‘My step-MIL refused to feed our children dinner because she’s vegetarian’

“She tried defending herself … then told my wife and I we should be making more efforts to get our kids to eat healthy.”

Married couple Jerry* and Clem* have always had trouble with Clem’s stepmother, Paula*.

While Clem was a teen, her stepmother suffered serious health problems and required a hysterectomy, meaning she’d never have children of her own. A particularly sensitive topic with the family, everyone knew how “painful” it was for Paula knowing she’d never have kids.  

She’s also a somewhat pedantic person, and during the pandemic, Paula became a vegetarian. 

While no one in the family has an issue with her diet change, it won’t stop her from being “preachy” about it. 

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Paula refused to give her step grandkids burgers because she's a vegetarian. Picture: iStock

Step MIL shows young kids disturbing “cattle video”

“There is one specific video of cattle being slaughtered and processed that she has sent multiple family members,” Jerry shared on Reddit. 

“Because of that preachiness, my wife and I try to avoid having meals with her.”

RELATED: I kicked a 4yo out of a cafe for not being vegan

Recently, the couple attended a child-free wedding, meaning they had to get a babysitter to watch over their two kids, aged eight and five. However, their regular babysitter was unavailable, so they decided to ask Clem's dad and stepmother. 

“They babysat our children once a few months ago, and things went fine, so my wife and I agreed,” he said. By the time they came home after the wedding, both children were fast asleep, so they figured everything was fine. 

They were wrong. 

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The day after Clem and Jerry came home, their 5yo daughter Poppy* was distraught; unable to speak or eat, she began to cry when the family sat down for lunch. “She barely spoke all morning,” Jerry said. “When we sat down for lunch, she started crying and refused to eat.” 

After trying to coax an answer out of their daughter and failing, their 8yo son Harry* finally revealed the truth. 

The night the parents were at the wedding, they promised their kids they could have burgers for dinner. “My FIL was aware of that, but he apparently fell asleep less than an hour after we left,” Jerry wrote. 

By the time dinner rolled around, their step-grandmother Paula “refused” to cook the kids their burgers. While 8yo Harry offered to wake his grandfather up so he could cook the burgers, the idea was shut down. 

“[Paula] said she would make the kids something else for dinner,” Jerry recalled, But the kids wanted burgers, which is what they were promised from the get-go. Instead of swallowing her pride and cooking the burgers for her grandkids, Paula “showed them the cattle video”.

“She also apparently told them my wife was secretly against them eating meat, which is why they hesitated to tell us what she'd done,” Jerry said. 

Shortly after talking to their children and managing to “get them to feel better”, Jerry and his wife gave Paula a phone call, where she confessed to showing the children the video of the slaughtered cattle. “To say we're both outraged would be putting it lightly,” Jerry wrote. 

They informed Paula they’d be “cutting her off from our kids”, and wee likely going to do the same with Clem’s father, since he fell “asleep while he was supposed to be babysitting”. 

Paula then “tried defending herself”, but when she told Jerry and Clem they “should be making more efforts to get our kids to eat healthy”, the parents snapped. “It only made me angrier,” Jerry wrote. 

Out of frustration, he told Paula that “she has no idea how glad I am that she can't have children because I'd pity the child that would have her as a mother”. Furious, Paula hung up on them; a few hours later, Jerry’s FIL called up and apologised for falling asleep, “but insists that cutting him and his wife off is an overreaction”.

Jerry’s FIL also had an issue with his comment to Paula and insisted he was “mocking” her infertility. “Apparently, she is distraught at what I said, and FIL is demanding I apologise to her,” Jerry wrote. 

RELATED: 'Daycare fed my daughter yoghurt after we told them she was vegetarian'

Internet blasts “manipulative, dishonest, and cruel” grandmother

There wasn’t a lot of sympathy directed towards Paula, with the majority of Reddit agreeing she was out of line for showing the traumatising video to the young children. 

“She’s distraught?” someone asked. “Your child is distraught. She showed them a video of animals being slaughtered and told them a lie about their parents. What she did was manipulative, dishonest, and cruel.”

“What your stepmother-in-law did was completely inappropriate and crossing a serious line,” said another. 

A third penned: “Showing your kids that graphic video and shaming them for their food choices was harmful. While your reaction may have been blunt, it came from a place of anger and a desire to protect your children.”

Others thought Jerry’s comment was out of line, but nothing compared to Paula’s. 

“Normally, I'd say that snide remarks about infertility are out of line, end of story,” a person wrote. “Your SMIL has found the exception.”

“Her actions were so egregious and traumatic that, while it wasn't necessary, she deserved it,” a person agreed. 

Another said, “I'd be sending SMIL a bill for the children's therapy costs.”

*Names have been changed

Originally published as ‘My step-MIL refused to feed our children dinner because she’s vegetarian’