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.

No, in my experience younger brothers and male cousins and in some cases menservants would help.

Also it's not being a handmaiden to fulfil a traditional role. Any more than it's being a [misogynistic insult of choice here] to be western.

So highly important that it was only arranged 3 days before?

It does show cultural impoverishment if people don't appreciate how their neighbours live.

This thread is also explaining to me why some middle-class houses are dirty and the hosting poor on big occasions. It's on purpose. Who knew that was culture.

You do realise that OP's family is Muslim and Eid is as big a deal as Christmas is for Christians? Other Muslim posters have confirmed the elaborate and time-consuming nature of the food, all of which needs to be cooked from scratch.

Would you tell a poster who was stressed about preparing an elaborate Christmas dinner single handedly with 4 days' notice to just chuck a casserole in the oven? Plus, guests coming for Christmas dinner would be very disappointed in a casserole, but there is no religious element dictating the food for Christmas dinner. It is traditional rather than religious, unlike Eid.

I think what I find the most bizarre is that you don’t like DH to leave you alone with your 2 year old when he goes to pick MIL up

I think it is your DH who is unreasonable in inviting MIL and SIL at short notice, especially as you (I assume) had already made plans for that day with your own family.
I think he also needs a conversation with them around what they can do to help. This thread has been useful in understanding different traditions and it does sound like they are picking the bits they like (being a guest and being fed) and ignoring other elements (being a family, everyone contributes).
Sorry if this is the wrong thing to suggest, but like some people have a delayed Christmas dinner, could this not have been arranged so that you celebrated with your family on the day as planned, then as nothing had been arranged with his family yet, you suggested the weekend after.

Leave the clearing up till the morning, put the children to bed and go to bed. Let DH do what he feels he needs to for his mum.

I always drove my mum home myself if she came to ours for a meal. I would have worried about her in a taxi or on a bus late at night, although I'm sure she would have been fine, it's just what you feel is right.

People understand it was Eid. People just also think it’s mad that hosting a ‘last-meal’ for two people, immediate family members, not the Emperor of Japan and 200 courtiers, involved three days of frantic preparation, an all-nighter, and the OP not be able to sit down to celebrate Eid at the meal she has single-handedly cooked. And that everyone involved apparently thought that was fine.

Some PP seem to be choosing to be willfully ignorant. The kind of meal OP is describing is not just like "having two extra dinner guests" when you're just making spag bol.

@RiversofOtter5 surely you have to accept it is pretty shit that someone spends all their time in the kitchen preparing food while the rest of the relatives eat it and they don’t seem bothered that she doesn’t get to eat with them. Is it because a DIL is seen as lesser?

Not to mention I think a one month build up of fasting. It seems like a much bigger deal than Christmas actually

Is your MIL a millionaire?

No. It's because she is the site of fruitfulness and abundance. You don't get it.

It doesn't matter who they are if the level of work is unreasonable for one person to take on solo.

You might think it is bad manners to expect an able bodied 40 year old woman to bring some samosas to a party.

I think it is exceptionally bad manners to come to a last minute family celebration and watch the woman who has done all the cooking run around after you all evening and not get a moment to sit down and eat herself, without lifting a finger to help.

Could you take your MIL to your parents’ house to celebrate Eid with your family next time? And don’t invite SIL!

It does matter who they are.

Stop being a martyr then… you want all of us to go “you poor thing! Such a hero…here’s your cape”. Not happening. You chose this. Maybe next time don’t… have a easier time at eid.

Sorry OP but i voted YABU. I wouldnt have an issue with DH dropping his mum off but I also would leave everything as it was and took care of your DC and just have a moment to catch your breath if thats what you needed. I dont see what needed to be done there and then and couldnt wait 2 hrs for your DH to come back and help.

You were both up all night preparing? Your 2 year old still hadn't had dinner at 10.30pm?

This is bizarre.

Why did having 2 relatives for dinner require so much prep? Why didn't you give your 2 year old dinner at a sensible time?

The way your MIL got home isn't the main issue here. You seem very disorganised or you're going way over the top with preparations, but something isn't right.

Scale down your preparations. Do a simpler meal.
Invite people for lunch rather than dinner so it's not so late.
Give your child their lunch too.

If you do this earlier in the day transport options for getting home are a lot easier.

I understand the traditional food that takes ages to prepare. But what would happen if, your husband said to his family that you'd both live to see them but you've got your hands full at the moment, so could they each bring a dish? Or that you would be cooking the food but there will be fewer different dishes than normal? They are choosing not to host or can't host so its not unreasonable if you're the only one that makes the effort, to lighten the load a little, as you're family and in a family, doing everything for a celebration shouldn't be down to one person.

As a last resort...My husband is also a terrible cook and we tend to host for family occasions but I make sure he does his share for these. He will make the special trips out to butchers etc to order and pick up ingredients. Help with prep (he can't cook but he can clean/ chop meat / peel potatoes etc). And he looks after the kids while I get on with stuff in advance and freeze it, to make it easier on the day. Its different as I enjoy it mostly but if I didn't, I wouldn't hesitate to simplify / ask for help bringing a dish / buy in food

Tell him next time you'll do the driving (both ways) and he can wrangle the 2yo and whatever prep/clean-up needs to be done during that time.
If he somehow genuinely cannot cook, that's unfortunate, but you can probably shuffle things around so that you've done the skilled cooking work ahead of time and he has instructions to follow to finish up.

I'm not even South Asian or Muslim, just lived in UK cities and had friends! This country is fucked if people don't get out of the M&S party food aisle and into each other's homes -- respectfully, not as judges.

No, it doesn't. Do you understand what culture is? It is "the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society." Understanding your neighbours (though I'm not sure how important cleaning habits for holidays are) might be useful, but neither the neighbours' culture nor your own culture is "impoverished" by not knowing the customs of the other. I agree that it is good to know how people from different walks of life "work" and I find it extremely interesting. Others don't. That might make them incurious, or even intellectually impoverished but it doesn't make their culture impoverished. Don't be so rude.

As to the dirty "middle class" houses, and the "poor hosting". I imagine there are poor hosts in all cultures - it's a skill to do it well, and not one that everyone has. But to suggest that because people don't host in the way that you do makes them bad hosts doesn't mean that is a tenet of a particular culture - it may be that they are very good hosts, but that your cultural expectations are different to those of their culture so that you have simply failed to understand hat is required of hosts in their culture (or in your interpretation, you are "culturally impoverished" by your lack of knowledge of your "neighbours"). or they may simply be people who don't like and/or are not good at hosting.

Dirty houses? I don't believe you think this is culture, and I think you understand perfectly well that people of all cultures have different hygiene standards, entirely unlinked to their culture. My house is clean, but often messy (not when I'm hosting - culturally I was raised to respect visitors by hosting in a well-presented home). This has nothing to do with culture, and everything to do with, it being a busy, full house, filled primarily with people who are only just learning to take good care of their property and living space.

There was absolutely no reason to be so rude; I merely disagreed with you. The thing about cultures is that you can't judge one by the "rules" of another. They are self-contained systems. That can make it hard for there to be understanding. between people of different cultures, as you have so ably demonstrated.

It’s not dramatic to want to know my mum is safe and travels comfortably - it’s the least I can do for her.

Wow. Lucky her. Rewarded for that by skivvying all day and not even eating anything herself.