Slightly miffed at In-Laws buying us food.

[Christmasbeach]

MIL has always bought DP and his brother food since they both moved out. BIL stopped MIL years ago (apart from when she offers him steak/high end meat) but DP still accepts the occasional bag when she's insistent. DP does try to reject these bags but sometimes she'll sneak them into his back seat etc.

I joke with DP that she's playing ready steady cook with us as it's always bizarre items that she's found a good deal on. Usually it's a bag of biscuits/cakes/bread/microwavable rice/crisps with the occasional newly released burgers/seasoned meat. I've always found it slightly bizarre that two men in their thirties are treated like uni students but i've heard that other mums do the same. A lot of the bag of food is cupboard things that DP usually just takes to work for a free home if he's not interested in and if we're given meat he'll have it for lunch.

Now the bit i'm feeling a bit miffed at, if not slightly offended, is that since we've announced that we're pregnant she's been sending food for us both. By that we've received a lot more meat/things for meals but it's all asda essentials. Asda essential sausages, chicken thighs (the original packaging was damaged therefore she put them in a freezer bag for us), wafer ham, ready made mash potato etc.

She quite often makes digs that i'm too much of a health freak (because i've ordered pasta/vegetarian meals out) and 'she ate everything while pregnant'. She knows that I do care what goes into my body, I'm not a huge meat eater and I enjoy cooking. We really do not need hand outs as we're both on good salaries and buying us all this Asda Essentials has only came about after we've announced we're pregnant.

It's also very inconvenient too as we meal plan/do the weekly shop therefore we're either left eating a meal we don't particularly want to eat or unfortunately it goes to waste. I have tried being polite to MIL that either we don't have room in our fridge/freezer or we're not going straight home/there isn't any need as we do our own shops.

MIL has now made a comment to DP that i'm not appreciative. AIBU that as a pregnant professional I'm not exactly jumping for joy at the lowest end chicken thighs in a non labelled freezer bag that needed to be eaten that day?

The OP has said no thank you. The MIL should give to a food bank where it will be well received

You don't deserve a flaming at all. Of course it's strange and annoying for your MIL to give you a load of food you don't want or need. At best it's a sign she hasn't properly appreciated that her son is now an independent adult. At worst it's an attempt at control.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the COL or food banks and posters who are trying to bring that into it are just being dicks. It's not tone deaf at all- I've been on the bread line a lot of my life and even at my poorest I could have appreciated how annoying your MIL is being!

Would it work to give her something to do instead? If she has he urge to give you food could that urge be redirected into a savings account for the baby or contribution towards a buggy or something else actually useful?

What utter rubbish.

Its about respecting the boundaries your son and his own family set.

I got on very well with my ILs but when ever they offered help, especially money, we were refused it. We didn't need it and as soon as you accept then invariably conditions start to be imposed and comments made.

Parents forcing unwanted gifts on the next generation is not healthy, however kindly it is meant.

*we refused it...

"It's very kind of you to give us this food, but we have all we need and more. So this I will pop in at the homeless shelter on the corner."

I’m usually the mil defender but my main issue with this is the passive aggressive sexist idea that you (woman = default cook and bottle washer) is not feeding her beloved son well enough. Which to an extent you are enabling by trying to manage this and saying you do ‘most of the cooking’. So by that token you’re both as bad as each other.

I would leave that carrier bag entirely to your husband. Do it demonstrably in front of her ‘here you go Steve…’ to visibly show that you’re not going to do a single thing with it, you won’t put it away, do anything or cook with it. If it goes mouldy in the car tough. ‘Yeah Steve left it in the car and it went mouldy so he chucked it’ - ‘oh I don’t know what Steve did with it…he probably binned it’ - ‘oh those Asda things? Yeah I don’t eat them so Steve put ‘em in the freezer’ etc. etc. every. single. time. Let her know in uncertain terms that you are not his mother or his nanny and if she wants to pass off food parcels to him, they become his burden, not yours.

You are really overthinking this.

I haven't RTFT, but some of the batshit comments on here are ridiculous.

My MIL is like this and got worse after I had my first. I am now LC. She just would not listen. She's stopped with the random items, but this is after my DH has been extremely blunt with her many times. She'd bin dive for us and save random items like broken wicker chairs, meat that we'd never eat and second hand toys that didn't work or were broken.

I feel your pain. And for those that don't get it- lucky you!!!!!!

How is it still not sinking in to some posters?

MOST FOODBANKS DO NOT ACCEPT FRESH FOOD

MOST FOODBANKS DO NOT ACCEPT FRESH FOOD

MOST FOODBANKS DO NOT ACCEPT FRESH FOOD

MOST FOODBANKS DO NOT ACCEPT FRESH FOOD

MOST FOODBANKS DO NOT ACCEPT FRESH FOOD

MOST FOODBANKS DO NOT ACCEPT FRESH FOOD

And once more for those who missed it

MOST FOODBANKS DO NOT ACCEPT FRESH FOOD

Ffs

Infact the straw that broke the camels back to me going LC was her refusing to listen when i asked her to not leave chocolate cake we had bought for her mum. I was on a diet and my husband didn't want it. Plus it would taste rank a week after cutting it. She insisted on saving some, even though I said no.

She tells people i stop talking to her over cake. It was actually due to the persistent breaking of boundaries.

How is it out 9f love if she would rather you waste your leftovers and eat her dodgy chicken?? Controlling more like.

My mum does this and it drives me mad.
I've had to get pretty blunt with her. We dont need the food and often don't like it. I would rather she donated to a food bank than us.

My mum does this - to me, and my brother and my SIL. It’s horrendous. It’s controlling, intrusive, and loaded with judgement and criticism. It really does not come from a good place, in my experience. You’re not being unreasonable but good luck getting it to stop without loads of emotional drama!

It's probably her only way of feeling that she is still useful to her children.
Just drop the bag off at a food bank or advertise "Free bag of food" on FB Marketplace. Someone will be grateful for it.

Just don't eat it

ODFOD

I hate “we’re pregnant” as a statement. It’s completely wrong and sounds ridiculous. It’s “I’m pregnant” or “we are expecting”
I cannot understand why anyone with any intelligence would use that statement.
I also think you come across as a complete snob, looking down on what you perceive to be inferior quality brands, even though it’s what a lot of people need to rely on and many are grateful for.
I would have had sympathy and agreed with you that receiving unwanted food is both annoying and unhelpful but you really need to think about how you have come across.

You don’t deserve a flaming at all OP. Your MIL is all about control. I’ve been there and worn the T-shirt and it’s very hard. Fortunately, my DH was team me and we would laugh about it, you’d cry otherwise, right.

Oh my mum absolutely does this, but she brings fully cooked meals, homemade cake, fruit, biscuits, expensive cured meats I don't tend to buy. It uses to fuck up my meal planning but bow I just factor it in. I got properly screwed one time when she turned up empty handed except for sweets for the kids!

Main difference being she brings food we actually like and eat and it comes from a good place rather than a controlling place. If I told her to stop she would.

You’re being very ungrateful

Accept it thankfully and graciously

She thought of you and her son and spent money on it

It doesn't matter if it’s high end or not - it’s the thought that counts.

Can you eat it? By all means do.

Cant / won’t eat it? Give it to charity. Olio it if in London - a grateful family will happily take it off you.

just because others would be grateful doesn’t mean she has to be. Maybe the MIL could give it to the food bank instead

Thanks for your support, @TheShellBeach . I should have been much more outspoken at the time! My inner fuming went on so long I wonder whether it contributed to my auto-immune disease.

Main point being, OP, don't keep allowing this as next thing you know she'll be shovelling unwanted food down your baby's mouth.

Why should people be grateful for something they don’t want, don’t need, and have already asked that they don’t receive?

My mother still occasionally drops off baking or food for us too, sometimes food she saw on sale. I actually have adopted her habit of doing the same sometimes. For our family though, no one gets offended or hurt or angry or insulted. Its just a bag of chicken or some muffins or a half priced salad. We usally either eat it or freeze it for stew or give it away. Appreciate she is thinking of us and that her annoying habit at 78 years old is buying us food we didn't request. She gets bored during the day and wanders the shops and in the moment thinks wecan use it somehow. She likes to still feel like she is doing something for others and it makes her happy.

The OP does not want to waste food. That’s not tone-deaf. Food waste is bad for everyone and the environment. Sometimes it is good to be aware of the world around you.