agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Carolyn: What do you do if you don’t like your daughter-in-law? Mine is a self-absorbed slob. As an example, she once made a comment laughingly that she never dusts. Which is true. She never cleans. They live about a four-hour drive from me and I love my grandchildren, so I try to visit for the weekend maybe once every four or five weeks. They live in an apartment and they have bugs. Yuck.

And when I do visit, she never cooks, never even suggests what she might make for dinner. I spend a fortune on takeout or else take up all the food for us and do the cooking myself. I might even have a kinder attitude but she never even thanks me for anything.

One of the few positive things I can say is that my granddaughters and daughter love her. I love her for that reason, but I just don’t like her and I feel like not visiting but that would hurt the rest of the family. Can you say anything to get me through this for the rest of my life?

— Anonymous

Anonymous: She gets 12 words of warmth for her heart, and 170-ish words of savagery for her housekeeping. (They’re her bugs and dust, then, not your daughter’s?)

Until you’re willing to hear it, there’s nothing I can say.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/01/30/carolyn-hax-in-laws-wont-stop-hugging/

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An unusual example where DIL blaming doesn't appear to be sexist in origin - this DIL is married to LW's daughter, though you would barely know that based on how little is said about her cleaning, cooking, and manners.

One note about bugs: If you live in an apartment, and your neighbor has them, it's very hard to get rid of them no matter how clean you are. It's very easy to sink into depression and stop cleaning, especially when you have an intractable bug problem anyway.

Also if they both live there, they share the bugs regardless of gender! But also, even if her DIL is incredibly untidy and sucks at both cooking and cleaning, none of this is a remotely good reason to dislike her. Not saying thank you MIGHT be a valid factor, but given the rest of this story I'm thinking... not.

I'm not sure it's not still sexist in origin: "my child's wife should be a cook and homemaker!" I guess it's a leeeeeetle better to expand that to whichever gender of child, I guess.

Also, I have some friends whose [lack of] housekeeping skeeves me out. In the Before Times I tried to see them at places beside their homes.

Yes, this seems like someone who really needs the "Get a hotel for your visits" advice.

I think the LW is mad that their daughter is married to a woman. They may not realize it, and if the daughter were married to a man and the place were in exactly the condition it is now they might or might not find some other way to complain about it but likely wouldn't complain about him. (And it probably goes without saying that if their son were married to a woman and the place were in exactly the condition it is now it would definitely be the son's wife's fault.) But I think there is unexamined homophobia in there for sure.

I feel like there is so much missing information here. Like... presumably the family eats somehow when LW isn't there? What's going on that that process stops functioning when they're present?

Does "they have bugs" mean "I'm annoyed when a window is left open and a fly gets in" or does it mean "there are cockroaches literally everywhere"?

Also not mentioned, whose idea was it that LW was invited to stay over the whole weekend every month?

I am actually going to guess that what stops the process when LW is present is that LW's daughter in law is from a culture that eats differently than LW prefers and LW refuses to eat what the family usually eats so it's just easier and less confrontation to allow LW to take over the food for the weekend. Either that or the daughter's family likes to eat at significally different times than LW prefers, but my money's on the "a single shake of any spice jar in the food means that lo, your foreign food is too spicy for me" thing.

I know

fox guessed unexamined homophobia, but my money is on racism that was carefully excised from the letter because the LW knows how bad it would make them look.

(EDIT: Also, the answer I would have given, in addition to Carolyn's short and pointed calibration check: "It sounds as though the frequency of your visits may be overwhelming. Even a much-beloved relative [subtext: ie Not You] visiting can disrupt a household routine and eat into time needed to keep ahead of the chores -- and that's during normal life, not pandemic life. I advise cutting back the frequency of your in-person visits, switching to frequent Zoom calls to keep in touch, and offering your daughter the money you're saving on gas for no-strings-attached household help." But from the between-the-lines reading, that money would have a lot of strings attached to it, and I would NOT be surprised if the daughter said no.)

Edited 2022-02-03 07:15 (UTC)

Just have to say that I love Carolyn's short, blunt response. Brava!

Yeah, that was precise pithy awesome.