, "So what's mummy cooking for tea?" I see no problem with that (other than visual problems for not noticing the fish fingers). That would be chit-chat/small talk. But if she's regularly asking this while you're at work or you're on the sofa and your nose is in a book/you're netflix and chilling, or you're just doing fuck all and not donning the apron, ball, and chain, it IS a loaded, passive-aggressive, MIL question.

I've never been asked this, so I don't see a huge issue. But if I were regularly asked this, hell if I had my MIL in my house often enough to ask this... or my OWN mother for that matter... it would drive me up the wall.

No it's a regular thing my DD is 8 and it's being going on for years !! I was actually sat on my arse watching Netflix I've always viewed her as a martyr for her sons and husband doing their washing preparing meals then saying she's tired as she still works full time. They are grown adults she doesn't need to be a martyr but I do like her most of the time just not the passive aggressive comments. I also have a cleaner which she disapproves of

ah but it is the patriarch at work and internalised misogny and the fact that she "has a vagina" 🙄- let's find this and add on some gaslighting , bullying , financially controlling but while we do so let's treat MILs as if they have "lost their marbles "

No it’s not.
OP has said she does the majority of the cooking, so obviously she’s going to ask what she is cooking.

@Elfonthesofa My mother was the same, a crap SAHM - utterly chaotic and messed up childhood as a result. Her bubble was burst when my father left for a OW when I was 21, and she was forced to go back to work after 24 years. The way she reacted, you would have sworn she'd been sold into white slavery!

They are grown adults she doesn't need to be a martyr but I do like her most of the time just not the passive aggressive comments.

Have you ever told her so?
Have you ever called her out on her assumptive gender-based comments?

If not, start doing so, Especially when it's in earshot of the DC.
She won't stop unless you tell her to. It doesn't have to be confrontational.

Although I'm still puzzled about why your DH doesn't do half the cooking, & why you level your ire at MiL, rather than him.

@WonderfulYou

ah but it is the patriarch at work and internalised misogny and the fact that she "has a vagina" 🙄- let's find this and add on some gaslighting , bullying , financially controlling but while we do so let's treat MILs as if they have "lost their marbles "

No it’s not.
OP has said she does the majority of the cooking, so obviously she’s going to ask what she is cooking.

I wasn't being serious 😬

It's a definite "thing" with some mothers of men.

My MIL Is also of the belief that DH shouldn't do any cooking because he's male and has a job. I have a job too - looking after Every Other Fucking Thing, and we have 2 DSs, so quite honestly, him doing 3 nights a week cooking isn't that much of an ask, plus it is needed to show that boys that one does NOT require a vagina to do house stuff like cooking and washing up and so on.

MIL thinks I'm being Too Hard on him though - but then she set his belief pattern up by never creating the good habits of helping with the cooking/washingup/tidying etc. So what does she know.

When I got engaged to DH, MIL told me I would need to learn how to cook now I would have a husband to feed! I asked her what was wrong with her son's arms...

'I also have a cleaner which she disapproves of '
OP your use of I is interesting in the context of this conversation. Surely 'we' have a cleaner.
Did your MILs comment piss you off because it reflects an actual imbalance in both the work load and mental load between you and your DH? You say he does some cooking, you sound like you see the cleaner as someone who lightens your load rather than his... as PPs have said, is she commenting more on what she sees rather than what her misogyny thinks she should be seeing?

My own mother is shocked that I don’t iron everything that passes through the washing machine and that DH does housework. iWork full time and promised myself when I was young I wouldn’t be like her. My dad did absolutely fuck all in the house and in relation to childcare.

When they were going on holiday she’s spend a full day ironing and packing (no idea why you would waste time ironing before packing as it gets creased like hell). He’d sit in his chair and she’d pack everything. Ah packs his own stuff, if he forgets anything it’s not my problem and vice Vera’s!

I ask granddaughters “what are you having for tea tonight”. Could be either of the parents cooking, it matters not, I suspect, in your case, that it’s just a conversation with no expectation or judgement on who is actually providing the food.

Think it's a generation thing!

I don't get some or the abbreviations people use on here. Anyone able to fill me in?

Sounds like my MIL. She's asked me why I don't make OH a cup of tea when he gets home from work, why don't I have his tea ready for him, why don't I make him a packed lunch.

If OH can't do those things himself then I'm afraid that's on her! She should've taught him! (For the record he can and does do all those things himself, in fact he makes all the packed lunches for the whole family!)

I'd say something quite blunt but positive to her and your daughter at the same time. A kind of oh isn't grandma silly for suggesting that it's only up to mum to get tea! Why don't you go and ask dad. That would make sense.

My Mum loves to tell me how lucky I am that my husband is an active dad and does housework - he does far more than I do and all of the cooking - and it totally pisses me off. There's nothing 'lucky' about expecting a partnership to be a fucking partnership!

Just call out from the background we need to ask Daddy what he is cooking.

I know my MIL thinks it terrible when a woman earns the higher salary in the household. She told me she thought a distant relative was not a "proper man" because his wife was a doctor and he stopped work to look after the kids. It's just the world she knows. We don't tell her much about our family dynamics so we don't get the comment.

My MIL just threw SIL, BIL and their baby out because she was sick of SIL ‘sitting on her arse and not cooking meals for her son on his return from work’

She sounds like the same MIL 🤔😂

I think it's a generation thing. My grandma said If I wanted a man, I had to iron his shirts before he goes, to work.
I was that's fine, I don't want a man, that cannot fend for himself, I aren't going to be no man's slave.
However, I do seem to be stuck in that kind of relationship, but I don't iron his shirts. So I guess I have kept that promise.

I’m jealous! I think you’re lucky 😂😅 x