Lunch at inlaws and parents.......do you see the difference???

Yeah, I see the difference, but I see nothing wrong in it!!! Both the houses are your houses, your parents, your responsibilities!!

It is just difference in their expectations!!

If you dont want to land up at your in-laws place and cook there, cook a simple meal at home and take it there or take them out for lunch or get a home-delivered lunch...

If you go to your parents house and see that your mom is tired/sick, wont you pull up your sleeves and do all the work!!??

Usually, in Indian scenario, a son-in-law is given extra importance, so your mom makes extra effort... whereas a daughter-in-law is supposed to treat her Parent-in-laws special, so the expectations are from you to make lunch!!!

In my case it happens the other way, my co-sis hates anyone else touching anything in her kitchen, so I happily engage the kids and lay the table, arrange clothes etc when I go to in-laws place!!!

And my husband whenever he visits my parents, first asks them if they need anything from the grocery shop and he will go and buy if required!!!

It is just different situations in different houses - this is a very minor issue - dont make this issue a point of "his parents" and "my parents" unnecessarily ... that would be harmful to your marriage!!!:drowning

Keep smiling
Harini

 

If you (W/H) start mirroring everything, that wont be "marriage" !

 

I feel your inlaws behavior is really rude. Inviting somebody to your house for lunch.... and then expect your guests to do all the cooking! :bonk I have never heard/seen/experienced such a thing. If mil doesn't want to cook, she should either not invite anyone over, hire a cook to do the cooking, or suggest going to a restaurant. But not invite guests over and then sit around waiting to be served. Whatever happened to treating guests like gods mentality?

If your dh is fine with his parents setup, let him pitch in and help you with the cooking. That's only fair. Afterall, if guests are expected to make their own food at your inlaws house, then even he's a guest too, right?

If neither you nor dh feel like cooking, offer to take your inlaws out to eat or some pleasent alternative like that.

 

Yes,

I m with u in same boat. I am sure if I would have been visiting her every weekend it would be same story..

even now also..I have to take flight to their place so last time we started from our home arround 4am ..and for that too we woke up arround 3 am and we landed to her place arround 10 am...still she had not prepared breakfast and asked us to have some fruits..becz she just washed veges only ... see...That too I was with 1.6 yrs old kid...she was also hungry by that time and wanted to have some chapati in bk...I just saw the situation ...made knot on my duppata...and started cutting vegs...prep chapati...and hanged her cloths which FIL just washed from dryer...She was taking bath during that time..She has no extra prep...she asked DH to buy vegs an same day as everything was finished last evening

But difference is my DH will never see these things...He feels they r old thats why they need help in everything and becz of me they r not living with us ..otherwise this is the time for us to take care of them..:bonk..I know she is not that much old now ...he might be right later on but surely not now....Just see the speed when my co-sis landed from USA...She made a veggis speedily for her and as it was running out I was asking her permission to make dal with it while making chapati...u know what she said yah just make dal...but pls speak slowly otherwise what my cosis will think that mummy made vegs in so less quantity...:hide:,,,I was shocked at that time...and she gave her food with that veggs but we ate with dal

 

Lunch at inlaws: I liked the sambar rice

Lunch at parents: I liked the rasam

Whoever serves us lunch, they are great

 

I don't have much experience in this topic as we haven't visited my parents or in-laws in India since our wedding.

Although... I do have experience of when in-laws visited us. Well... first day I tried to do everything on my own and serve them, but sadly the breakfast I made didn't turn out to be quite good (as I was not used to prepare traditional Indian breakfast, we are used to cereals-type breakfast)... anyways, FIL didn't like it and was angry, MIL then fixed it as much as she can and from day 2, she started helping me out in the kitchen... well... actually it was me helping her out as she knows how FIL likes his food, so I didn't want to experiment. I used to cut and clean and stand in the kitchen chatting with her, while she used to teach me recipes and give me tips... I loved the experience, even though she kept negating everything I did, 'not small plate, big plate'...'not big plate, small plate', etc... I still loved it. When the dishes were piled up, she used to start cleaning them and I had to literally snatch them off her hands and clean myself. Sometimes when she wouldn't budge, I would stand next to her and clean with water while she applies soap. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised that she was so willing to help me in the kitchen.

 

Amnice,
Some people consider their DILs as their servants. I think your ILs fall in that category. In my case, not only my MIL, but also all her relatives consider me their maid servant.When we were in India, Whenever I was visiting them, they were like oh now she is here, so she will do the cooking or make tea because she is the bahu. I obviously avoided visiting them and they always complained that we do not visit them often.:biglaugh

My experience of visiting parents/inlaws.

Visit to inlaws( in the past.My MIL lives with us now)- the moment I land, I go into the kitchen, serve water etc. to everyone. My MIL asks me if we want to eat something.( we usually land late at night and we have already eaten in the flight) Next morning she starts ordering me to prepare what she wants to eat for breakfast, elaborate meals that require lots of preparation. All our stay is the same, she demands me to cook her favourite dishes. She has a full time cook but she wants me to cook when I am there.

Visit to parents(even if it's without DH)- My mother has already prepared something special. (Although she doesn't have any outside help and she hates cooking). For later meals for the rest of our stay, she asks my DS, what he wants to eat and put all her efforts to cook his favourite foods. I try to stop her from doing it, but she really wants to please her grandson. Sometimes, my father gets special food from outside. Sometimes I cook for them.

I guess the big difference is that one is a boy's mother and the other a girl's and some people actually(like another poster above) do not see anything wrong with how they behave differently.