Some Thoughts about Mother in Laws

I've been astonished about how many Mother In Law haters there are around -- and how the feelings often expand from one's own mother in law to anyone who identifies herself to them as a Mother In Law.

I never really identified myself as "A Mother In Law" until recently, when I suddenly realized that's now a role of mine.

My own two MIL's were lovely people -- I never categorized them as bad by the title. I still don't understand the animosity - it saddens me to be included, if I've overstepped my bounds by accident or if I'm just being packaged in with all MIL's.

Here are just some thoughts I'd like to pass along...

• Mother in laws didn't grow up wanting to be a mother in law, let alone your mother in law. A mother yes, a grandmother -- maybe -- but not a mother in law





• Mother in laws started out as a mother. They still refer to themselves as a mother and to your spouse as one of their children.
• This isn't going to change. (How many parents who love their children ever stop referring to them as "my son" or "my daughter"?)
• Mother in Laws are going through a "role change" - from being one of the main advisor's in a child's life to "backdrop".
• Mother in Laws don't receive any warning or formal training to do this.
• There's also no handbook or manual.
• Mother in Laws were daughter in laws once (a new daughter in law could get her new MIL to talk about her own experiences with her MIL)
• Mother in Laws - most anyway - do not want to alienate their children's spouses, cause problems in their children's marriages and be unwelcome in their children's homes.
• Nobody - even in fairy tales - gets to pick who their mother in law will be -- sometimes you just have to deal with the hand you're dealt.
• Ditto for daughter and son in laws -- at least in Western cultures, mother in laws don't get to select who their children marry -- deal with it.