To think DH shouldn't have dropped off MIL

[gollyimholly]

Just wondering if I'm being unfair as I don't want to be.

DH and I hosted a dinner over the weekend. We have a 2 year and I'm a SAHM. MIL and SIL were invited. It was all a bit last minute (for me at least) and was organised on Wednesday earlier in the week. I spent the next couple of days shopping and buying gifts (Mother's Day, Eid etc) and cooking. It wasn't easy at DD is extra clingy at the moment and seems to only want to be around me. The night before the dinner ended up being an all nighter for both DH and I (me: cooking, DH: decorating and cleaning)

MIL and SIL live an hour away from us by car (and about the same by train). Neither drive and neither did DH until a couple of years ago. At the end of the dinner he asked me if it would be OK to drop them off home. It was 10.30pm - DD had still not had dinner, she was still awake, I was shattered and I really could have done with DH staying home to help clear up the post party chaos too.

When MIL usually comes DH will pick her up from her house and bring her over. I always do find it a bit stressful as it means leaving DD with me (she is 2) and I need to keep the house in a tidy state and get food sorted impending arrival of MIL. He will also drop her off. I am usually exhausted as I'm the one who is sorting out the food and for me when the guests leave, I could really do with DH being home.

MIL is 67, fit and healthy physically. I suspect some MH but not sure as DH says nothing is wrong. She won't take public transport alone, generally won't leave home unless someone is with her. English isn't her first language but then she did raise her children with only English and I personally would describe her as fluent. I have noticed though that she cannot follow conversation if the sentence structure is a bit complex. She also has no idea of where things are geographically - I don't mean just London, I mean countries. However, given then family have only ever used public transport and taxis, I would have thought it OK for MIL to go home in a taxi at least. DH says she doesn't like the smells or how restricted she is in one eg. can't have a conversation without feeling like the driver is listening.

AIBU to have wanted DH to just get MIL a taxi home on this particular occasion as I was just flat out exhausted from the dinner and the prep the days before. He also hadn't made sure DD had had dinner whilst I spent most of the evening in the kitchen, which meant I had do sort it out too. He was only gone for 2 hours but it was a busy 2 hours where lots needed doing and I would have appreciated the extra pair of hands.

Also, so as not to drip feed. I ALWAYS host my ILs. They never organise anything at their own place for special occasions and it's getting increasingly more tiring with DD. I feel like if she was older she could be more independent etc but right now she does need me and I find it tough to manage it all. I generally don't have dinner parties unless it's ILs coming.

If it wasn't a special occasion, I would have ordered in. But it being Eid, we had to have a specific kind of food which needed to be home made. And I had told DH prior to the event that I would rather we didn't host it as it would all fall on me to cook. DH is an atrocious cook. He wouldn't have a clue where to begin with something like this. He will usually clean the house and do the dishes etc before and after events.

Congratulations, you must be person 9999 or thereabouts to dismiss a situation culturally different from yours as 'mental'.

Watching with interest how everyone is critical of children eating late. Wondering how many holiday in the Mediterranean where children eat late, or have praise for Scandinavia and Finland where children are up super late in the white nights of summer. Maybe if UK children were better integrated with adult diet and meal times we wouldn't have so many drink and diet related health problems in the population later?

This thread is a perfect demonstration of how little people understand cultural differences. With a few exceptions almost everyone has belittled the OP. A Christmas meal is piss easy. I've done it and no way does it compare to Eid. Only the turkey needs any kind of prep. Christmas day also works completely differently. People are in their pyjamas slobbing around till late morning or afternoon. On Eid day the whole family have to be up early in the morning, showered and dressed up for prayers in the mosque. Traditional cooked breakfast, then visits or off to someone's (usually parents) for lunch. Then having people over for dinner. And people preparing overnight isn't unheard of because before Eid day people are observing Ramadan and busy with the prayers and rituals associated with that. Yes it can be a lot of work but it's what we do and we love the day.

OP I get your frustration. I don't think your DH is unreasonable for dropping his mother home, given the time. But next time insist on him helping out (even if he doesn't know to cook he can still do all the cutting and clearing up etc.) and do the cleaning/decorating in small amounts throughout Ramadan. I was like you when I was a young woman, trying to do everything in one go, but have learnt to relax and make things easy for me. For example I did the breakfast stuff days ago and froze it, making things nice and easy for me.

As usual there is a bit of a pile on. How mean to call the OP chaotic and disorganised. It was quite clear from her original posts and follow up posts that she is talking about making a complex South Asian holiday dinner and that it was not a matter of shoving a chicken in the oven. To manage that alongside looking after a 2 year old and alongside the evidently high standards of cleaning etc that the OP expects of herself (and perhaps her ILs expect of her) is the opposite of disorganised.

OP - yes, a taxi back would have been kinder to you and I think next time this would be a good idea. However, it sounds like your MIL is v set in her ways and perhaps a little vulnerable. I can understand that your DH might not have wanted to stick her in a taxi after the dinner if the idea had not been raised and discussed before - rightly or wrongly, I can see someone like that getting quite distressed if they were expecting a ride home. When you're all calm and happy, I would talk to your DH about how you can manage things better next time, so that he has time to explain how things will be to the ILs.

My children are flexible in lots of ways but not feeding a 2yo until 10:30 at night is far too late for lots of children. My 4yo is the definition of hangry if you don’t feed her. Integrating children into adult life only works to a certain extent and part of being a parent is making your child’s needs a priority. I don’t think making sure they are fed at a reasonable time is pandering or going to lead to “drink and diet related health problems”.

I don't mean it as a sweeping criticism of all things British, I'm just trying to say that how things are done here seems deeply unreasonable to me with regard to feeding children bland food and putting them away early. 10.30 is a reasonable time for a child to be up whose family has been on Ramadan time (lates) for a month and whose religion has a lunar calendar.

This is what I was going to say.
You’re a SAHM to one child yet your house is so filthy it takes all night to clean it?

I don’t want to make it a competition but I was a single mum for 3 years with 3 children (2 under 5) I worked and my house was generally always in a state where I would be ready for visitors with an hours notice! You had from Wednesday and you don’t work so I’m really struggling to see the problem.
Do you and your DH not communicate about feeding your DD? Getting her to bed on time?

RTFT it's not about a casual dinner on a week night. It's about festivity not filth.

@KaToby I think the OP clarified that it was more decorating the house for Eid and her husband took hours to do it as he is very slow

I’ve read all the OP’s posts now and I completely understand your frustrations about it @gollyimholly. Your DH sprung this on you and it would be like pulling Christmas out of the bag in its entirety with only a few days notice - buy all the presents, wrap them, put up decorations, make the house visitor ready, make all the traditional foods from scratch… ETA - I know it’s not like Christmas but that’s the only major event I have to compare it to and the thought of that stresses me enough.

As you were busy adhering to his family’s ridiculous demands cooking the feast, he should have made sure your DD was fed. That’s on him! You’re meant to be a team and feeding her is not solely your responsibility.

My children will enjoy parties, celebrations, etc. until late. I don’t mind them being up if they’re having fun but I will make sure they’ve had a proper dinner at their usual time. Any food after that is then just a bonus.

OP’s DH should have made sure their DD was fed!

Absolutely. Your DH presumably wants to play the big man, hosting the Eid dinner, but he is expecting you to do all the cooking. Yes I get he does the cleaning ("slowly"!) but NO WAY should he be deciding that you as a family are hosting an exhausting production like this. You have got to both agree before invitations are issued. And tbh this should apply for anything beyond a cup of tea.

If he isn't discussing these ideas with you first, and allowing you a veto before invitations are issued, then he is treating you like a houshold appliance. That's not very nice.

Good!!!!

Here’s the thing: their expectations aren’t your obligations.

Say no.

If they want more elaborate celebrations, then they have to participate in making that happen. Until then, you’re not hosting.

I do have sympathy for you OP, as there’s clearly some cultural differences at play here. It wasn’t just a casual mum-in-law and sister calling round for a couple of hours for a chat. But I think in future if you feel you can’t host what seems to be quite an elaborate occasion, you’re going to have to be firmer with your DH or whoever is continuing to expect you to do it, even if you have said no.

She said she had found a trusted supplier it's like any celebration for example Christmas day. I could have made Jamie's gravy by boiling the 300 chicken wings over several days or I could use bisto

I don’t want to make it a competition, BUT…. 🙄

Can people RTFT and also stop trying to one up the poor OP? It was an impossible situation. She handled it with grace and she is asking for a culturally sensitive solution. Its a problem of mismatched power over a tiny family unit (hers) and high cultural expectations for a beloved, complicated, holiday tradition. She can’t fix it by 1) scanting the holiday, 2) insulting her in laws, 3) fighting with her husband.

I suggest consulting with a sympathetic authority figure who can counsel the DH and them he can deal with MIL. The solution—whatever it is—must be culturally sensitive and kindly so no one’s pride gets hurt or feels like they have lost face (except SIL!).

Good luck, OP!

Her DH family also celebrate Eid! That's no where that's it's indicated that his family don't celebrate Eid. In fact it's indicated that it's actually the other way around and it's her family that don't celebrate Eid.
Either way she's said that if she hosted her family then they'd have helped so presumably she helped her family anyway when she visited there. So it wouldn't have been much if in fact any extra work!

This is what the op says: ‘It sounds like they barely celebrated Eid before I met him. But they've seen DH come to my family's things and how they do it and want the same.’

What a ridiculous suggestion. Presumably the OP has siblings + partners + children celebrating with her parents. Should they all go to hers to hang out with her in-laws?

No my family celebrate Eid in a big way. Usually SIL doesn't even have the day off work for Eid as Eid seemed like such a non-event for my ILs in the past.

However, Eid has also been really enjoyable for my family always. It's a great big communal event where literally we're all cooking together. It has always been tradition for my family to go to the mosque together on Eid morning and have a big breakfast at my mum's (I'm not talking a full English - it's parathas, korma, home made dessert-y things).

Most of this food cannot be outsourced. Lots of the older family members (including my own DF and MIL) dislike pre-made samosas etc. However if I had known literally weeks in advance, I could have got some of it catered but at such short notice it can't be done. Also, as the meat has to be halal, so much of the prep needs to be done at home. We cannot just use meat/chicken stock from the shops as someone else said. We can't buy a lot of meat or chicken half prepped because it just doesn't exist in Tescos. Most of it is scratch cooking.

Lunch was at my grandma's. She is quite elderly and essentially housebound. All her children and grandchildren go to hers for lunch typically. We all take various dishes with us (an effort of probably a group of 12 different people - that's men and women). So I couldn't have just hosted them at mine either because it is important to have celebrated with my grandmother.

DH is very sensitive about the whole thing right now so I don't know how constructive it will be to set the boundaries right now. As I mentioned in a previous post, he is very conscious of how minimal his family are involved in our lives) despite mine and his best efforts. OTOH mine are very involved (in a helpful way too, which DH is always grateful for) and I think on special occasions DH just would love for them to be involved and this is how he has managed to make it happen so far.

So far it sounds like his family getting 'more involved' means you doing 100% of the work.

That's really not on.

She's not on her own. Her adult daughter is with her.