Bad Manners and Brimstone

My wife, her mother and her sister have a tendency that strikes me as slightly rude. When my in-laws are entertaining (e.g. hosting dinner for a couple of other families, which they do fairly frequently - say once a month), my mother-in-law will usually spend a lot of her time in the kitchen preparing the food, while the guests will be in the lounge with drinks. My wife and her sister will often go to help her out, which will leave me and my father-in-law with the guests. FIL is fairly introverted, particularly with guests that he doesn't know that well. The kitchen is close enough to the lounge that you can hear muffled laughter as the three of them laugh and joke in the kitchen, often for an extended period of time. What results in an awkward atmosphere in the lounge while everyone can hear that there's lots of excitement and fun taking place in another room.

Am I wrong here, or is this a bit rude? Not sure whether to bring it up, or if not, how to try and make guests feel a bit more comfortable.

Welcome, Victim of Fate!

Could you (and possibly your father-in-law) offer to help out in the kitchen "so that your wife/sister/mother-in-law could socialise with the guests"?  That way, whatever needs to happen in the kitchen is still getting done, and some of the jollity could be shared with the other people at the party?

Another option is to discuss this with your wife just after one such gathering, and mention that everyone not involved in the kitchen hilarity was feeling a little left out - what could you do to help out in future?  This gives you/her time to make a plan that will work for all concerned.

I'm looking at it from my perspective, where I've been one of the women* in a kitchen, and fun organically starts, and occasionally one of the [almost always (sadly)] men outside asks what's going on.  We never say "oh, those doing all the work are having fun", we just say "we're going as fast as we can".  The people commenting are invariably those who never even offer to lift a finger, let alone get one dirty in real life.

* My husband and one cousin's husband do help out, and do join in the laughing [cousin's husband is often an instigator], but it's mainly the females in my side of the family that do all the work.

I'm assuming that's not the case with you?  If not, I'm sure the ladies in the kitchen would love an extra pair of hands to speed up that part of the evening.  Worth asking, anyway.

Why would it be awkward to hear chatter and laughing in the kitchen? Are the women doing the work suppose to keep silent? Nobody is stopping everyone in the lounge from having a good time too. Start a topic for the guests to discuss.

Why is all this food preparation going on after guests have already arrived?   When I used to host dinner parties, I had most of the food prepared and either in the refrigerator, oven or on the burner ready to start.  The longest I might be in the kitchen would be fifteen minutes while cooking a steak. 

It's interesting reading the replies; I had missed that it was 'entertaining', and had superimposed my family's type of get-together on top!

We will have Meal A all ready, but people tend to arrive very early, or stay over till the next day, and those other meals are what I was thinking of.

My late [unlamented] uncle regularly used to say "what's for dinner?", but I never once knew him lift anything more taxing than a full mug of tea in the kitchen, so that is clearly part of what's colouring my thinking!

I don’t mean for this to sound rude but how else do you think food is going to get prepared unless people are in the kitchen preparing it? Maybe next time there is a dinner party you and your father-in-law should plan, cook and prepare all of the food so your wife and mother-in-law can just sit in the lounge and hangout with the guests.
 
What they are doing in not at all rude, someone has to prepare the food for the dinner, and they are allowed to have a good time while they do it.

Well, ideally most of the cooking would be done before the guests get there, and there wouldn't be a need for a prolonged session in the kitchen.

What is happening? Do they have guests hang out for the day and they naturally have to start cooking at dinner time? or do they invite people for dinner at 7pm and they don't start cooking until guests arrive around 7pm? If the latter, I agree most of the cooking should be prepped and ready before 7pm.

When I wrote my first reponse, I was imagining it to be the former, but now it sounds as though it's the latter?

If that's the case, you really do have to have a word with your wife and point out that it feels as though there's a small exclusive (fun) happening in the kitchen, whilst the tumbleweeds are blowing through the guest areas.

You can't really say anything to your mother/sister-in-law, I don't think, but hopefully once your wife realises that guests are feeling neglected she will speak with her family.  I still think that you could go into the kitchen and usher the females out and say "I'll finish up in here, you go and talk to the visitors!".

I think ideally, when you're entertaining, food prep should be done beforehand (to the extent possible) to minimise time spent in the kitchen and away from your guests. Otherwise, what's the point of even hosting?

The exception to this, is obviously if the guests are staying for a long visit (ie several hours or days) such that it's not possible to do food prep before they arrive.

So yeah, I do think the OP's MIL, SIL and wife are being rather inconsiderate towards their guests if they are spending large chunks of the evening in the kitchen and not interacting with their guests. They're also being a bit inconsiderate towards the OP and FIL by lumbering them with all the hosting duties (and the responsibility of keeping the conversation going, etc), when OP and FIL aren't comfortable with that.

I really like the idea of OP and FIL sharing (or taking over) the cooking duties next time. Otherwise, this:

...next time just grab a guest or two and go to the kitchen, saying, "This sounds like the fun room! Can we help?"