DH upset about his childhood diet.

[Fussyeater321]

Name change for this as it could be outing…

Yesterday we got onto the conversation of DH’s childhood diet. He started it that during his whole childhood he wasn’t never not allowed something because he had already had enough sweet treats/it wasn’t healthy/needed to eat something healthy etc. DH got quite serious (obviously been on his mind for a while) and said I could never really understand how bad his diet was. I knew that his dad made him chicken nuggets for breakfast before school everyday (primary school!), that the first time he ever remembers trying any vegetable was with his ex and that his mum always told him that he wouldn’t like pizza/curry/pasta/any normal meal.

He said that in primary school him and his brother would usually have some sort of club every night of the week. He would either get in the car to southern-fried chicken and chips waiting for him or he’d have to run into the chicken shop before they got home. He always wanted to try pizza/go to Pizza Hut parties but was told he wouldn’t like it as he didn’t like cheese or tomatoes etc. Countless times I’ve heard his mum tell them both in restaurants that they won’t like something because they’ll be hidden garlic/onion/cream etc in it.

Both DH and his brother has some pretty bad health conditions as kids. Both of them had skin issues, DH sometimes had to get in the bath to peel his clothes off and his brother had the district nurse coming out to him regularly to change his dressings. DH was under a children’s hospital specialist for a few years as he had such bad migraines he’d be bed bound for days. Both MIL and FIL have had cancer, they eat a much wider range of food than the boys in childhood but apart from baking cakes or making curry from scratch I’m sure all of their food comes prepared/heat up only.

His mum is always moaning about their fussiness as kids, that she had to cook different meals every night as one would want ‘burgers and chips’ whilst the other one wanted chicken wings and chips. Apparently I’ve got all this to come once my DC can have an opinion on what they eat.. apparently DH ate normal food until he was 18 months old. DH literally ate no diary, eggs, vegetables, very limited fruit and only drank fizzy drinks (wouldn’t drink anything at school). Even on Xmas day him and his brother would be served up meat, chips, gravy and yorkshires. Again he cannot remember trying any other type of potato apart from crisps or chips until he was an adult…

Now my big issue is that she’s starting to try to put DD off her food. DD loves mushrooms which MIL will always make a huge deal how ‘yucky’ they are. DH ordered DD grilled chicken, mash and sweet corn and MIL was trying to insist that DD should be allowed chips (she was 18 months old) and making a big deal how the poor kid was getting excited over a corn on the cob…There’s also lots of comments how mean we were as we weren’t weaning DD on cake/ice cream/chocolate. She’s always telling DH how mean he is for limiting sweet treats…

MIL is a wonderful baker, PIL have never had any financial worries and invested a lot of time into the boys in all other areas of their lives. Neither DH or his brother are ND and both now eat loads of different foods. There’s still some deep rooted food issues but fortunately DH is adamant that our kids won’t grow up the same.

He had a seriously weird and neglectful childhood - no wonder he is so upset by it. I would make sure if you do have to see PIL, it is not around food times and hou shut down any comments made around your DC.

YANBU OP

Your MIL is being VU over your DD’s choices - mushroom and corn on the cob are gorgeous !!

Does your Mil want to open eatery and call it ‘The Beige Food Cafe?’

Has your DH talked to her about it? She definitely has some serious food issues?. What was her own childhood like?

I think to a certain extent he has to get over his own childhood (I’m sure she will think of reasons and no one can disprove it) but you 100% can’t be letting her do the same to your child. IMO what he experienced was neglect from what you’ve said, especially given the health issues.

I think you either have to have a serious chat with her, start light touch but be clear that you’re encouraging healthy eating and that’s non-negotiable and shut down negative comments harshly if you have to “oh don’t listen to silly granny, mushrooms are delicious, can I have one of yours?”. Either that or simply refuse to have her around when your DC are eating.

I'm not sure what your IABU is here?

If your DH was actively prevented from eating anything other than chicken and chips for his entire childhood, then yes, that would be pretty poor parenting. But I'm going to guess there was a combination of things going on: extremely busy parents, some childhood fussy eating, parents not wanting to waste time and money on food kids wouldn't eat, MIL probably feeling a bit guilty about not doing better with kids food now, MIL not being a confident cook (there's a difference between cooking and baking). I'm not sure you can link your DH's childhood health problems to diet, though diet probably didn't help.

As for your DC, just say, "our approach is feeding her different foods without commenting on them. It would be great if you could support us with that." But yeah, most babies eat everything and most toddlers are fussy, so you probably do have all this to come.

Oh your poor husband. He must be seeing his childhood replayed infront of him. I wonder what his parents were thinking

Don't ever see your in laws at meal times! Yikes they're bonkers!

Im sorry but id be severely limiting contact.

She sounds (at best) neglectful.
i wouldnt want my children having high contact and certainly no unsupervised contact.

She'd get 4 - 6 visits a year (easter / Christmas etc) and I'd avoid any / all meetups near mealtimes and restaurant putongs with them would be a hard no.

Your poor husband. Has he considered therapy???

I absolutely wouldn't let her near the DC around mealtimes or unsupervised. My mum can be weird about food and I've had to draw some hard lines over the years and now my DC are guzzling, growing teen boys it's largely come to an end. Food stuff is very primal and I wouldn't waste your breath trying to educate her at this stage.

Sounds so like my own MIL, she has the palate of a toddler, behaves like one too if anyone is eating something she doesn’t like, which is virtually everything.

Shes a terrible cook, but like your mil, a very good baker. DH is great with food because he started cooking for himself aged 16, his younger brother has terribly disordered eating unfortunately and is borderline anorexic after being obese as a teenager.

How very odd getting in the bath to peel clothes off and a child needing dressings by district nurse, and being bed bound for weeks. It sounds like 1930s not 1980s on?

Gosh that’s so sad and just horrendous parenting from them.

”MIL, we don’t call any food yucky, so cut it out”
”MIL sweets and processed foods are low on the list of what it baby will have, please do not encourage them”

And if she pushes it. Leave.

I am not surprised your DH finds this very difficult, he was neglected as a child and it had a significant impact on him and his siblings health and sounds to me like also impacted on his sense of being cared for and about by his parents. With the impact of the neglect as you've described it is
to the extent that a social worker would absolutely be involved today. As a PP says you should absolutely be very mindful about keeping your own DC away from your PIL where food is involved and I would suggest your DH would benefit from the opportunity to talk to someone about his childhood.

Poor you. This sounds like a much more extreme of my mother-in-law. Except she would eat salmon and salad and encourage 4 boys to stuff themselves, cooking four trays of Yorkshire puddings and basically encouraging them to fight over it.

She couldn’t wait to try and get my 18 month old to eat Doritos, chips, and a McDonald’s as soon as we left.

We don’t see them that much for this reason. One of her sons has eating issues, and my husband is quite controlling about food.

I’dlet your husband know that you’ve heard him, and you’re completely understand how upset he is about this. I do think meeting up at times where it’s just cups of coffee and things there’s a lot easier than meals in front of her.

You could try and have it out, but it’ll just become a massive fight.

It’s neglectful/abusive. I would keep your DD away from her at any meal time. She’s totally fucked up.

It sounds completely neglectful and toxic.
Keep her away from your children.
Refuse all her baking or sweets on principle.
Your husband sounds a bit traumatised from it all.
It reads as deeply unhealthy.

Agree with this and don't leave then alone with her or she will stuff then full of rubbish.

What’s so disturbing is not the limited diet, but what sounds like manipulation. Trying to prevent him from trying other foods. If things did indeed happen as he describes he’s right to be extremely upset by it.

Chicken nuggets for breakfast and discouragment of eating varied foods even when kids are adults, then same to GC now makes it quite clear the issue is not "busy parents" or "fussy eating". Come on. The behaviour continues.
It's parent's food issues pushed on kids and quite frankly neglect.
Diet like that can absolutely make skin conditions worse and many health issues.

It would hugely annoy me that she makes comments on my kids food, but do be aware that just because your DH doesn't remember being fussy about food as a small child it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Lots of toddlers are very fussy and it sounds like she got stuck in that phase for some reason.

As an example that isn't food related, I read to all my children every night until they were secondary school age. My youngest denies that I ever read to him and claims not to remember it at all.

Mine wasn’t as bad as the OP’s but it could have been a lot better. I was a bit fussy as a child, but rather than try new dishes my mum just avoided anything I didn’t like. So the only veg I ate was cauliflower and potatoes and sweet corn. I used to eat corn straight out of the tin as a kid.

Later my mum said when I was small she was so worried at how skinny and small I was she tried to feed me up with cookies and cakes. We went to McDonald’s weekly because it was cheap. My dad being doctor tried to warn her but she didn’t listen.

As a teenager she thought I was trying to be bulimic and throwing up in the bath tub - I really wasn’t!

Predictably when I went to uni I put on more weight. My mum introduced me at 18 and still a size 10 to weight watchers, to the cabbage soup diet she read about in a magazine, slim fast, weight watchers and frozen ready meals.

Now I’m shorter than both of them and I put on weight very easily. I see-saw between eating healthily and eating junk. I think she was a product of her time, lack of information, but reading magazine fads trying to pass it on to me through good intentions, and living in fear, but I really do blame her for introducing disordered eating to me - it was so unnecessary.

I also remember my mum leaving my dad to look after me one morning before an a level exam. For breakfast he made me a bowl of chocolate ice cream! I was so nervous I couldn’t eat it anyway.

And another time when she went to see family, we had to look after ourselves between school and dad coming home from work. He bought bags and bags of crisps to keep us from going hungry while we waiting the 2 hours or so. Predictably I binge ate them at a much faster rate than he probably expected. But he just topped up the bags.

I do marvel at the weird choices they made. I have a very fussy child now but unless he had arfid I wouldn’t make crisps and ice cream my go-to choices for food.

I felt ill just reading about eating that stuff

I've seen that with lots of people - they'll look at something and say 'What's that? I don't like it' rather than 'What's that?' and then trying it (and not in the context of ARFID) - or they'll say 'oh, no I wouldn't like that' just at the thought.

It isn't that unusual for parents (usually women) to be really frustrated when their adult children suddenly decide that they will eat different things and make it out to be their mother's fault instead of her following the advice that if there's something their child would eat, to give it to them.

Eczema or psoriasis isn't a consequence of eating chicken and chips rather than spending twenty quid on a pizza that probably wouldn't be touched, though.

" Countless times I’ve heard his mum tell them both in restaurants that they won’t like something because they’ll be hidden garlic/onion/cream etc in it. "

Now this is weird