s/o on all the holiday in-law vents - what will YOU do to be a "better" in-law?

[MrsJewelsRae]

I probably won't call around to set up interviews for my DIL if she decides to be a stay home wife. I probably won't ask her to change into a skirt the day she gets home from the hospital after giving birth to her first baby and is so injured she can barely walk, Because I'm afraid my DIL will offend the family by wearing pants. (!!!). I also won't tell her how to clean her windows, or suggest that she use a stronger smelling household cleaner. I won't leave parenting magazines out on my coffee table flipped open to anti- bf articles because I'm afraid she will starve my grandson to death by breast feeding him. (especially considering the only magazines that gave ever been in her house before or since are religious newsletters and cooking mags!). I most certainly will not suggest to my son that maybe his wife's parents coddled her too much and that is why she's not string enough to be at every church service is because she's never really learned to suck it up (said when I was 6 months pregnant and had pneumonia and a collapsed lung with severe asthma attacks and was basically staying alive by having a nebulizer strapped to my face all day for weeks.- but again, DIL wearing pants or missing church makes the mil look bad, right?). I will not repeatedly tell my DIL to let her new baby cry it out. Or suggest that she shop at the plus size store when she's a size 10 and her clothes are a bit snug across her milk filled chest shirtly after having a baby.

 

Ok, I think I'm done for now. It's been 12 years and we've mostly made our peace and she is much better now! I'm trying to store up all these things and use them positively to help me be a better mother in law.

[momofkhm]

My IL are really nice. The issues we have with them aren't interference or judgement or what most other people have issues with. It's their personality. They have annoying things about them. We go to leave the house and FIL finds 3 things that just "have to be done" on the way out the door. Those things could easily have waited until we got home, even hours after that. This one, you never know what is going to irritate someone else so I can't do anything about it.

 

With my mom it's a flash temper. You don't know when she is going to blow. I have taken measures to try and counteract that. I think I'm more peaceful than she is. You'd have to ask dh and the kids to be sure though.

 

We do enjoy spending time with both sides. But we also tend to be happy to come home as well.

[Hoggirl]

I must be atypical since all of my issues are with my father-in-law. Everyone seems to have beefs about mothers-in-law.

 

My f-i-l is a bossy, overbearing, know-it-all. He was absent from school on the day when they taught, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all," because he is full of criticism and harshness. NOTHING, I mean NOTHING is good enough for him. He constantly talks about how much money some of my dh's high school classmates make. We aren't exactly hurting financially, but money is very important to him. He is a tough match for me personally b/c my love language is words of affirmation, and he never offers praise.

 

I dread our visit in two weeks. Thank goodness for my "brother" Jack Daniels!

[laughing lioness]

I will not play favorites among kids and grandkids. I will not talk to my grandchildren negatively about their parents choices. I will support my kids/spouses choices as long as they are legal and ethical. And so much more, but those are the basics.

[GoVanGogh]

I probably won't call around to set up interviews for my DIL if she decides to be a stay home wife. I probably won't ask her to change into a skirt the day she gets home from the hospital after giving birth to her first baby and is so injured she can barely walk, Because I'm afraid my DIL will offend the family by wearing pants. (!!!). I also won't tell her how to clean her windows, or suggest that she use a stronger smelling household cleaner. I won't leave parenting magazines out on my coffee table flipped open to anti- bf articles because I'm afraid she will starve my grandson to death by breast feeding him. (especially considering the only magazines that gave ever been in her house before or since are religious newsletters and cooking mags!). I most certainly will not suggest to my son that maybe his wife's parents coddled her too much and that is why she's not string enough to be at every church service is because she's never really learned to suck it up (said when I was 6 months pregnant and had pneumonia and a collapsed lung with severe asthma attacks and was basically staying alive by having a nebulizer strapped to my face all day for weeks.- but again, DIL wearing pants or missing church makes the mil look bad, right?). I will not repeatedly tell my DIL to let her new baby cry it out. Or suggest that she shop at the plus size store when she's a size 10 and her clothes are a bit snug across her milk filled chest shirtly after having a baby.

Oh my goodness! We have the same MIL.

Mine visited seven weeks after my emergency C-section and right after my son was discharged from NICU (he was premature) then complained that the bathtub wasn't clean enough for her. :cursing: Like I cared about the bathtub at that point. Like I could bend over the tub to clean it at that point. Like I had time.

(And I really have no idea what the bathtub looked like. My DH cleaned it the night before her visit and swears it was clean.)

[6packofun]

Well, first and foremost, I hope I'm doing a great job of creating young men and women. THAT is my main contribution to any future marriages. LOL I can't tell you how many times I realize what MIL did NOT do for her son, my dh, and our whole family is affected because she chose the way she did. I don't put all responsibility on her or any parent for how adult children turn out, but parenting does count! We both have divorced parents and our mothers turned their focus AWAY from us so drastically and onto themselves after that that we were left a little lost for the rest of our childhoods.

 

I think the main thing I will do, which my MIL does quite well, too, is to just ASK what my child and his/her spouse want to do and not take it personally if I'm not the in-law who gets picked for a visit or whatever this time around. :) Having to juggle between families, especially once children arrive, is difficult enough without my being selfish!

 

I think the *hardest* thing for me to do will be to gradually let go of my idea that *I* know my child best and acknowledge that his/her spouse will very soon be the one that does! I don't want to lord over anyone with the closeness I feel to my kids and make them feel less than. (But as fiercely as I love my kids and as close as we are, it will be hard for me. At least I know it, though! LOL)

[jujsky]

I think men don't have problems with their MILs because they are more likely to let comments roll off their backs, while women will think about it until the end of time. (At least I do. :tongue_smilie:)

In our family - My mom thinks of my husband as another child, someone else to dote on. My MIL, however, seems to view me as competition.

I do not have a good relationship with my MIL.

 

:iagree: This is how it is in my family too. My mom doesn't interfere and loves both her SIL and DIL (my SIL can't complain about her -- she loves my mom, and feels bad for the rest of us in our circle of friends who have less than stellar relationships with their MILs). I'll never, ever be good enough for my MIL. I know when I'm a MIL, I'm going to embrace my DIL as another daughter. I won't interfere, and I'll do my best to support their decisions. Above all, I will respect them as a couple and will never try to pit one against the other. Once they're married, they are a family. They're part of our family, but they're their own separate family first and foremost. I don't want to lose sight of that.