Ok, here’s my question for the people who chose to be vegetarians:
My sister who is a vegetarian invites my daughter and me to her home for a few days. We are glad to visit and try to be good guests–clean up after ourselves, eat what is offered, try to be as unintrusive as possible. She periodically brings up how much better she feels since she has become a vegetarian and how healthy she is. She gave up milk products because her acupuncturist (however you spell it) told her it increased allergies. She talked about that ad nauseum. I have allergies, never drank milk as a kid when they were bad and now have very few allergies and drink LOTS of milk and eat lots of milk products. I just nodded, smiled and said “really” and “I’m glad you’re feeling good”
Then she proceeds to tell my daughter that anyone who cared about their child would give up anything unhealthy when they were pregnant. No problem there–until she added that since I had eaten m&ms and drunk a regular coke everyday that my daughter was probably not as healthy as she should have been.
Now this is from a woman who feeds her kid a macdonald’s milkshake and french fries for a meal and whose whole diet seems to be imitation crab legs, rice and tuna. I never saw a vegetable the entire time I was there.
Now, granted she never came out directly and said to me–oh, you’re a fat pig because you eat meat and you’re sick because you drink milk and you’re a rotten mother because you ate a few m&ms. But still, wasn’t this over the top? Or is this acceptable behavior–to make “gentle” hints to change my diet (3 squares of all major food groups and a few sweets) to the macrobiotic rice/fish thing?
Trying to manipulate your daughter and use her against you, entirely unacceptable.
This is something that IMO you should not in any way stand for. Talk to her, explain (politely and gently) what you just told us, leaving out the deficiencies in her own diet (no need to stoop). If she doesn’t get it or persists in her behavior, you’ll know that she’s not going to change and you’ll have to make a decision about how much time you want to spend with her. If any at all.
Sounds like she proselytizing Vegetarianism. She feels great, it works for her, so it must work for everyone. I understand that she wants to share a good thing with a friend, but the delivery was poor.
Bringing up your daughter was out of line…there’s nothing you can do about a past pregnancy. She makes M&Ms and soda sound like crack and cognac, fercryinoutloud! Maybe she just lost her head in her zeal.
Also ask her if she would take acupuncture advice from an allergist.
Don’t you just love dealing with relatives? This woman was way over the line. You need to come up with some return salvos to fire at her next time you meet.
Actually, IMHO, she was both rude and insensitive.
However, it’s also apparent that you still want to have some sort of pleasant relationship with her.
Folks who go through these life changing transformations are often obnoxious as hell about it (ever be around a newly reformed smoker or some one who just discovered their drinking problem? - but I digress).
So, dealing with her will be a challenge for a while, it appears. Now, you don’t mention how old your child is. If your child is a teen, hopefully, you would have been able to exchange “rolleyes” with each other. If your child is younger, you need to leave her out of the disagreement, and pull you sister out of the room and say “I would prefer that we not get into a conversation about what I ate or should have eaten through pregnancy in front of my child.” and change the subject if she brings it up again. “Oh look, a giraffe” .
The rest of it, seemed to me you had an excellent handle on how to deal with it.
Your sister is BOTH.
I say tell her nicely, once, that you don’t wish to discuss topics of health and diet. Then, if it happens again, let her have it with the lack of veggies in her “vegetarian” diet. And her terrible choices for her kid, and that time, when you were 12…well, maybe not.
Thanks, you all made me feel better!
BTW, I said she was a vegetarian because she says she’s a vegetarian. Thanks for the clarification–I may thow that at her, too
Yes. Please be sure to educate her (and I’m not saying this just to be bitchy…well, maybe a little, seeing as she’s being such a pain.) We “real” vegetarians (the ones that don’t eat animal flesh) are really TIRED of “psuedo-vegetarians” messing up the definition and confusing people about what vegetarianism really is.
Tell her to buy a Vegetarian Times magazine (the most mainstream vegetarian magazine out there) and ask her where the fish recipes are. (They’re aren’t any.)
Regarding whether your sister is rude or insensitive, oh my gosh, it’s totally so obvious - she is being TERRIBLY insufferable!
Ah, yes. The preaching converts. I’ve never seen anyone as closed minded and self-righteous. Reminds me of my ex-smoking and teetotaling friends. Makes me glad to be carniverous.
I don’t eat meat and I still don’t call myself a vegetarian because I know too many vegans who are horrified at the thought of even eating honey.
If she’s eating fish, she’s no vegetarian. The only reason I can think of for her to proselytize is if she sincerely believed that it’s wrong to kill animals for food. Tell her tuna fish have faces too.
BTW, I ate M&Ms throughout both of my pregnancies and drank caffeine-free sodas. My kids are and always have been wonderfully healthy.
Tell me something - how has mankind got by for so long without raising offspring in the ultra sterile manner currently in fashion? It’s all absolute nonsense, mainly encouraged by people looking for things to blame their own shortcomings on. “I wouldn’t be such an unfit loser if only my mother had eaten properly as a child”.
Can I join this club…I have two sisters and the mother from hell. One sister is a dream. She’s tight-lipped and would never judge me. She’d tell me if she thought I needed to get my shit together but she’d tell ME! The other sister is mama’s golden child and even though she’s 35 now she obviously feels this pathological need to reinforce this status from time to time. So she eats cheese on me whenever she feels insecure. Or she tattles to mama about something I’ve dropped the ball on with the kids or house or whatever. Doesn’t matter that her kids are perfect and she’s at church every time the doors open, has a good family man type husband. No she every now and then has to remind us all what a dream she is and what a failure as a person and mother I am.
And my mother…I’ve been stressed to the max all week by this woman. Last night at my son’s football practice if I’d had a gun I would have shot her and then myself. She’s poisoned my son to football now just like she did to baseball back in the spring. All she’s done is stress and bitch because he’s playing at tight end instead of running back. He’s only 9 and never played before. So as of last night after practice he starts to cry and tells me to call the coach. He wants to run the ball and doesn’t want to play on that line and get hurt all season. Who does that sound like is talking? I almost came undone.
Sorry didn’t mean to rant during your rant but we all have shit blossom relatives that we have to deal with. I either ignore it or go off. Right now I’m getting ready to go slam off.
Needs2know–go ahead, rant! Relatives are such a pain sometimes! My mother has a thing about butter. We eat butter at my house and every time my mother comes she fusses because we don’t eat margarine. I keep it in the fridge for her but that isn’t enough! Heck, if we liked margarine we’d eat it!
I have to agree about the hysteria over pregnancy. I thought I was being pretty good switching from diet coke to regular coke! My daughter came out fine–she was a nice happy baby and grew well and has been a joy from day 1. No major health problems. Jeez, the way the experts change their dietary advice, whatever you did would be wrong 10 years down the road–after all I laid my daughter on her stomach to sleep–because my doctor told me to!
hmmm - I drank fully-caffeinated Diet Coke when I was pregnant. My baby is now an outgoing, fun-loving 15-year-old honor student. But, wait - some of her teeth are crooked!! What did I do to her??
