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!

Having recently been taken in by another thread I'm beginning to think none of this is true /wildly exaggerated .

Agree with all of this

My MIL doesnt tend to eat breakfast and rarely eats lunch but we just crack on and put meals together for our kids (and us)

They almost sound anorexic if I am honest

I think it’s definitely exaggerated now. Surely after all these posts you’d think OP would stand up for her children rather than meekly eat the broth and moan on mumsnet.

Christ remind me never to have Christmas with you.

If you have guests you cannot expect them to live on a starvation diet. Children need more food than this.

If you want to live the life of an orthorexic then do it in private but don’t expect a young family to fall in with this.

I loathe this sort of meanness.

BMI is not always reliable or accurate anway, so it's a bit of a hollow brag to claim one's is 'perfect'. Maybe the medal should be a chocolate one 😁

Nothing Mike thst. There is plenty of food but a lack of drinks unless it's tango (fils choice) or mils blue fizzy stuff. She doesn't have hot drinks herself but has firm "rules" about when they are allowed which is almost never!

Are they on ozempic?

It's not worth falling out or agonising over - if I am at someone's house for a meal and it is lacking I wouldn't be rude enough to complain I would just thank them and then go and get something elsewhere.

I can understand you being hacked off if you've given them money to cover the extra food for your stay and they have just pocketed it.

Maybe don't stay with them next time.

Wet blanket DH still saying silent?

Doesn't it bother you that he is happy to sit back and stay silent while his family is not getting enough to eat?

How can you even look at him?

Im like that, I do not want people doing stuff in my kitchen or 'helping'. No thank you

I’m so happy right now. I thought we weren’t going to have a relatives do performative under eating thread this year! OP, thank you! I love all this!

Yes the thin broth has done it for me

As a parent you have a responsibilty to make sure your kids are not going hungry so this thread seems ridiculously exaggerated. Any parent would just brush past the politeness and say " im sticking on some sausages to make hotdogs as a side". Or jump in the car to get pizza "for supper"

MIL has a performative “appetite of a sparrow” (her words). I’ve felt sorely tempted to put a single seed on her plate before. When I was staying at hers years ago and bf-ing my first DC I was shaking with hunger and there was no food. I faked a terrible headache and went round to the Tesco express for painkillers. What I actually did was buy and eat 2 reduced trifles at the bus stop along with a pack of bread rolls and a jar of peanut butter to keep in my room. I have never been so hungry in my life. When dinner rolled around nothing would happen so I’d meekly ask if I could make a start/ help with the cooking? I was met with bemused stares (didn’t we just have lunch 6 hours ago?) and a lukewarm scan of the fridge that turned up a wizened parsnip and a Tupperware of days old mystery-soup. Suffice it to say I now do the hosting as I’m one of those weird humans who needs food to function.

Ha ha @Umbrellasinthesunshine ,I've never forgotten as a first time mother leaving the table after the main course to feed a screaming baby ,to find ,on return ,that all the pudding had been eaten .
I don't think I've ever gotten over the utter devastation I felt . 😀

My guess is hors d’oeuvres.

Neither you nor your husband had the confidence or nouse to get some bread or crackers or something to go with your Oxo. But you managed to smuggle some contraband cheese under the surface of the soup while both of the in-laws answered a knock at the door. Okay.

1 sardine ! I'm visualising a tin of sardines and they having 1 each.
My cat would eat more than that 😅

If that’s wasn’t enough for you and your family why didn’t you prepare a proper meal or go out for lunch. No way would I let my family go hungry.

To be honest I have a tiny stomach and totally overdid it this past week. I feel horrendous and sluggish and like I’m permanently backed up. So to me, it isn’t performative to turn down food or eat less - it’s just me trying to pre-empt potential issues later. But ultimately, in your situation the hosts should have supplied enough food for normal habits as opposed to enforcing their habits on you.

I rarely eat breakfast or lunch but will always provide for guests! We all have different habits but shouldn’t push them on to others - it’s just rude

I'm newly vegetarian for health reasons and tbh am practically salivating at sardines.

Yes they do. But they also know that people who aren’t old don’t eat tiny meals and if hosting it’s rude not to feed your guests as much as they want to eat. Am currently at my very old MILs who eats very little, but she is making sure we are all fed with 3 big meals and snacks in between if required

Nobody is standing up for the DC. The wet blanket DH can't even tell his parents there is not enough food for his children.

I offered a Yorkshire pudding to pil once to be met with horrified looks, a whole Yorkshire pudding with a roast dinner? They couldn’t possibly manage a whole Yorkshire pudding.

They could both snack on sweets, biscuits and chocolate bars all day though.

So glad I don’t have to see those people anymore.

My PIL are a bit like this. It’s not stinginess with them - it’s obsessive competitive undereating (on my MIL’s part). And it’s incredibly irritating. We don’t take the children to see them - and rarely visit them ourselves - because it would be so stressful.