To think my mum was ridiculous about a slice of pie

[BeachPossum]

My son and I made a beautiful rhubarb and strawberry pie a couple of days ago, and I shared a photo of it on our family WhatsApp (parents, siblings and partners).

Yesterday afternoon my mum dropped by unexpectedly after visiting a friend nearby. I offered her a cup of tea and a biscuit and she said 'oh no, I'll have a slice of that lovely pie'. I said 'oh sorry! It's all been eaten', to which she responded with the most exaggerated display of astonishment and surprise. She kept saying 'REALLY! A whole pie in ONE DAY?', saying it would have done her and my dad for a week, we must have had huge slices etc. She made five or six comments in total.

The first time she commented I told her my in laws had been over so between them and us we'd eaten five slices, then my husband had had another piece in the afternoon following a 55km bike ride, and then the three of us had had a piece for morning coffee that day, totalling 9 slices of a normal sized pie. Not a crazy amount. Then when she kept on going on about it I tried to brush it off and move on, before eventually snapping at her to stop talking about food and appetites in front of my young children, at which point she left in a huff. She has texted me this morning to let me know she's hurt, she was just surprised, and that she wasn't saying anything inappropriate in front of the children.

She has absolute form for this. She's one of those people who always has to have the smallest appetite in the room, loves talking about meals she's forgotten to eat, loves refusing food. I was stunned she asked for a slice of pie in the first place since ninety nine times out of a hundred she refuses anything I offer her and makes a point of telling me she's totally full after a huge breakfast of one blini and a quail's egg. She's permanently on a diet, obsessed with food but never eats any, thinks that thinness is next to godliness etc. I've learned to live with it but I'll be damned if me and my children will accept being treated as revolting gluttons for eating two slices of pie over two days.

Anyway, the dilemma. She's incredibly defensive and will go nuclear if I try and get her to take any accountability. I swallow a lot of her shit for the sake of family harmony, and I'm at peace with this because she and I now have a very superficial relationship and I let her crap wash over me. But it's going to get to the point of affecting my children and when that happens I'll have to intervene and accept the fallout. So what do I say to her now? She's expecting an apology from me for snapping and reassurance that she's a lovely mother and granny who was treated unfairly. Do I:

1. Give her an insincere apology to get her to fuck off and leave me alone
2. text something very neutral like 'let's not row over pie' and hope she drops it
3. tell her she was being ridiculous and that it's part of a wider pattern of behaviour that I won't tolerate in front of my kids, and deal with whatever histrionics and drama follows
4. other suggestions welcome

Late boomer here as in was born in ‘57. Let me tell you the message we got from about 11 onwards.
Have you got cellulite? Unforgivable, check every day for this sin and starve until it’s gone.
Can you pinch an inch? Unforgivable, starve until it’s gone.
Have you tried the cabbage /branflakes/lemon water/ zero calories bollocks diet? What do you mean you’re not on a diet?
On and on relentlessly. Teenage mags, telly, celebrities , high school , it was the main topic of conversation. Some people were bound to get disordered eating from it. Twiggy was held up as the goal regardless of body type. ‘Feel the burn!’ Was mandatory for every exercise class.
When you are conscious of every bite that goes in your mouth, it becomes easy to look down and judge the people who are obviously not counting much of anything. It takes a lot of effort to train yourself out of that judgy mindset. Most of my friends are on the underweight side and worry that if they enjoy their food then they are ’greedy girls’. It’s enough to make you weep.
So yeah I wouldn’t tolerate any negative food language around young kids, but these people are talking from trauma.
There was no body positivity; your body was the enemy never to be trusted.

Haven't read the full thread, but how about asking her to come and bake the same pie with you and explain gently while you're cooking it? Maybe she doesn't understand how difficult she's being, and genuinely wanted to try some pie, an then felt left out or embarrassed 🤷. Perhaps cooking together would help? Or perhaps not.

Sorry about your situation OP.

If you want to carry on posting food photos and stop because of this, aren't you just giving in to a bully?

My 47 year old sister still has food issues from how our mum was, around food.
i distinctly remember at the age of 13 shopping for a dress for a Christmas school party and my mum insisting I would only find something in Evan’s. My sister who was 20 was with us and told mum that I was normal sized and would absolutely find something in her perceived normal size dresses.
Your mum needs to be very very careful around small children with her vile opinions.

What's wrong with 40 degree slices?

Generational trauma can show up in this way.
It trickles down and as you have recognised , you don't want it affecting your DC
The shame of poverty became a heavy burden and so it was deflected onto women who were shamed in turn .
Emotional immaturity always shows up in addictive behaviours , not dealing with unpleasant feelings just passing it on.
A false sense of control appears and it feeds the ego of those who have zero self esteem
Even better she can belittle and mock you.

She controls with FOG as her mother probably did
It's the hall mark of toxic families

Fear, obligation and guilt

You need to step out of her game as suggested up thread.
Do not
JADE

Justify
Argue
Defend
Explain

Broken record technique

There's no pie left -say once ignore any further digs
Set a boundary -I've nothing further to say on that DM
Then use a neutral statement or deflector if you need to reply

Anyway what a lovely day/ did you hear auntie Nellie's cat had triplets/ more tea?
Bright and breezy

Personally I would ditch the family WhatsApp and put her on an information diet
Only talk about general things and don't disclose personal information -you know it will be an opportunity to criticise/ belittle

I totally get your wish that she was a loving kind supportive mother, that will never fade and its ok to grieve that whilst understanding she isn't like that and putting in protection for yourself and your family.
Be the one who stepped out and broke the toxic family mould

No 2 and keep your distance she won't ever change now .

I wouldn’t contact her at all. Let her sulk

I get this. I am mid-stream Gen X but can remember kellogg's cereal ads which said: "If you can pinch more than an inch - you probably need to lose weight!"

It feels to me, though, like this isn't the only topic the OP's mum has a 'thing' about.

Number 3. I have a terrible relationship with food which I blame my mother for. She was much like yours - constantly talking about food and calories and being thin. I was bodyshamed from age 11 and made to feel worthless and fat. This led to incredibly disordered eating for over 30 years! She loved me when I was skinny and mocked me when I was 'fat' (ie size 12). I'm 46 now and still struggle.

I'm just Millenial and remember the Kellogs Special K 'eat a bowl for breakfast and again for lunch or dinner and drop a jeans size in two weeks!' like that was a normal thing advertise on national television. Eat plain cereals with dubious nutritional content for the majority of your meals, like a horse!

My mum could be difficult and nothing was ever her fault. If this was my mum I’d go for option 2.

3

She's happy with a superficial relationship and so are you.
You might as well stand your ground here.

If she starts getting defensive and accuses you of hurting her feelings, you can then use 2 - ask her does she really want to fall out over a slice of pie, and (just to tease her) offer to bake another pie just for her.

Yes, that would be manipulative, but two can play that game.

Fwiw, I think you are absolutely correct to say this sort of nonsense will affect the children.

You're never heavier than when you're carrying someone else's baggage.

Yes to this.
DM was very much affected by all that malarkey.

Five people, two days...

Oh, I see...
Thanks 👍

Hi OP,

We're a bit further down the line with grandparents now. One thing I've realised is that as we "children" get older, we feel that we should be able to to use our adult communication skills to iron out the problems with our parents.

However, just as we are getting more grown up and getting better at communicating with them, the grandparents are getting older, less able, potentially developing the very early stages of dementia and all that kind of stuff.

So while it's good to stand your ground and do the best to resolve these problems, it might be good to keep at the back of your mind that your DM is getting older and potentially going off the boil a bit, so she may have got past the point where she can meet you half way.

Just a thought, because I realise that some older people are still super sharp, but it would have helped me so much to have realised this ten years ago.

Good luck there.

I'm guessing your children are quite young. Those of us with difficult parents tend to reach this point when we first realize how their difficult behaviors are likely to affect OUR children.

I'm for option 3. This problem won't go away, and it definitely won't be the only time you have to accept some form of 'social awkwardness' in order to defend your children (it gets easier). Your children also need to see you not accepting being treated badly - they learn what we model, not what we tell them.

Its an important part of cycle-breaking. The great part of this (yet another) unexpected journey that parenting presents us with is that you get to 'reparent' yourself and find joy in treating your kids how you would have liked to be treated.

All the best OP 💚

Have you ever actually seen a pie?

If you look at any shop bought fruit pie, it will probably say it serves six. OP said she and her son made it the day before her mother came over. Three people, two days, one slice each per day - where’s the problem?

As it is, the in-laws also had some on this occasion. But even if they had eaten it between the three of them, it wouldn’t be a problem. It would be perfectly normal.

Oh FFS. You really think people can only share food pics if they’re saving some for the other people in the group?

Well quite. Its nonsense that its “boomer” or gen x” or any other one generation. Victorian women were targeted with ludicrous expectations of figure, appearance and diet .just like previous generations and every subsequent generation. IIRC the earliest formal iteration of low carb/high fat was Banting in the 1920s, its been reinvented as a “new” magic diet roughly every 20 years since, along with all the other fad diets.

The only thing our generation tells us is which variant of diet and figure fad we were subjected to as teens.

There is always one.

Try reading the thread.

Off topic but by pie do you mean tart? I can't imagine a rhubarb and strawberry pie. As in pastry all around.

My mother is like this. If you don't have direct experience of it, it's difficult to understand how it feels.

She is obsessed with how small she is and always references it. Every chance she gets. In restaurants, for instance, she will mention it not once, but to every member of staff that comes to the table. She will refuse to order a main because she couldn't possibly manage it, before mowing through her starter then picking off other people's plates. I do my best to ignore it or just immediately change the subject, though it's difficult at times not to show how over it I am, hearing the same old unhealthy rhetoric yet again.

However. I also have young kids, and when she starts up with any food related batsh!ttery, particularly when it comes to how much they are eating, I very firmly say that we're really proud of them for having a great appetite, as food helps build our bodies and brains, making us big and strong (and clever).

She's never going to stop completely, because it's so entrenched in her everyday behaviour that I don't even know if she could. But it puts her back in her box for a bit.