Grand parents

[littletikes]

Since having my two. I have seemed to be at battle with my mother about various issues.
I know i am not alone, but i thought i would share them with you.

My mum was born in the war years. Most people i know leant to cook with their mothers in the kitchen to raise 5 kids etc. - My mother has not a first clue how to cook. When i ask how come your mum did not teach you as other generations did. She just says the opposite to everyone else i know and that she her family was always asked to go and play.

When i ask her what food she use to cook for me & my brother in 1970 she said it was all jar and packets. No-one i know had a diet like that.

When i ask her what she did with my brother and i when we did not eat at dinner times. She says that she would cook us something else or give us puddings instead. Everyone i know say that their children either ate the dinner or went without.

I feel as though i am really on my own with information from her. Any one else going through this. I cant even be bothered to ring her anymore as i feel her ways are so different to her generation. As parts of raising kids is going back to the old days, i can not relate to her.

Do you need to relate to her?

Any which way can be difficult to find understanding between two people.

Perhaps just see it as a chance to figure things out in a way which works for your family at this time?

Thanks Kaff i have done for all this time but went reference is made many times about what she did or how i should be doing it. You really don't want the communication any more.

I mostly ignore my mother's parenting "tips" and try to ignore her comments about my parenting!

If I need advice or tips I go to friends (or MN!) now.

It's just the way it is

If it's any consolation I was fed from packets/jars etc too, my mum is/was a TERRIBLE cook, and I grew up on a diet of chocolate biscuits and crisps.

This is one of the things I WON'T be doing like my parents!

My mum can cook around 3 things and uses every utensil in the kitchen to do it. Meat and potato pie, baked custard and chocolate cake.

My diet in the 70s consisted of findus crisy pancakes, fried liver sausage, tins on toast, battenburg cake, cadbury mini rolls etc. She still eats largely like this.

My mum's mum died when my mum was 17 and was dodgy for a while before. So it's no wonder she has no idea about cooking.

I don't understand why you feel you are battling her though. I don't eat like that any more and neither does my brother (he is vegan, I am coeliac, ds has allergies and so we eat a very plain cooked from scratch diet).

I don't think she would see me having a healthy and varied diet as a criticism of her in any way. She probably feels a little sorry for me if anything .

Oooh I remember the Findus Crispy Pancakes!

My dad worked for Findus at one point, so got staff discount at the "Findus Shop", so pretty much everything we ate (apart from the Penguins) was Findus. I was quite a connoisseur though......apparetly I would ONLY eat Findus beef-burgers and could tell the difference if they tried to substitute other brands.....

I get the generation gap thing aswell- when my son was about 8wks old and b/feeding every 2 hours, my gran said i should 'just bottle feed him and put baby rice in it' because he was wanting too much feeding(!) A week later she asked if i gave him juice yet(!)And when i visit i have to b/feed in another room because as soon as my son looks hungry, my gran looks terrified i'm going to lob my boobs out in front of her. Bless.

TBH littletikes most of us parent and cook in a different way to the way that our parents did in the 70s. We used to have chips 3/4 times a week - proper homecooked, deep fat fried in lard ones, with sausages cooked in the pan, bacon, fried eggs, etc etc. And it wasn't just that they were cooked in the frying pan - my Mum didn't wash it out so there would be an inch thick layer of bacon/sausage fat in the bottom of the pan and a little pool on everyone's plate with little black bits in. When we were really little she baked quite a bit but by the time I was junior school age it would be biscuits for pudding. So after lunch and tea I would have one club/penguin/kitkat and two chocolate digestives every meal.

She doesn't cook quite like that now. And I cook nothing like that at all. We probably haven't had chips at home (DH and the kids might have them at a restaurant or DS for school dinners occasionally) for about 6 weeks.

What I am trying to say is that I think chips with everything was fairly standard in the 70s but not what we want to feed our children now, just as your Mum's jars and packets is not what we aspire to. And TBH it was probably more down to her Mum that she didn't learn to cook. My 2yo knows the basic ingredients for a cake/buns and the order in which they are added to the bowl - butter, sugar, eggs, flour.

So I would say still ring your Mum and chat about how the children are getting on, but come on here for advice.

My mum really can't cook and I definately had a findus pancake type diet in the 70's. She smoked when pregnant and drank alcohol and I ate nothing but packet food when a baby plus was bottle fed etc. I certainly don't do the same with mine but it hasn't affected our relationship.

Well its great to hear that there are so many of us out there. I do not have friends that had diets like this, so it is good to hear your comments. I wish only to well that i could ignore her comments, sighs, tutts etc but there are too many of them and it gfets me down. Also when my children have not eaten much of their dinner and i do not offer anything else. I get loads of comments back like. Is that all you are going to give them. They need more food than that. Why dont you cook some.....instead(rubbish food)the list is endless.
Breast feeding was also a big problem too.

I was reading Hugh Fearnly Whittingstall's mum's book about being a granny the other day (sorry if the name spelling is wrong) and apparently she fed him Findus crispy pancakes. I have also noticed that both my mum and MIL are far more likely to use ready meals than me and DH. I think that there has been change in eating habits because of Nigel Slater et al.

Also, I think that previous generations were far more worried about getting enough to eat, whereas we know that it will be unlikely that our children will starve and are more likely to worried about encouraging eating disorders than for instance forcing our children to finish their horrible Manchester Tart pudding (as I was in primary school).

I grew up inteh 70s too and my ums a very boring cook, it was fish fingers, spuds and peas or burger or mince or suasage spud and peas.... boil in the bag meals were a god send to her and the first time I had rice or pasta as a savoury item. She was very good at milk puddings tho so I thought rice was for pudding and ditto pasta as she made a mean maccaroni pud.
Now Shes the one asking me or dh for advice on how to cook things and we spend a lot of time reassuring her that its ok to just follow the instructions on teh label of what ever slightly ( to her) exotic thing dads bought home form teh super market, last week it was mussels, in the past its been fresh pasta.
I just get on with making up veg combos to mash for my 7 m/o and have never asked her for advice on breast feeding as she stopped at 3 month and put me onto diluted carnation tinned milk.