Geez....

[conuly]

Dear Annie: I am tired of hearing women complain about their mothers-in-law. I have raised a son, sacrificed, worried, lost sleep, worked jobs I didn't want and devoted my entire life to what was best for him -- as all mothers do. I dreamed that one day he would marry and have children, enriching our family. Then he meets "the one," and she is accepted and welcomed. We help them get settled and offer financial assistance and emotional support, because I want my son and his family to be happy.

And then one day it starts. You are no longer greeted with open arms. You have to call first before stopping by (even if you are next door). You get lectures about "boundaries," and in the worst case, you are exiled.

Do you want to know what I think? I think there are rotten little girls who need to control their men and are too insecure to accept their mothers-in-law as "Mom" and instead see you as the "other woman." They show no respect. A mother has a relationship with her son that should be cherished, not destroyed.

I pity their own daughters if they are raised by such messed-up women and can only hope that karma prevails if they have sons of their own. -- Unhappy Mother of a Son

Dear Unhappy: While we agree that some daughters-in-law can be insecure and jealous of their mothers-in-law, we completely disagree when it comes to dropping by without calling first. Too many parents trespass all over their children's boundaries, as if they don't apply to them. If you want to be treated with respect, you also have to show respect for the married couple. We don't care whose mother you are.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/anniesmailbox/s-2281947

Comments

[conuly]

Also, I am now burningly curious about this book, though I don't dare put money in the author's pockets. I wonder if it's in the NYPL....

[cereta]

Yeah, that's a favorite in the world of estranged parents, I gather.

[conuly]

Oooh, this one too. And the comments! You can appreciate that I take all of them with a very hefty grain of salt.

Edit: No, same book. How'd I get mixed up there? Regardless, those comments omg.

Ironically, this icon is a drawing of my MIL.

[cereta]

Oh, lord, this is a CLASSIC "missing missing reasons." If someone is complaining about hearing the word "boundaries," that's a pretty big indicator that they're the problem, here.

Re: Ironically, this icon is a drawing of my MIL.

[conuly]

Yeah. What does living next door have to do with the good manners of calling before you drop in? "Oh, no, my kids don't like me dropping by! But I live NEXT DOOR!" Um, okay, boundaries. "OH NO!"

Re: Ironically, this icon is a drawing of my MIL.

[rmc28]

"You are no longer greeted with open arms"

just inexplicably, out of nowhere, nothing happened before this sudden cessation in open-armed greeting

Re: Ironically, this icon is a drawing of my MIL.

[cereta]

Oh, something happened! That evil woman finally got him legally trapped, and he doesn't dare oppose her because she'll divorce him and take him for all he's worth and he'll never see the kids again.

Bleah.

Re: Ironically, this icon is a drawing of my MIL.

[azurelunatic]

He couldn't possibly have meant it when he said "Mom, this is a really bad time" half of the last 30 times this month that I dropped by!

Re: Ironically, this icon is a drawing of my MIL.

[conuly]

"Why, I live next door! There are different manners if you live next door!"

[rosefox]

as all mothers do

Um... no, many of them really don't.

I dreamed that one day he would marry and have children, enriching our family.

You're laying claim to his children before they even exist, but sure, his wife is the possessive and narcissistic one.

[jadelennox]

That is some superb close reading, there. I didn't even notice those bits, but yes, completely.

[tielan]

I always wonder about these grasping MILs who complain of their daughters-in-law; do they have daughters themselves? Do they value their daughters? Do their own daughters set boundaries (or has mom ground down any sense of distance for their female children) or are they expected to acquiesce to mom because: female offspring?

Also, that books that someone linked to above: considering the author is a pastor's wife, I'm guessing she never studied the bit in her bible about "and a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and the two will become one flesh" (emphasis mine)?

[ashbet]

*slow whistle*

Yeahhhh, staggering lack of self-awareness from that LW!!

(And I’m shuddering at the idea of a parent/in-law dropping by without notice and permission, ugh — I don’t want ANYONE coming by my house without calling/texting, much less someone acting like an entitled authority figure!!)

[cimorene]

Wow, I really hope she has been exiled.

[lilysea]

You have to call first before stopping by (even if you are next door).

Dear LW:

Reasons to call first before stopping by:

a) they could be having sex;

b) they could be showering;

c) they could be having an argument;

d) they could be in the middle of a telephone or skype job interview;

e) they could be having a bad mental health day and not up for visitors;

f) they could be having a bad physical health day and not up for visitors;

g) if you keep dropping by without phoning, they may move to the other side of the city or the other side of the COUNTRY just to get some space form you

[naath]

Dear LW,
your child has a wife, this rather suggests he is a grown man. He is no longer an infant, and whilst he (probably) loves you he has his own life now. His home is not your home, and it is no longer appropiate for you to just go there any time you please to snoop around, as it may have been when he was two. Your parenting has to grow up with the child.

You should call first, aren't phones amazing, this future is great. They might be out, they might be working, they might just not be up to being social.

[cereta]

Can I also say that I am stunned to see this answer from the Annies?

[watersword]

Is this a parody? Because good gravy, the lack of self-awareness in the LW's remarks is quite something.

[fox]

My husband is the only child of a single mother and HOLY CRAP am I glad she's always been Not Like This.

[cereta]

Spouse's parents are still together, but he's very much the center of their world. Even when we lived in the same house, they weren't like this. A little aggressive about laundry, but they understood boundaries.

[minoanmiss]

A friend of mine once told me that she viewed parenting as a gradual distancing: her son came out of her and her job is to prepare him to move further and further away until he goes off into the world and it's up to him how much contact he has with her.

I guess LW doesn't subscribe to this philosophy, huh.

[heavenscalyx]

Lordy, I wonder what she would've done if he turned out queer and child-free.

[lavendertook]

I like how it is the daughter-in-law who is denying access in LW's mind to her belonging, while she has nothing to say about her son's functioning in this. "Gimme me back my toy!" It's an interesting form of misogyny where men have no agency, and yet it is still a form of misogyny.

[minoanmiss]

It would make a great essay, wouldn't it? How women's agency is seen as evil and as leading to evil? This is one of the tributary ideas of that one, I think.

[ethelmay]

My adult daughter who lives in town drops by unannounced on me, because this is her childhood home and still to some extent her house, and even if I am not home she can make coffee or whatever. I do not drop by unannounced on her. There is a big difference. (Also other families may well have different boundaries.)

[minoanmiss]

Apropos of nothing, I love your icon! Yay red-figure!

[ethelmay]

Aw, thank you!

[resonant]

I don't want to be fair to this letter writer, because the lacunae in her story are the same lacunae that are always in stories by parents who view their children as extensions of themselves.

But to be fair to the letter writer, there was a period in white suburban American history when it was perfectly normal to drop by unannounced, and rather standoffish and weird to insist that someone should call first.*

I mean, that period has been over for an estimated 60-plus years, but it's not like "Call first" is a universal constant across time and space.

What it actually is is something more important: it is the preference of another human being, and she has been kind enough to tell the letter writer so in words (as opposed to by taking the letter writer's son and grandchildren to Luxembourg without leaving a forwarding address).

* How I know this: I was on my church's newcomer-welcome committee when my kid was a toddler, and the committee leader, a woman who had raised her kids in the fifties, saw that we had new members who had two kids about the same age. "Why don't you drop by some morning? The kids can play together and you can have coffee," she said.

I stared at her in open-mouthed horror. "Because I work, and both of these parents also work, and if anybody from church dropped by to visit me without calling first, that would be a church that had just lost a family of members."

"Oh, my," she said, backing away slightly.

[melissatreglia]

JFC, that sounds like my drama-queen of a MIL wrote it.

There's a reason we went no-contact on her. She'd been endlessly mistreating my husband, infantilising him and talking down to him. Once he and I were living together, he refused to put up with it anymore. I completely supported his choice to go NC, and I refused to be bullied by her.

(He also has a great relationship with my mom, and genuinely adores her.)