No Pie For You!!!

[blue2000]

Mother hosted Easter dinner this year. We had a lovely meal, and chatted about various things. No rants this year, no 'accidental poisoning' (I have allergies and she conveniently forgets what she put in the food. This year she made me plain chicken. Wooo!! Progress!!). She mentioned in passing that a friend had come over earlier and brought her two pieces of pie as a treat.

After dinner, when the table was cleared, she and SIL sat down and ate the pie. No dessert was offered to the rest of us. She did eventually offer people some coffee and tea. In her defense, we weren't keen on having anything (Niece doesn't care for dessert, Bro is dieting (I think), and I can't have pie).

I'm pretty sure this is... not quite right... but I'm not entirely sure what to say if the issue ever comes up again. I wasn't going to complain about no dessert. I didn't really want any. But it threw me off when they started drinking tea and eating pie right there while we were sitting and talking.

Is there anything to say? Should I just smile and nod and keep talking about other things like I did this time?

[NyaChan]

That's really odd...

But this is your mom right?  Why can't you just say "Hey Mom, don't I get any?"  From your post it almost seemed like your mom "knew" (read assumed) you guys wouldn't want what she had on hand for your various reasons. But, since you apparently can have dessert, just not pie, I think it was rude of her to not have anything for you - and especially rude that no one was even acknowledged .

[blue2000]

There wasn't any more pie, so I couldn't ask for a piece. I didn't want to start any blowups either. But assuming the person hosting is reasonable, would it have been OK to ask for tea and fruit or something?

[NyaChan]

I don't necessarily mean you should have asked for a piece of pie, but if you have a casual relationship with your mom (maybe you don't?), I don't think asking what is going on with dessert ("don't I get any" is more of a way of pointing out that you weren't offered anything) would be a big deal. 

For a host in general, I would just accept that they are being really really rude on that occasion and probably would step back from accepting invitations at their place.  I have had friends do something similar on multiple occasions, and now I just know that if I go over, I should expect that it might happen.  So I don't go as often as I would normally  

[blue2000]

I have a very tenuous relationship with my mother. It is hard to know what to say without setting off a family ruckus. She gets rather touchy about any implied critiques of her hostessing skills.

Maybe I'll stick with asking for tea.

[Hmmmmm]

Since the friend dropped off two slices, exactly the number of people at your mothers who would want to eat pie, I wonder if in passing your mom might have commented that she wouldn't be making dessert since only 2 of the 5 would eat it.  So friend dropped off the slices specifically for them.

Honestly, if your mom knows the rest of you would refuse dessert then why bother offering.  For family members I know don't drink coffee I don't offer it to them when offering to others. 

I guess it would have been nice for your mom to have something for you as dessert, but if she wasn't planning on serving one before the gifted pie was brought, then she may not have had a chance to plan for it. 

I wouldn't look for offense in this case.

[O'Dell]

If you were dealing with a reasonable hostess, you could have asked for something to drink and a share of the dessert. But if she were fulfilling her hostess duties you wouldn't have to ask. Sort of a Catch-22. 

So I agree with NyaChan. For someone like your mother, you just have to accept how she is and decide what you are going to do in response. Concentrate on the allergy/chicken victory as you are. You may have to be satisfied with baby steps with her.

[mandycorn]

I think the part that seems like bad hosting to me is that she didn't offer you tea & coffee at the same time that she brought out the pie for her and SIL.

I'm good with knowing in advance which guests won't be able to eat dessert and not offering it to them, but not offering a beverage, which everyone could have consumed, seems wrong to me.

[NotTheNarcissist]

Is there anything to say? Should I just smile and nod and keep talking about other things like I did this time?

I think given what you have shared here you did the right thing. Going forward, I think if it were me, I would speak on behalf of the others present & speak up on their behalf, something along the lines of "Mom, by any chance would have any dessert for Johnny or Susie?" I may ask the first time in private; after that in front of them.

I always try to have fruit or jello or something other than the main dessert that i am serving for reasons such as this.

[sweetonsno]

This is actually somewhat similar to other threads, and it seems that it's pretty evenly split as to whether it's okay or not.

On one hand, there are those who think you should offer food/drink if you are going to indulge, even if you know that the other person will decline. For instance, even if you are fairly sure that Mary isn't a fan of chocolate, you would ask her if she wanted one of the truffles you were eating as a way of acknowledging that you wanted to include her and offer your hospitality.

On the other hand, there are those who think it is rude to offer when you know that they will say no. (The reasoning is that you are perhaps demonstrating that you are not paying attention to their dietary restrictions and preferences.) If Mary is a vegan, consistently offering her butter for her potatoes could very well send the message that you weren't listening when she told you that she didn't eat animal products. It's one thing if you forget once or twice, but if you eat with Mary several times a year and she has told you that she's a vegan five times already, continuing to ask isn't necessary and could grate.

I would say that it is probably best to not have dessert if you don't have something for everyone, even if it is just fresh fruit or mints for the non-pie-eaters. I also think your mom should have offered coffee and tea automatically. However, if she was fully aware that everyone would decline, I don't think it's necessary to go through the formality of offering it. As others have said, though, she made other progress with the chicken, so take it as a baby step forward.

[Tilt Fairy]

It's a bit odd isn't it? Mother recieves a small amount of tasty pie and eats it in front of guests after dinner without offering guests if they a) want dessert (not necessary normally but then she whips out pie so she's sort of like having 'her' dessert) or b) if guests fancied a bite or c) eating pie in private later.

Even if you didn't want tasty pie, its irrelevant (she didn't know her guests didn't want tasty pie!), she should have made one of the above three gestures - probably the third one if she wasn't intending on serving dessert.

Even though it was only a teeny tiny piece of pie, it's irrelevant. If she couldn't wait to eat it in private and she didn't want to (or couldn't) offer a dessert, she could have offered guests a bite, saying something like "guys, my friend brought me a tasty piece of pie. It looks so tasty and it keeps looking at me. I wanted to save it for later but don't think I can resist it anymore. I've tried but I think it wants to be eaten. Would any of you mind if I had it now? Of course please feel free to have a bite - it looks so good doesn't it?" Most people wouldn't take a bite of a piece of pie that was only one slice anyway so she could have eaten the whole thing happily.

It just falls into the standard etiquette of entertaining and hospitality - don't indulge yourself in something that you can't offer your guests equally. By guests I mean those within the same generation, age group, friend level, standing, etc... (I think its fine to offer kids and adults different things). Of course in super close and casual situations like a night with immediate family or children or best friends, I think its fine to eat different things but I think it's always polite to offer those close to you if they 'fancied some', 'would like a bite' or 'wanted to try some'. If they are close enough to you that you can all eat different things over the course of an evening then they are close enough to you to offer a bite to (of course, dietary restriction dependent).

It would be like having a dinner party where you were serving roast chicken but that morning your friendly local butcher gifts you with a lovely expensive piece of filet steak and so you serve everyone else the roast chicken but serve the filet steak for yourself.

The only thing I can think of in defence of your mother is if this was some sort of magic pie, the tastiest pie in the world that had some sort of lord of the rings effect over the owner that they had no choice but to eat it instantly, and eat it all.

*p.s. great thread title. I have a huge essay to write today so I wasn't going to indulge in ehell today but I saw the title so had to click on it. Obviously.

*p.p.s. I now want pie.

[blue2000]

Sorry! Didn't mean to make you hungry!

I am OK with the fact that she did not insist I eat pie. This is a good thing. However, I wasn't expecting her to decide that no one else gets anything either.

Thanks for the responses! Next time I will be a little better prepared instead of sitting there gaping like a fish and trying to come up with something to do or talk about (other than pie hehe).


p.p.s. Tilt Fairy, it was homemade blueberry pie, I think. It looked good - lovely juicy berries oozing out of a nice flaky crust. And now that you have reminded me of that, I want some pie too.