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When Your Mom's Cooking Goes Downhill

Gloriana

Patron Saint Of Smileys
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Aug 2, 2009
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I'm living with my Mom at the moment, she's 63 and she's still does quite a bit of cooking. I tell her that she doesn't have to, but I think she's got this thing in her head that it's still her duty as a Mom. She gets upset if she finds out all I ate was a power bar and a yogurt all day, stuff like that.

Still, she doesn't seem to particularly LIKE cooking any more. The only things I ever specifically ask her to make are some family recipes every once in awhile, other than that I'm like "Mom, I'm a grown woman, if I go to bed hungry because all I had was cereal all day, that's MY FAULT". This falls on deaf ears most of the time though, she still cooks meals at least four times a week.

She used to be an awesome cook, but these days she's doing some really weird shit in the kitchen. She made yellow rice the other day with tomatoes, olives, feta, garlic, spring onions, bacon, beans, mandarin oranges and raisins in it and it TERRIFIED me. I ate a few mouthfuls but threw the rest away, it tasted so incredibly WRONG. She asked me what I thought and you have to understand how incredibly sweet this woman is. I was like "Pretty good!" and that made her happy, but I was just dying.

She makes such weird food these days, plus she's not getting chicken cooked all the way through in a lot of dishes. She sucks on nicotine lozenges all the time since she quit smoking, drinks a lot of aspartame, and has constant sinus infections so I don't think she tastes a lot of these things. We've both gotten sick from her cooking before but she didn't seem to make the 'raw chicken' connection and seemed surprised when I mentioned it. She will also burn the hell out of stuff to the point the accompanying sauce has huge flecks of black char floating around it, but it doesn't seem to bother her in the least.

Man, I feel awful!! I cook big Sunday meals every couple of weeks and do a meal or two here and there but usually I'm content to fend for myself and I've told her this. She just keeps cooking though, and I feel bad when I don't have any. Plus sometimes she gets pissed if I don't eat like "Why did I make all this then???" and I'm like "I don't know!! I didn't ask you to!". I know she has the "Mom Compulsion" to be MOM but her food is getting scarier and scarier.

It does my head in sometimes because she doesn't seem to WANT to cook but feels like she HAS to even though I tell her she DOESN'T. I know it's probably a "Mom" thing, I know there is the compulsion to feed your young and all that, but one of these days she's gonna poison us to death or something!

How do you tell your Mom about these things? How do you turn down food your Mom so wants you to eat and enjoy? How do you tell your Mom her food is terrifying?

I feel so friggin' bad!
 

rhinosaur

Just a statistic
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A lot of people that age have cooked or been cooked for their whole lives, and couldn't imagine how people would eat without cooking at home.

If you started cooking at home, I bet she would stop.
 

LadyJaye

Scream down the boulevard
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Oh man, I know what you're saying, and it's never easy to have to broach the subject, but you;re going to have to. You don't want someone ending up with a serious case of food poisoning. My grandmother used to cook all of our major holiday family meals, and she was so good at it. But, recently she's been declining a bit with her ability to keep things straight, and yet she persisted in cooking, despite us telling her she didn't need to. Finally, a few months ago, my father actually got sick from her food, and I had to insist he not eat there anymore. Now, she's stopped cooking _ I have no idea what finally convinced her to quit. My mother also used to cook a great deal, but as she's gotten older, I've had serious concerns about her alertness around a hot stove, and asked her to stop using it. She was alright with me saying this, she knows I'm looking out for her. You might want to try that approach with your mother. It might hurt her feelings a little now, but it's for everyone's own good.
 

Giggly

No moss growing on me
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Gloriana, is your mom ISFJ?
 

Mole

Permabanned
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Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
How do you tell your Mom about these things? How do you turn down food your Mom so wants you to eat and enjoy? How do you tell your Mom her food is terrifying?

I feel so friggin' bad!

Yeah, I looked after my Aunt Vera with alzheimers for five years.

It was half way a comedy and half way terrifying.

If I had to do it again, I would not take it all on my own shoulders but ask for lots and lots of help.

But I will never forget towards the end I was the only one she could recognise and she would kiss my hand.

It all ended on a cold hillside. None of the family came to her funeral except me. So at the end it was just her and me, as it had been in life. And the wind was cold and I shivered inside.
 

Tiltyred

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Dec 1, 2008
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Can you disable the stove? If it's electric, you can pull it out and unplug it. It could take her awhile to figure out what's wrong.
 
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