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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think this was done on purpose

160 replies

Strawberryandlime9 · 22/07/2023 00:29

Not taken it to heart too much but thought I would post for opinions.

I collected my DD from pre school just after 1pm and asked her ‘did you have anything nice for dinner’. The mum next to me (who was quite posh) said to her DC straight after ‘what did you have for lunch today darling’ and then looked at us. Aibu to think she was thinking that I am common.

OP posts:

mumofboys8787 · 22/07/2023 04:45

Wtf ?!

GarlicGrace · 22/07/2023 04:53

YANBU, but most of your replies so far are.

I once posted that I'd snarkily corrected a Loud Parent's "choritzo" and Mumsnet told me very firmly that I was being an arsehole 😂 I am an arsehole, and so is the other mother in your story!

IncompleteSenten · 22/07/2023 05:00

There are definitely people who would do that, op. I don't think anyone can say with certainty whether she was one but I think generally when you're in a situation like that you can tell the difference because of non verbal clues that are obviously absent when retelling so if you think she was being weird then she probably was.

MindPalace · 22/07/2023 05:04

Yes, I think she was publicly correcting you and being snobby. Mean woman.

RosesAndHellebores · 22/07/2023 05:54

"The mum next to me who was quite posh"

"The mum next to me who was quite old/black/Muslim/disabled/gay"

You come across as very judgemental op and why comment that someone is different to you? She was just asking her child a question and may just have smiled because she thought she'd found shared ground and was engaging because you both were pleased to see your daughters.

I see shocking inverted snobbery here. It isn't nice.

BananaBender · 22/07/2023 05:58

confused in Australian

I don’t get it. What’s happening here? How is dinner a midday meal? It’s an evening meal. Is there some weird class thing in England about meal names?

itsgettingweird · 22/07/2023 05:58

I didn't even realise you were getting at a lunch v dinner thing until the replies.

So yes - I'm going with overthinking it because it didn't even register with me.

I was just wondering how you found that something to even stress over!

AngelsWithSilverWings · 22/07/2023 06:10

Overthinking it certainly. I always say lunch as to me dinner is an evening meal. I have a child who often won't eat at school so I may have overheard you and that would have prompted me to ask DD what she had for lunch.

Also it's not a posh v common thing is it? Surely it's just regional differences.I'm in the south east and it's usually lunch for a midday meal but no one would be surprised to hear it referred to as dinner either.

Totalwasteofpaper · 22/07/2023 06:11

I have an modern RP accent (DH is northern so says dinner for lunch and so i will sometimes too)
I could see myself saying both the sentences to my child and when i read this my first thought was that she has poor conversation skills and was copying you....

so i am guessing you just have a bit of a chip on your shoulder because i would have just assumed she was a dullard with zero chat.
buuuuut even even if she was trying to make a point, i think just have the grace not too care. Because if she needs that to feel good about herself she clearly has a hard sad life.

Fidelina · 22/07/2023 06:11

Not from the UK, but lived there a long time and had a child at school there — as I understood it, the midday meal at school has retained the older title of ‘dinner’ from the days when it was the main meal (in Austen’s day, the concept of ‘luncheon’ hadn’t really come into being yet and even gentry generally ate dinner mid-afternoon, especially in the country. By the time the upper classes were eating dinner in the evening, UC children were eating their main meal in the middle of the day, hence it was ‘dinner’ they were missing if at school, like children from other classes. Hence ‘school dinners’ and ‘dinner ladies’.

Even the government document on ‘Free School Meals’ calls a hot meal of meat and vegetables ‘dinner’, though a meal of a sandwich and fruit eaten during the school day is called ‘lunch’.

DS used to have ‘school dinner’ at ‘lunchtime’ when he was in reception and Year 1, but as he never ate anything, I switched him to bringing food from home, which was definitely a lunch.

Now he’s at school outside the UK in a country with no tradition of school meals provision, and the two recesses are called ‘little break’ and ‘big break’.

Hibiscrubbed · 22/07/2023 06:28

I didn’t even register the different use of words until other posters said, so she probably just thought to ask after you did.

Did your child answer you? Did the kids have the same thing?

TookTheBook · 22/07/2023 06:30

Well my DH asks the kids what they had for dinner and I say what did they have for lunch lunch. Just depends who is picking them up! The kids manage to understand and no one gets offended. (I think it's a regional thing tbh not class?)

KingKhazi · 22/07/2023 06:40

Since when was lunch posh? I'm as common as much and its breakfast lunch and tea here. Never called it dinner.

Riapia · 22/07/2023 06:40

School kids have school dinner.
Always have always will.
Ignorant woman.

doorstopper123 · 22/07/2023 06:45

Did you want her to say dinner too? So not to upset you?

I could never say dinner at 1pm. It feels so unnatural and the child would have been confused too

MrsClatterbuck · 22/07/2023 06:48

Growing up our midday meal was dinner and then tea at tea time. Also had school dinner.
Today I call it lunch but on a Sunday we go out for lunch and have a roast dinner. I still ask dh what he wants for his tea in the evening.
If someone talks about dinnertime I usually think they mean the middle of the day and teatime is around 6pm.

Anyone remember going out for high tea. My mum loved going to a certain hotel for this year's ago. It would have been served with tea bread and butter.

Tilllly · 22/07/2023 06:55

If that's the vibe you got then yes, she was probably making a point
Let her 🤷‍♀️
And next time ask "good scrag today little 'un?"

PhotoExplosion · 22/07/2023 06:55

Dinner is the hot meal here. So if we eat a hot meal at midday we have dinner and tea. If we eat a hot meal in the evening we have lunch and dinner.

FabFitFifties · 22/07/2023 06:56

I expect you had to be there to pick up the non verbals OP. You may well be right. I often wonder when I changed how I refer to things eg dinner/lunch, settee/sofa, sitting room/living room. I am deliberately now writing "mam" in work notes, after writing "mum" for past 10 years, as colleagues do. Live and work in northeast - no one says "mum"!

Relaxd · 22/07/2023 06:56

Frankly it doesn’t matter. It’s not common to say dinner when talking about a school meal (after all they are school dinners served by dinner ladies, although I’m sure you also say ‘lunch box’). We say lunch at our house and dinner for evening meals but wouldn’t say we were posh.

Mutinyonthecrunchie · 22/07/2023 06:59

I have lunch at about 1pm and dinner at about 6pm guess that makes me a snob by some MN standards but I was raised in a naice area of Surrey, but hey, so what?
As long as you you know what you mean that's all that matters. Don't over think it OP.

Jujubes5 · 22/07/2023 07:02

I would say she was in a bad mood and just doing something diggy because of that. Not in a bad mood at you btw. Just in a bad mood.
But I over read people's behaviour.

Quoria · 22/07/2023 07:06

SD1978 · 22/07/2023 03:22

I don't think lunch/ dinner is an indicator of class- it's regional isnt it? Scottish here and it always lunch and dinner- dinner is tea time. Although I also don't care that others call mid day meal dinner- assume it's where you're brought up, more than the MN class obsession.

No I think if is a class indicator. I remember at school in Scotland some children calling it dinner. There will be plenty of sociolinguistic studies on it. If I ask my child about dinner at nursery she gets confused because they call it dinner there. I also tend to refer to lunch at school as dinner, as it's a school dinner. It's not in my normal vocabulary though.

SpatulaSpatula · 22/07/2023 07:07

I reckon this is the kind of thing you really had to be there for. With some people, you just know what they're doing. You should trust your gut. If you know she was looking down on you, then she probably was. If you're actually uncertain and she seems otherwise nice, I'd give her the benefit of the doubt.

HaddawayAndShite · 22/07/2023 07:15