I Kicked Out My MIL for Forcing My Child to Eat Food She Dislikes

Grandparents are known for sneaking some sweet treats to their grandchildren and spoiling them on occasion. But sometimes, they want to “parent” their grandchildren and force some rules on them, while forgetting that it is not their place to do so. This is what happened to one mother, whose MIL forced her child to eat something she didn’t like behind her back.

What happened...

“My husband and I have a daughter (10F) and she HATES mushrooms. She’s not a picky eater by any means, she just doesn’t like mushrooms.”

“My mother-in-law lives with us and helps us by watching my daughter when she gets home from school. My MIL loves to cook, so she assured us that it would be no trouble for her to make our daughter dinner the nights we’re working late.”

“My husband and I both work in the medical field, so we have crazy, unpredictable schedules and are not home most nights to make dinner.”

“Last night, my husband and I both had the night off work and were making dinner together (MIL went out for dinner with friends.) Susie, my daughter, came to us crying, saying how she was sick and tired of being starved most nights, and if we could make her dinners instead of MIL.”

“It’s very public knowledge that Susie doesn’t like mushrooms, but yet for the past few weeks, every SINGLE dish that my MIL has made for Susie has had mushrooms in it.”

“She told us that if she politely refuses to eat these dishes, my MIL will tell her to ’suit herself, but she’s not getting any other food the rest of the night.’ Both my husband and I were extremely upset that our child was going to bed hungry every night due to my MIL only making her dinner with the ONE ingredient she didn’t like and not allowing her to eat anything else.”

“When MIL got home, we confronted her about this. I told her that she was essentially starving her granddaughter. She disagreed and said it’s tough love. She then proceeded to call me a bad mother for prioritizing my career over my child. I told her to get out of my house because she would not disrespect me like that. She ended up leaving, but had some nasty things to say to me on the way out.”

“My husband is 100% on my side and feels that his mother is out of line. We’ve been getting nonstop messages from my 2 SILs and my MIL, calling us every name in the book for kicking her out and that my daughter needs to get over herself. ”

Here’s what people on the internet had to say about this situation...

“Your daughter is developing her taste in food. Many adults don’t like mushrooms, and nobody would dream of forcing them to eat a food they hate. Besides, it’s not that mushrooms hold a special nutritional value or vitamins, and it’s not that your daughter is refusing to eat vegetables in general.
MIL was wrong and inappropriate. And, if I were you, I would sit your daughter down and try to discover if MIL used ‘tough love’ in other circumstances with her.” 000-Hotaru_Tomoe / Reddit

“Hold firm against mistreat you’re receiving. You did the right thing, and maybe now is the time to put some distance between yourselves and the in-laws until they’re ready to apologize.” Right_Count / Reddit

“You’re not a bad mom, you took the appropriate action as soon as you learned of the problem. What you need to do next is talk to your daughter and find out why it took her so long to come to you. My guess is MIL manipulated and lied to her. And reassure her that she needs to come to you with problems immediately, and you are always there to protect her.” Common_Indication773 / Reddit

“SILs are mad because now she is going to live with them. What she did was horrible, both starving your kid and treating you badly.” KronkLaSworda / Reddit

When you have children, you need all the help you can get from your parents or in-laws. However, sometimes, they can overstep their boundaries. Like this story of how a mother caught her MIL breastfeeding her child.