In laws with tiny stomachs

[HumbleStumble]

Staying with in-laws (aged in late 60s). We are a normal healthy family with normal appetites (I think?). I am sick of having to "request" 3 meals a day. As far as I can work out they generally must eat a cup of tea for breakfast, a dry wafer with a thimble of cheese for lunch and a grilled sardine for dinner usually, with loud exclamations that the enormous amount consumed for each meal will see them out for the next few days.

Today I have had to drive to a cafe for a normal lunch and bought horderves "for Christmas" just to bulk up the dinner of boiled potatoes and two slices of ham. Children are ravenous. It was their choice of hosting, and I am paying for all the food (but they get to dictate the (lack of) menu!

I'm old but I certainly don't eat just what's been described! Often breakfast will be about 10 or even 11am if my book is particularly good, I may then have soup and a sandwich late afternoon and a snacky thing in the evening, but when I have guests there is always plenty of food for when they want it and my eating habits change a bit.

My MIL used to be like this, serving us one supermarket pizza between 5 ( one of my teens could easily eat one each) and then saying she’ll put the leftovers in the fridge. One lettuce leaf each for the salad. She always does a cracking roast though. But now I tend to cook & buy the food as just easier.

Mid 60's is not 'older'. We don't turn into birds when we pass 60 you know.

I've heard people in their 80's eat a bit less, aren't as hungry. Most people in their 60's are still.working full time.

I honestly don’t understand why people care so much about offending people over things like this. I honestly couldn’t give a rats arse if someone was offended that I bought our extra food (If they were being so ridiculously mean). In fact, I’d just say at the beginning of the stat that we all have large appetites and that I’ve bought extra food to add to the table.

i just couldn’t be arsed to die and 3 days hungry and having to come up with reasons and excuses to buy food.

just grow some cheese balls, op.

They dont seem to need much food which is ok. Its not ok to force that on you and make all the comments. They clearly have food related issue, likely to stem from they own childhoods. Or/and money issue. Still not ok to treat you this way.

My Mum is elderly, largely inactive, and eats very little, definitely less than my kids. Luckily she never hosts, and I just give her a small portion of food when she comes to our house, and then offer seconds which she always declines. I can easily imagine she would be much like your in-laws with portion size for everyone if she was feeding us. It's definitely an aging thing. It's a bit off they haven't realised they are starving everyone though, given you've stayed several days I think your husband needs to risk causing offence and speak up tactfully.

Because some people were conditioned while growing up not to stir the pot. Because some people feel physically unwell around people in bad mood.
Its much easier to think that you would do xyz in their shoes when you are actually in your own shoes in your own home hidden behind the screen and not experiencing the tense athmosphere at OPs end.

Just don’t go there to stay overnight again! Life is too short and it’s not fair on the DC.

It may be that they have a low appetite but my mum ( born 1939) would've up and died of shame if any visitor was hungry, let alone family. She catered as though for an army and she was not wealthy. My sister and I inherited the catering habitus. If you’re in my house, you’re fed!

I know OP is being amusing and dealing with it well but I honestly don’t understand how people subject themselves to this utter shite.

@HumbleStumble you have so much tolerance.

But why did you agree to go given you know what they’re like?

Not in my family. Fortunately for us the diet boom of the 1960s on passed the women of my family by. Plenty of odd behaviour in our family, but no hangups about food or obsessionwith weight.

Not in the slightest, you may want to consider you have an eating disorder if you think it is

We have this too, and also drinks! Left to them it would be two cups of tea a day. I'm happy to get drinks myself, but quite surprised with how little they drink.

I think some people need less food as they get older.

That sounds awful 😣

(Not the food, her comments)

No I've never done lunch.

This is about older people though we are all different, of course. The post war generation grew up on rationed food (until the 1950s!), all home cooked, there were no ready meals and no snacking.

I the 1980s, I remember dieting and being told that stomachs shrank or grew according to how much you ate, think of a lifetime of tiny meals, you really couldn't eat more. Do they still perform tummy tucks? I remember reading how patients felt when their stomachs were literally sewn up.

Whatever, so many older people lose touch with the young and it's unreasonable to not think about having more than enough food available for family staying. They might, I suppose, have trouble estimating quantities. I would bring extra supplies or just have a firm, assertive conversation well in advance.

Are they very slim, OP?

I’ve tended to be a wee bit suspicious of people who hardly eat, after long ago sharing a flat with 2 girls who’d have ‘just a bit of lettuce’ etc. when I was there.

They were both nurses working shifts, and I once came home unexpectedly in the middle of the day to find them both tucking into a big roast dinner with all the trimmings, and some lavish pudding with cream waiting.
I actually couldn’t have given a toss over what they did or didn’t eat, but they both went bright red - caught in the act! 😂

Might add that neither of them was exactly on the skinny side!

People who say this so casually need to check their privilege. It's not so easy to talk like that to parents who act like this, what do you imagine it was like growing up with them, clearly they're difficult and controlling.

Ive got an aunt who is like that. She's over 70 now and has had an eating disorder all her life. Mostly bulimia I think as I know she vomits after a 'big meal'. She's 'gifted' that approach to her own daughters who she used to call 'fat little pigs' if they ate a whole banana for (and entirely true) example. It's quite tragic really. we went to her house for dinner once and she shared out 5 salmon fillets between 7 adults and two teens with 3 string beans on the side. We refuse to eat at hers now and always either cater ourselves or go out to eat.

Since I hit 60 I've come to realise that I need far less food as I pile the pounds on incredible quickly.

If they live close enough to have 'dinner on' when they visit you, why are you staying with them?

We are talking about people who are only few years older than Madonna and Jennifer Lopez.

If I was on a diet of lemon juice and water to lose weight, I wouldn’t be serving this for dinner for my guests.

In most cultures it is considered rude to not feed your guests until their stomachs crack. It doesn’t matter how much food the hosts normally eat, they need to make sure their guests are well-fed, especially that some are children.

The only excuse would be that they’re having financial issues and simply cannot afford to buy food, I would then go and make a big grocery shop so that they don’t have to worry.

In your situation I would still go shopping so that my family doesn’t suffer only because they are bad hosts. They are the problem but it’s easier to buy food than argue.

Oh bollocks to that. The op is being humorous and given no indication of ‘anxiety’ over being with people in a mood, and it’s time to stop blaming ‘condition’ as a child and start leading my example to her own children.

im not suggesting being rude and all guns blazing, but simply being firm and matter of fact at the beginning of the stay and setting out your stall. And let them be offended if they want.

its really bad hosting on their behalf and if anyone should be offended, it should be op as her in laws have clearly given no thought to their guests, how rude.