Woman avoids MIL's potlucks, says she can't cook, daughter blows her cover. AITA?
Oh, the chef's secret ingredient? She doesn't want to cook for you.
One wife was busted after pretending she didn't know how to cook for 3 years. Her MIL always asked all of the female members of the family to prepare a dish for potlucks and she always told them she didn't know how. The secret was, she is actually a very good cook. She just didn't want to. Well, when her 5-year-old daughter accidentally mentioned her amazing cooking in front of her SIL and MIL, it caused a huge blowout that ended in her refusing to bring her daughter to her MIL's Easter potluck.
AITA for pretending I can’t cook and not allowing my daughter to attend Easter?
I (30 female) am married to my husband Mike 32. Mike usually does all the cooking and it works for us. Sometimes I cook as well but it’s very few and far between.
Mikes family likes to have potlucks where the women all bring different dishes. I am a good cook but I don’t enjoy it so we’ve always just said I can’t cook. We’ve been married 3 years and this hasn’t been an issue.
Mike and I have a daughter who’s 5. She mentioned to my sister-in-law how mommy makes the best seafood casserole while trying my sister-in-law's. My sister-in-law mentioned something about the comment to my husband and he explained how I just don’t enjoy cooking so I don’t do it often and don’t want to cook for family parties.
My sister-in-law told my mother-in-law and all the women in Mike's family have been texting me that I’m selfish for letting them do all the work at family parties. So I said I don’t enjoy cooking and will not be cooking for a family party.
We all went back and forth a few times so I said the next family party (Easter this weekend) my daughter and I will not be attending then. My mother-in-law said I’m an AH for not allowing my daughter to attend saying it’s manipulative and that I should just make the dish and suck it up like everyone else.
My husband said he’s staying out of it right now but that he understands my position. He said maybe just make a dish one time to have peace on Easter and I refused.
So AITA for pretending I couldn’t cook for all these years? And for not allowing my daughter to attend Easter?
Edits for clarification:
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My daughter will still spend Easter with my family just not my husbands.
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He can’t take her alone because he’s on call for work that weekend.
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We did try buying store bought once and it was never served on purpose.
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Mike doesn’t cook for these events because it’s time consuming making a dish large enough and he works a lot. Making a meal for our family doesn’t take nearly as much time since there’s only 2 adults and a small child.
Here were the top opinions from readers:
ESH. OP and her husband for not bringing anything to potlucks. Husbands family for the weird competitive sexist potlucks, and for only being mad at op and not also her husband for not bringing a dish. And the husband again for letting op take all of the blame and not standing up for her on the sexism thing.
YTA. Why is this even an issue? Why hasn't your husband been cooking something and bringing it from your house and just not elaborating on who cooked it? Why have you been attending pot-lucks without brining anything when your family was more than capable of it?
Those who say “leave the daughter out of it!” are wildin’. The husband’s family has an extremely sexist tradition— why on earth would OP want her little girl exposed to it? That tradition needs to die in a ditch not be passed on to the next generation.
ESH. You for keeping your daughter out, them for insisting that only women bring food, and your husband for not stepping in and making the dish to be contributed by your family... and telling them so.
This could all have been handled years ago while sticking to your principles by having Mike tell them, back then:
'You know, it's great to have each family bring a dish, but it's really sexist to assume that it's always going to be the women who make it and arrange it with you. For the record, I'm the one who handles cooking in our household, so run everything to do with the family potlucks through me.'
Why don't you just do that now?
YTA. Using kids as a weapon or a form of revenge is reprehensible. For ANY reason. Let alone something as petty as bringing a dish to a family event. You’d deny your daughter time with her family because you’re too lazy to cook? I’d say a majority of people don’t necessarily like to cook but they do anyway because they aren’t a**holes.
Both you and husband YTA. You have compromises to be made, how about you BOTH pitch in to cook the large dish, OR purchase a made casserole/dish and put it in a homemade pan/heat it up that way so it looks homemade, who would know the difference?
They make an effort every year, as adults we do things we don't like many time for the good of the event/family as a whole, so everyone should sacrifice but you and your dh? And now you are keeping their grandaughter away from their even because neither of you want to take an hour/two to bake a dish? Come on...