“Blood” relatives not being allowed at the dinner table - is this a tradition?
Posted by Poseiden424@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 84 comments
So I’ve just been chatting with my mum, and it transpires that my great (I think) aunt has recently died of old age/natural causes.
Upon reminiscing the few memories I have of her, my mum reveals that her and my grandmother (the great aunts sister in-law) were not allowed to sit at the dinner table in her house because they weren’t “blood” to my father’s side of the family. I always thought they just sat at the “kids” table with me because there was no space elsewhere 😂
What is wilder is that this aunt was also married into the family, so technically not “blood” either, sounds wild to me…
Trying not to judge, so does anyone know if this is just an old world thing?
Many thanks in advance.
sunheadeddeity@reddit
No that's just your family.
Poseiden424@reddit (OP)
Nooo don’t give me that, this can’t be a unique experience 😅
raginwhoremoans@reddit
We had it growing up that only my stepdad and mums kids could sit at the main table, kids prior to that had to eat in the kitchen. Also separate living rooms. It was fucked up. Obviously we grew up and realised just how messed up our upbringing was.
Vivid_Pink_Clouds@reddit
Wow that's awful. Did both parents have previous children?
WhyN0tToast@reddit
It's not that unique, I had a cousin who stayed with us and he was treated kinda the same.
He slept under the stairs until some shit went down and this beardy homeless guy came and took him to some boarding school up north.
cipherbain@reddit
Yo D dog! We talking about that cousin that got us fucked up in the park that one time?
Remote-Pool7787@reddit
It’s not only unique but also batshit mental. There’s no culture where that’s normal
ShelleysSkylark@reddit
It is!
OldLondon@reddit
Errrrrm…..
ClevelandWomble@reddit
So my wife's father's second wife's daughter's children shouldn't even be allowed in my house by that logic?
No, that's not a British tradition, it's your father's family being jerks.
spikeymist@reddit
It's never been a thing in my family, we've always had a turn up at dinnertime and we'll feed you ethos. There is one aunt (I call her my uncle's wife) who if it was left up to me, would be eating out in the pouring rain by herself!
Reasonable_Blood6959@reddit
With the appropriate amount of due respect to your mum - that’s absolute fucking nonsense.
It’s not an old world thing. Just your family.
heyitjoshua@reddit
It was common in some cultures for adopted children or bastard children to have to eat separately.
Source: Game of Thrones, my favourite true historical source
Reasonable_Blood6959@reddit
OPs mum is Jon Snow confirmed. That adds an extra dimension to the show.
sub_zero_immortal@reddit
And she knows nothing, of course
Dazpiece@reddit
And she dunt want it, either
Capital-One7998@reddit
I was the older half sister from before the marriage. It wasn't as obvious as having to sit at a different table but I was excluded from a lot of things and treated very differently. I didn't see how bad it was as a child. That's just how it was.
Poseiden424@reddit (OP)
It wasn’t my mum doing it, she was the one not allowed at the table!
HalfAgony-HalfHope@reddit
And your dad was ok with that? His wife being treated as a second class citizen?
heyitjoshua@reddit
Yes Jon Snow was not allowed at the table growing up
sock_cooker@reddit
Amazing that he grew up to be such a good newsreader
Reasonable_Blood6959@reddit
Sorry I misunderstood when I read - either way - total nonsense
Nobody on either side of my family growing up was ever excluded from the dinner table. If they’re family they’re family.
Timely_Egg_6827@reddit
I've heard of this but it was my grandfather's generation so talking late 70s. It was at a funeral where the wife got pushed back into the second car because she wasn't blood to the deceased. That first car was reserved for the siblings and male children of the dead. It was a mixture of mysgony and blood. I remember being shocked even as a young child. You're grieving your husband and you get that crap dumped on you.
Was this West Coast Scotland by any chance?
172116@reddit
For Scotland in the 70s, I'm amazed she was allowed at the funeral at all. In the 1980s, my grandmother's best friend's husband died, and my parents, grandparents and teenage aunt decamped to Stirling for the funeral - my English mother was absolutely horrified to discover that none of the women (including the widow and daughters) were allowed to go to the funeral and were expected to stay at the house making the tea!
This century in an island community, one of my pals says that there was some controversy about her grandfather's daughters and granddaughters attending the funeral.
Timely_Egg_6827@reddit
The Wee Frees can be very strict. Thankfully my Dad's side not that bad and stayed in the main kirk.
Doily_Enjoyer@reddit
My family were still doing this into the 2000s in rural east coast Scotland. I don’t think I was allowed to go to a graveside until I was in my 30s even for quite close relatives.
We didn’t have to go make tea & coffee because our family always had wakes in the club, so it was just a case of drinking tea & coffee with my granny usually.
iolaus79@reddit
Used to be a Welsh thing too - funeral was fine for women to go to but men only at the graveside. Funeral was in the house before the coffin was walked to the grave.
My husbands great great aunt had that traditional style funeral (was what she wanted) in 2000
Poseiden424@reddit (OP)
This was as south of England as you can get, really.
The last time we were there, and apparently when this happened (when I was a very young child) was probably 15-18 years ago.
Boring-Print9058@reddit
Are we talking Cornwall? ("as south of England as you can get")
With the only other commenter that has seen this type of thing coming from Scotland and the Cornish also having Celtic heritage. I wonder if it originates in some very old Celtic tradition?
Poseiden424@reddit (OP)
Nope, no dice there - East Sussex.
InternationalRich150@reddit
Im from Brighton, pretty much deep south haha. No one ive ever met,and Brighton has some characters, has ever adopted this idea.
Its your family im afraid!
DogtasticLife@reddit
Yep ES born and bred and never heard of this before, I’m 58
Timely_Egg_6827@reddit
In my family example, it was also messed up with some Italian traditions. I think it was from some very deep-rooted religious beliefs. CoS in its hardest form. Thankfully my mother was episcopalian which softened a lot.
Boring-Print9058@reddit
Ignore me. I'm adding 2 + 2 and getting 5!
Timely_Egg_6827@reddit
As said, it's not a totally unknown thing to me but really dated now. How religious were they? Out of curiousity was anyone female other than the aunt and esteemed guests allowed to sit at the main table?
Poseiden424@reddit (OP)
Unfortunately the OP is about all the context I have, but this has given me plenty of questions for my family members!
Time_Wishbone_5659@reddit
It's not a cultural thing but there are families around the world that I have read in one form or another that do this. They don't like the person or child, whether it is a fatherless child, a step child from outside, a spouse or second spouse that the matriarch or patriarch of the family doesn't like the sight of, and their children will be made to sit elsewhere and not with the main family. They become someone the rest of the family bullies.
buginarugsnug@reddit
Nah not an old world thing, just damn rude.
My grandma would insist on unmarried partners staying in a separate place overnight, but they were allowed to come and eat with us!
ThrowRAkitty13@reddit
That's just your weird family doing that, but many families are odd in their own ways. I have a mate who's grandma cut out her grandson's name on a family tree tapestry because he was "born out of wedlock", so yeah, sometimes blood isn't even enough.
Do_not_use_after@reddit
Nope, that's just crazy talk. Sounds like some aged male ancestor of yours wanted to keep the women 'in their place' and made this up. Read any novel written in the last 1000 years, and I doubt you'll find any reference in history to this practice. People sat at the same table. The 'head of the household' might well have sat at one end, but as like as not, his wife would have sat at the other end, and anybody else living there would be one side or the other. No second tables mentioned anywhere, and only servants ate below stairs.
CellistLow8857@reddit
Or could be the great aunt didn’t want them at the table and that’s why it’s come up after she has died!
Either way it was bullying/abusive behaviour not “tradition”!
VolcanicBear@reddit
Yeah, just sounds like great aunt was a dick.
paulmclaughlin@reddit
Was she told it multiple times, or only once? If it was once it could have been made as a joke by your great-aunt to cover her self consciousness at her own lack of table space, and interpreted as a serious comment.
Family feuds have developed from smaller misunderstandings.
Informal-Intern-8672@reddit
This is not normal, and I can't believe your dad let his family disrespect his partner like that.
WizardButtholes@reddit
some people are just absolute twats
BG3restart@reddit
That's not a thing at all. Your family is just weird, sadly.
omgu8mynewt@reddit
I wasn't allowed to sit at the table at my child miners house - infant part of the family - they looked after me every day from 6 weeks old to age 12 because my mum is a shift working nurse single parent.
Me and my brother had our own smaller table to the side - there were other kids in the family older and younger than us.
hengehanger@reddit
No, this is just a your family thing. Or was, thankfully.
Dedward5@reddit
I’m going to be controversial here but.
Tables are only so big and whether you admit this or not in most families/social circles there is some form of hierarchy (even if you’re not/were not that aware of it).
So with limited space, someone’s not going to end up on the “‘main table” and I’ll bet that’s those further down the hierarchy.
Unless of course you think everyone just sits down on a first come first served basis and “Nans chair” “Dads chair” are not a thing. Never been to a big party for an elderly relative your not close to and you kids would obviously sit right next to them and their immediate family can find a seat at the back of the room somewhere.
Marzipan_civil@reddit
I've not heard of it. Some people are weird about bloodlines or family names. But generally they're not very nice people to be around anyway.
Blue_Rose-2468@reddit
Not heard of that but heard similar with some great grandmothers from my husband side saying that babies born from women married into the family weren’t as connected by blood as children of their own biological daughters. This impacted perceived value and connection of grandkids and made women marrying into the families less deserving of support or praise
Waits-nervously@reddit
That’s the fundamental principle of any matrilineal system. It only seems odd to us because patrilineal systems are so much more prevalent that they are normalised. No one’s posting incredulous reactions to families favouring the male line in terms of inheritance and family continuity. Note that in your example, it is not the women who marry into the family who are being directly minimised, it is the sons of the family who are marrying them who are perceived as lesser than the daughters of the family. The women ‘who marry into a family’ don’t really exist, after all they remain the key elements of their original family. In this case it’s sons who leave their family on marriage.
fussyfella@reddit
I have never heard of it, but knowing how weird and cliquey families and sub cultures can be it does not surprise me if it has happened in some places.
PolarLocalCallingSvc@reddit
No.
It's incredibly rude.
And in all honesty, anyone is welcome around our dinner table, family or friend or stranger. If you're in our house and not trying to rob or kill us, you'll be fed.
LucyLovesApples@reddit
Your mother is blood to that side of the family though through your grandfather
Glittered_Fingers@reddit
My friend's MIL (born 1950s, Irish Catholic roots) has 4 children (all 4 in their 40s, all married with families of their own) and the MIL hosts 'Bloods' only dinners. Only MIL's 4 immediate kids are invited to these. Spouses and grandkids stay home. Thankfully for my friend, these 'Bloods' gatherings are rare.
PootMcGroot@reddit
Never heard of that.
I have heard - in multiple families in the 50s/60s/70s - where certain branches of the family were expected to enter the house as a guest through the back door (ie the "tradesman's entrance") not the front door, because the father of the group wasn't in a "profession".
captain_seadog@reddit
How bizarre! Surprised those branches kept visiting
PootMcGroot@reddit
I worked because they also felt it was appropriate.
Internalised class behaviour is still around, but was once endemic.
Lau_kaa@reddit
Families can be wild. My mother-in-law told me and my sister-in-law's fiancé that we weren't allowed to sit in the family pew at my brother-in-law's wedding because we weren't blood relatives, but she's always been a bit weird.
richdrich@reddit
I can tell you aren't from Norfolk or the Isle of Wight, where the distinction between "blood" and "marriage" relatives would never arise..
soulsteela@reddit
Never heard of anything so rude or daft.
sparkletigerfrog@reddit
No….but my Dad won’t talk about financial arrangements around my husband because hubs is not a blood relative. So same kind of thing?
ActionBirbie@reddit
Is this an third world thing, and you've come to the wrong subreddit?
SeoulGalmegi@reddit
Utterly mental behavior.
Feisty-Lifeguard-550@reddit
Yes Iv heard of this , like weird ultra old old fashioned shit back in the day
Thick_Suggestion_@reddit
Could be just me(I'm Polish) but when my grandma died, after the funeral, there was a dinner and there were over 100 people invited. Only like 15 were blood related and 30 were family( my grandma was super popular in our small town, practically everyone knew and loved her).
Your family were unfortunately a bunch of cunts :( I'm sorry to hear that
DavidJonnsJewellery@reddit
Sorry, but no. That's a your family thing. Not sure if your great grandparents had a problem with their daughters in law, but that would be the underlying reason I'd imagine. "Not good enough for my boys" is a common go-to excuse sadly
360Saturn@reddit
It's not uncommon for older people to sometimes hold the opinion that only blood family 'actually' counts.
My grandmother married a widower and unofficially adopted his (young) children and considered them to be her children as well, but her own parents never accepted that and would tell her so to her face.
wildflower12345678@reddit
By that reasoning anyone who marries into a family would have to sit somewhere else to eat. That doesn't generally happen.
If there's a big family gathering then the kids get put on another table, so the adults can eat in peace and chat, and the kids can goof around without causing problems for the adults. That's for convenience, but any adult would eat at the table together. Excluding anyone who marries into the family and therefore is not blood related is barbaric.
ResplendentBear@reddit
I'm in my 40s and I've never ever heard of that.
Can't say for definite it's just a your family thing, it might be, it might not. Confidently can say it's extremely rare if anyone else did do it vaguely recently though.
External-Praline-451@reddit
I've never heard of it, and my parents were silent generation, my grandma was born in the 1800s. I've also read a lot of old books and I've never come across it in any them either.
Physical-Crow-2154@reddit
Its not a tradition its disgusting behaviour.
OnlymyOP@reddit
Sounds like a pretty disgraceful way to treat people. My family always did it by age, so the Oldest sat at the main table.
ClumsyandLost@reddit
It's not a tradition but I've heard of similar things happening in other families. Some people don't like to include new additions to the family so they'll create rules as a means to exclude them.
NoodleDoodlesocks@reddit
No, that is something a lunatic would do.
Mischeese@reddit
Funnily enough my husband and his cousin were talking about this recently. Their Grandfather (who no one liked) would do this.
Stepson and Daughter in Law (cousin’s Mum) were never allowed to eat at the table. I’d never heard of such a thing! This guy was born in 1926 but I think it might have just been a ‘him’ thing. No one else in the family did it.
Sandy_Bananas@reddit
I come from a long line of weirdos - it’s not a thing.
firefly232@reddit
Sorry, this sounds like a just-your-family-thing... If it was the great aunt doing this to your mum and grandmother, then it could be one of those "queen bee" things where one woman in the family dynamic holds all the social power...
lellkat@reddit
And what did your dad do about this?
Active_Definition_57@reddit
Never heard of such a thing.
Inner-Purple-1742@reddit
That’s utterly weird & to me disgusting! In my family and even friends just sit down 🤷🏼♀️
Kapika96@reddit
Honestly, that sounds like an abusive relationship thing.
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