Pregnant woman calls MIL 'uneducated,' kicks her out of the house, refuses to apologize. AITA?

"AITA for calling my MIL uneducated about nutrition and kicking her out of my house after she criticized what I made my son for dinner?"

So my husband and I have one 18 month old son, and I am pregnant with our second baby. We live in a major city, and his mother lives in a suburb 45 minutes north of us. Her doctor works out of a hospital located downtown in our city and my MIL will often stay over at our place after her appointments instead of driving back to her home as her appointments usually end right around when rush hour begins.

Yesterday was one of these days, she went to have some labs drawn at the hospital and then came over to our home when I was just about done cooking dinner. My husband was at the gym. I had a long day yesterday, I felt absolutely exhausted from pregnancy and chasing my toddler around all day.

We were running low on groceries with not a lot of dinner options, so I was planning to make a really easy dinner of spaghetti with frozen meatballs, but when I went in the kitchen to start cooking I realized that we were actually out of the meatballs I thought we still had.

It was too late to go to the store to get something else to make, my kid was already acting hungry and I was starving and exhausted. So I just thought, well I guess we don’t need to have protein with every single meal and made the pasta without meatballs.

When my MIL saw me putting my son in his seat and serving him his food, she said “Just pasta?” And I said “oh yeah I totally forgot I used up all our frozen meatballs until I was already cooking so it’s a meatless dinner night!”

And she said that she wished I would have texted her and she would have grabbed me meatballs from the store on her way so that “her grandson and her grandbaby-to-be could have a real dinner.”

This really irked me as his meal was a “real dinner” and it’s not like I don’t serve him protein. He had protein with breakfast and lunch yesterday. I also don’t like how she referred to “her grand baby to be” getting a real meal as I’m pregnant and so it’s obviously me who has to eat in order to nourish the baby.

It’s me that’s not “getting a real meal” according to her logic. It made me feel like she sees me as some kind of vessel and really made me mad. I told her that maybe she’s uneducated with how much protein humans actually need and there’s nothing wrong with our dinner.

She immediately got very upset that I “called her uneducated when she’s “raised three boys and she knows what growing boys need to eat” and told me I should “try and plan harder next time."

This last comment sent me over the edge and I yelled at her to get out of my house if she’s just going to shit all over my mothering abilities and that she needs to stop using our place as a home base in the city when she has her appointments if she’s going to make comments like that.

She left in a huff, screaming about how she couldn’t believe I was kicking her out “over some constructive criticism before she even got to spend time with her grandson” I told her I’m not looking for any type of criticism from her.

She called my husband and said I went on a “hormone induced rage” and kicked her out because I couldn’t deal with being called out on not serving my son a proper dinner and said she wants to keep coming over after her appointments.

My husband wants both of us to apologize to each other to “make peace” but I told him I’m not some elementary schooler who’s going to be forced to apologize when I didn’t do anything wrong just to make the issue go away. Now he’s mad at me too and I’m wondering if I actually didn’t do anything wrong AITA?

Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:

Famous-Composer3112 said:

NTA. The best parents in the world run out of meatballs sometimes. Your MIL sounds obnoxious.

Spare-Valuable8031 said:

LMAO. Girl, my son ate a banana, string cheese, goldfish crackers, apple sauce, and a chocolate chip cookie yesterday. Multiple servings, enough to fill him up, but just those foods. That's not a typical day but, frankly, for some toddlers that IS a typical day. This age is when they start getting really picky about their food.

NTA and I would not be open to justifying my healthy child's diet for a single day to anyone, let alone a GUEST in MY house. If MIL wants to dictate someone's diet she can have another kid of her own. Otherwise she can shut up and watch me eat these hot cheetos while my son plows through some more goldfish.

PomegranateReal3620 said:

NTA- It's called reactive abuse. They push and push and push until you snap and yell at them. Then, they feel justified in their abuse and can paint themselves as the victim. "I was just trying to help" is often the go-to defense.

You're the unreasonable, emotional one who can't take any criticism. What's worse is they do it when there's no witnesses. So, gaslighting is phase two. She set you up and then made it so awful that you couldn't take it anymore.

Now you're the bad guy for yelling at a weak old woman. You reacted to an abusive situation by standing upfor yourself. Your husband is engaging in the age-old tradition of appeasing the abuser.

Medical_Gate_5721 said:

NTA. Stop explaining. He isnt the middle man. The answer is now. "No." If she wants to come by, she can apologize and explain what she did wrong and why she won't be doing it again. Don't worry - there's no way she'll ever do that.

Somber_Rainn said:

NTA sounds like another mother in law from hell. She doesn’t get to tell you what to do with your kids in your own house, as an invited guest. ONE day of a low protein dinner is not gonna do any harm.

In fact, as a vegetarian, the only time I see a problem is when I consistently lack protein, which is usually squared away with one high protein meal. She just wanted to criticize you and found a poor excuse to. and how dare she bring up hormones, that’s even more disgusting.

Make sure you bring this up to your husband next time she wants to stay over because you deserve respect in your own house. You’re doing great bc you put food on the table and stood up for yourself and that’s all that matters.

Treehousehunter said:

NTA time for MIL to book her appointments earlier in the day so she can drive home before rush hour. Tell your husband this is the new rule. He can tell her or you will be happy too!