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

4. you ignore her.

Stop giving her attention. It’s what she wants! At some point her eating disorder has reached a stage where her body is consuming brain matter to survive - there’s no point even engaging with her.

My sister has a mother in law who is much like your mother. I suspect the anorexia is the cause of her neurological/psychological issues.

I developed an eating disorder and was very sick and she kept congratulating me on my weight loss to make my sister feel bad. I caught on what she was doing pretty quickly and said “I’ve lost an organ” as well as “my kidneys are failing”.

I’ve told my sister to stop engaging with her because every single interaction ends up upsetting her. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve told her to disengage.

You need to stop engaging with your mother about food. She does it to get a reaction from you. Stop engaging, don’t apologise - just leave it.

I have a deep, dark fantasy that one day she and I will have a reckoning where we both say all the words we bite back and get the hurt out into the light to be sorted out and then instead of having this superficial, painful, spiky relationship where I'm always biting my tongue and yet still letting her down, we can become real, true friends who just love each other in an uncomplicated way. I just don't know how it could ever happen, though.

I dont think it needs to be a fantasy. Why not broach it with her directly? Mum, our discussion the other day and our reactions to it makes me want to get to the bottom of this so we can find a way forward which works for both of us. Is this something you are open to?

If she says no, or comes back with a lot of waffle and bluster, at least you will know you tried to have the relationship you wanted.

FWIW - I do think relationships can be repaired, but it takes acceptance and accountability on both sides. I hope you get to where you want to be. But also have ways of coping if not.

Once you set a boundary, any further discussions about food get a 'we talked about this, we are not doing this' and walk away. If it persists, ask her to leave. Walk away.

Option 2 - suspect this may not just be about the pie though (and I have a mother who is very similar)

or just a simple 'grow up - its just a pie' response.

The last paragraph of this post, oh my GOD, I really felt this. Do we all secretly feel this way??! Why are we all suffering like this haha.

It sounds like you really care about your mum and want to have a relationship with her and I totally understand that. As you say, she has trauma and it’s more likely that there’s no malicious intent behind her behaviour, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t damaging. She needs to think more about how her behaviour affects you and now your children too. And you are allowed to get angry with her and tell her how you feel, she won’t like it and may cause an unpleasant reaction, but if she loves you and cares about your relationship, she will try to repair things.

I think your wording for option 2 is great, I would lead with that, and then gently reaffirm that you don’t want anyone making comments about food in front of your children, and you won’t tolerate it again. If she continues then you know she’s acting vindictively and then you can decide how to proceed. Best of luck.

I am currently going through this with my own mother who is 80. Her appetite has declined. We get it. We do not want or need a constant commentary about how stuffed she is, how she could never eat "all that", how large portions are, how she couldn't possibly eat AGAIN, and on and on and on.

My sister bought an afternoon tea experience for her and a friend for her birthday. Phoned to ask if it was nice. First thing she said was "there was SO much food, I won't need to eat for a week".

It's seriously disordered and pisses me off no end. She is free to eat what she wishes but her endless comments about how full she is and how other people could possibly eat "all that" drive me nuts.

You had no pie left when she arrived? Really?

You need to make anothet pie and take a photo, maybe a humble pie?

I'll get my coat.

Thanks for saving me the effort of making this response.

Honouring and Golden ? 🤢

i agree 💯 with your comment about it mostly dying out with boomers - I’m in my 50s and my parents/stepparents/in-laws are all in their 70s and 80s, and they are (or were when they were alive) obsessed with the virtue of being slim, it’s definitely the case for them that being overweight/having a good appetite is an issue of morality/greed and it’s caused me personally no small amount of confidence-battering.

Obvs I’m not saying that all over 60s think like that, just that the ‘slim’ obsessiveness is particularly prevalent in that generation.

Having said that, we know two people in their early fifties who are pretty judgemental re eating so maybe some of those opinions have - sadly - been successfully passed down and will survive.

I still find it incredible how delighted my mother is to leave food on her plate, she will do a fake apology of it being too much (even through she served the portion herself) and looks around as if she’s waiting for us all to cheer, applaud and high five her for her teeny tiny appetite 🙄

My therapist always says 'you're not stupid for living in hope that your mother will love and support you unconditionally

I would add “but its probably futile”.

My DGM was what you might call a “difficult woman” who could hold a grudge pending unwarranted apologies for non existent offences as if it were an Olympic sport. She had had an incredibly hard life which no doubt was part of this but I used to watch my mother tie herself in knots trying to please her and determined that no child of mine would ever apologise to an adult for something they hadn’t done.

Keep practicing the rock, don’t apologise for non existent offences, accept your DM won’t change, build a life where she is a side piece and not integral. Oh and remove her from all your SM filters, then use the filters for anything not 100% public.

How does she treat your children? Are they expected to apologise for non offences as well?

Nothing gets better if you ignore it.

#2, and try to steer any future conversations away from food.

You are 100% correct that her competitive-undereating attitude is damaging to children and they shouldn't hear it. Do not apologise to her for telling her to stop shaming people for perfectly reasonably behavior, this is her problem not yours. So option 1 is definitely out and option 3 is unwise as it will just rekindle the fight.

Could you say something like "I think food needs to go on the same list as politics and religion as something that people avoid talking about if they don't want to start an argument. Do tell me more about (your craft group/volunteering/holiday/ANYTHING non-food related you can change the subject to)" every time she says anything like this?

Option 2.

Do nothing.
Dont apologise.
Just leave her to stew.

Absolutely YANBU. I also think option 2. Demonstrates how silly it all is.

I think those who are seeking to make you equally to blame don’t know what it’s like to contend with someone like this.

My Mum can be like this. She can be lovely too in many ways, but she will never drop an argument or just agree to differ. She has to have an apology. It has taken me alot of work to stop giving that to her!

This advice reminds me of those childless people who look at tantrumming kids and say ”if that were my child, I would simply tell them to stop having a tantrum and they would stop”.

Beyond the pie conversation, which was obviously simply a trigger … My DM is similar to this and I’ve had to put boundaries in place for many years now. I still sometimes let my guard down, either because I’ve failed to predict what will happen or because I’m hoping she will have changed, and I’m always disappointed. The food issues, the criticism, the inability to read social situations or let anything drop. Constant judgement. It’s exhausting and I’m always mourning the supportive, loving relationship I wish we could have. It has flared up massively since my children have become old enough to understand when she criticises them too.

Your therapist sounds helpful and I hope you can find a way to process this in your own mind and stop it from niggling away at you.

no 4. You’re not going to ‘win’ this and she enjoys goading/making a scene. So don’t respond. Or reply ‘ok’ then change the subject.

My family had form for this so I would personally I’d text

‘I made a pie with my family. We shared the pie amongst INVITED guests to the home AND family over two days.

there is nothing abnormal about this.

your fixation on my food and what I do with my families food is abnormal.

it was rude of you to refuse the biscuits I had happily offered and expect the pie instead.

It was even ruder to criticised the lack of pie and insinuate we’re all greedy fucks for not leaving YOU some pie.’

my family have been similar in the past and I’m passing on my level of bluntness incase you require it.

Just because I like to be petty sometimes : Assuming that she sliced the pie into the same sized pieces as you did - there would be 9 pieces in total - She would have eaten 4.5 slices over a week whereas you & your family had 2 slices over 2 days.

At the end of the week she would have eaten more than double of you! Just because the calories are spread out doesn't mean they don't count!

Oh and definitely don't do the frank conversation. Fantasize about it, sure, but it would be impossible to actually do. Even if you tried to start it you wouldn't get anywhere and would be left in a deeper hole of distress than when you started. That way lies madness.

It would be convenient to think this disordered behavior dies out with the boomers but it won’t. This is just the compositional fallacy at work. You all care about the hurtful/annoying/judgmental words if your own older relatives and friends (boomers) but are simply indifferent or unaware if how rampant eating disorders and snide/controlling comments are among teens and the younger cohort. I mean its not that you don’t know—lots of Mumsnetters live with men who are all “no fat chicks please” or with teenagers who are morbidly fixated on weight. But the actions snd words of our elders still strike us with great force and significance.

Haha, this is what I thought as soon as I read your post. I had a very similar thing with my mum including the weekly therapy as I went into middle life 😆 and I would say that I spent an inordinate amount of energy trying to make (3) work which just resulted in lots of unresolved circular arguments. I did all right by my mum, who died of Alzheimer's relatively recently and wasn't really reachable for a while before that, but it was hard to be with her and I felt very guilty. What I now wish is that I had been able to disengage a bit, with love, maybe mourn what I would have liked from her that I didn't get, and try to have a better understanding of why she was so difficult and manage my boundaries and exposure a bit rather than expending so much time and effort trying to change her. So I guess that would look a bit like (2) at a very early stage, and not allowing myself to be shifted from (2) into a more defensive (3), plus reduced more manageable and meaningful contact. But this is very much an idealised position and may not have been achievable.

You can ignore anyone who says "it depends if you love her or not" because I absolutely adored my mum and also hated her, was frustrated by her, was made sad by her, needed her for comfort etc etc etc. Emotions are very complicated and not binary!

It’s no about the pie, the pie is a red herring.

Don't worry, no-one ever gets my sense of humour!

This second paragraph resonates so much with me OP. I had a similar relationship with my mum and whilst I knew logically that she'd never accept and love me the way I needed her to, my stupid heart still yearned for it.

She's been dead for just over 2 years now and the relief I feel is immeasurable. That sounds awful but it's true. I've been able to finally stop trying to gain her approval and unconditional love. I've grown so much as a person since she passed and I'm starting to accept and love myself in a way I never could have when she was alive.

I agree pie is a red herring.

The other thing my Mum does is put on me her unhappiness with my Dad or her sisters (my aunts) to try to get me upset with them too, when I’m trying to have a good relationship with them!

That said, I think she came round specifically because she wanted pie. Or because she wanted to start an argument about the pie - perhaps to punish you for having something nice/ doing something nice with your DC and posting about it. Or for being happy?