Mom has horrible table manners and it drives me crazy

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

First off I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a Ann Landers type. And this is going to be long and disjointed because I’m a little angry right now.

But my mom behaves like a car bomb at the dinner table.

First of all it’s clear she doesn’t want to sit down and eat with us. She’d rather be doing chores. Fine, she can do what she wants. But what she does is sit down for 20 seconds and then gets up to do something. She’s always running around while everyone else is eating. I can’t stand this; all the chaos makes me nervous and I lose my appetite.

The main things she apparently has to do while we’re eating is feed the dogs and pack up my dad’s lunch for the following day. And here’s the thing: she doesn’t work. She literally has the entire day to do anything she needs to do.

She grabs food with her bare hands and puts it on her plate. Like if there’s a plate of steaks with tongs sitting next to it she’ll ignore the tongs and just grab it with her hands. She once used a spoon to scoop out dog food and then put it in bowl of mashed potatoes. And then got angry at me when I protested. She burps constantly and loudly. If she wants something from the other side of the table she just gets up and walks to that side of the table, when someone would gladly pass it to her.

I don’t say anything because a) criticism shatters her, and b) I’m being fed for free so I feel it’s not my place to complain. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

And the thing is, she acts relatively normal in restaraunts, or when eating with anyone but my dad and me. It would actually be better if she acted this way all the time because I could say “that’s just the way she is.” But the fact is she puts effort into not offending strangers, but not with me and my dad.

The main thing that bugs me is she can’t stop waiting hand and foot on the god damn animals. She does it all day and she can’t stop, not even to eat. I know this is probably a compulsion, and I don’t complain to her about it, but again, that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

So anyway tonight I just had to leave the table after she lept up for the 20th time to respond to the whim of one of the dogs. She asked me where I was going and I said I have to eat somewhere else because the flury of activity makes me lose my appetite. I didn’t mean to be critical, but now she’s not speaking to me.

Anyway, I just wanted to talk about it. Thanks for reading if you did. And if you didn’t, I totally understand why.

2

It would bother me too.

3

In addition to talking too loud, I too have been criticized for my table manners. I don’t make an effort around my family, because I figure they won’t judge me.

God, this message board is really making me feel like a piece of shit today! :frowning:

4

I have absolutely no advice for you.

I just hope that “blowing off steam” here helped you a bit.

It’s hard to deal with our moms when they do something we don’t like for them to do.

5

This would be annoying, but something that I personally could ignore without detriment to my appetite.

I could also forgive this one if she only touches her own food.

I’d like to properly gauge my level of outrage for this situation. Was it wet dog food, dry dog food, or dry dog food with gravy? Did she clean the spoon between the dog food scooping and the subsequent insertion into the mashed potatoes?

This is intolerable. Does she at least say excuse me after each eructation?

Relatively harmless IMHO.

Solution: install a small camera hidden inside a teddy bear or other knicknack, secretly film her behaviour, post it on youtube, wait for the youtube comments excoriating her poor table manners, and then send her the link via anonymous e-mail. When accused, deny everything. If you consistently deny, there is always the shadow of a doubt. Once you confess, there is no turning back. Never admit it to anyone. A secret told to any single person other than yourself is no longer a secret.

6

She got the dog food in the potatoes is what I was driving at.

7

Any ONE thing in that list might be borderline or even perhaps just even a bit over the line for me personally. ALL those together would just make such a meal a rather trying experience for me, particularly if it was like that every time. For others, some of those things might be pretty much acceptable. But I also suspect the number of people for whom NONE of those things are rather over the top is rather small.

Or in other words, I think your reaction is quite understandable. Now, what you should do, if anything, I don’t have any ideas at the moment.

8

How about offering to pre-feed the dogs? Pre-pack Dad’s lunch, even? Maybe you could take it a step farther and say that you WANT to help with these things, so that you can enjoy a nice chat with her during dinner. Anyway, it’s good practice for you when you’re out on your own one of these days.

Perhaps as her newly devoted son/daughter, you could say, “Here Mom, let me fix you a plate, you just sit down and enjoy dinner.” Then, you could use the TONGS and not the dog food spoon (GROSS!) on her behalf and maybe you would enjoy eating dinner more?

9

This sounds awful. The dog food thing… I actually retched when I read that. I wanted to run around the room screaming. Awful!

I would try to eat away from her as much as possible, and move as soon as you can. I really could not handle that.

10

Those things would drive me crazy too. Has she always done that, or is this a new development?

11

I work most nights and I can’t be there to do those things. I am only sometimes at home during dinner hours.

Thank you for feeling the same way as I do.

From what I can tell, her weirdness has been going on for years. She can’t work because she can’t drive, because she has fainting spells.

12

How old is she? Has she always acted this way?

13

Good manners are *especially *important around family, because they’re the ones who are around you day in and day out. Little habits of rudeness can build up over the years into major sources of friction if left unchecked.

14

Sounds like there are two issues here. One, her atrocious table manners. Two, her inability to take criticism (she’s now not talking to you).

I don’t see a win out of this situation for you, I think all you can do is minimise the amount of meals you have with your mother. Which is a real shame, because dining together should be a pleasurable thing for families to do. :frowning:

15

That sucks. My mom used to eat with her mouth open. I could see the food churning in her mouth. I made sure to never sit directly across from her.

You might try actions and humor, if words and critism don’t work. An example would be a wife who hated that her husband used to come shirtless to the dinner table. Nagging didn’t work. Then one day, during a family dinner, the wife came shirtless to the table as well. The husband always wore a shirt after that.

So, you could jump up and down and serve everyone and do chores when everybody sits in front of the TV.

16

My sympathies. I suspect there’s nothing you could do or say to change your mother. Some people… Sounds like your only choice is to act as if she isn’t there, except for keeping track of what utensils contact critter food. Any hope of having your own place in the not-too-distant future?

17

She’s not right. Which means she’s especially resistant to change.

Your choices are to put up, or move out. There’s not much middle ground. Correcting her, or making any comment at all, won’t change her, will make her mad, and *probably *won’t make you feel any better.

So think a bit about what behavior on *your *part will make you least unhappy, then do that. It won’t solve your problem, but it’s the least bad alternative on offer.

Moving out is obviously the home run solution here, but carries a lot of downsides of its own.

18

Have you tried to talk to her about it, not in a criticising way, but with kindness? "Mom, I’d love it if you would just sit at the table with us during dinner. If you jump up and down all the time to get stuff it seems like you are our servant instead of our mum. If you jump up and down I can’t talk with you quietly and ask you how your day was. I get nervous when you do it, too. I guess that could be a refelction of your own nervousness. Do you perhaps feel you have to wait oneveryone and that no-one will wait on you? Mostly I just want to tell you that I want you at the dinner table, not a waiter or the dog’s caretaker. If we could all sit down quitly at the 20 minutes or so that dinner lasts, I would feel more like a family.

19

At least she cooked the meal (I assume) so she touched the food plenty then. Also at least you’re sitting down to family meals, many people don’t have that.

You could always get up and eat in another room whenever your mother gets up. If she complains say you’re just getting up when she does.

20

If you have money and are not paying rent, eat out.
ETA: I agree bad table manners are inexcusable.