MIL ....ugh!

[SkyBluePearl]

Just wanting a little moan really ...

MIL lives miles away, she is highly emotional and has regular tantrums like a toddler. She doesn't know my kids really but has known my extended family for years. I get irritated that she compares my children to her children all the time and my extended family never get a look in.

Anything to do with brains, chattyness, high reading ability, creativity, socialness is all down to her families genes of course - despite me having a mix of creative, introvert, extrovert, literate and mathmatical extended family members (I'm not the academic one as you can tell!).

Again today she threw lots of family comparisons in within a 15 min phone conversation. When I mentioned how chatty my son is she responded with 'just like is uncle Simon' - for goodness sake MIL Simon is quiet and avoids people. A lovely gentle hansome chap but I've never seen him be chatty with anyone in the 17 years I've know him.

So am i right just to grit my teeth and quietly laugh after about the strange comparisons or should I make a stand for my gene pool?! Presently I always act like the calm peace loving grown up while she makes sweeping statements. I don't find it really upsetting - just irritating.

Not quite the same but our DS was named after my (dead) father. When he was born and both sets of grandparents came to visit, my MIL went on about how nice that we'd used a family name as (an obscure) member of DH's family had that as a middle name, with no acknowledgment of why we had used it. It was anyone's guess whether my mother would cry or punch her first.

lol it happens to me too, even my family do it, these days when anyone compares the children to other people I interupt with "you know what, I think they look just like "insert childs own name here" " or you could get your own back and suggest she research her family tree because her eyes are very like hitlers, maybe they are distantly related I always tell my mum that you can see a family resemblence between her and her sisters, that usually shuts her up, they are all about 4 times the size of her lol

Urgh, I had this. DD is the image of DH but has my gaelic-y pale colouring. For the first few months of her life, on and on my MIL would go, "I just don't understand where she got her colouring". Really? Do you not understand that? What do you think she was doing inside me for nine months, hiding?

my MIL does this.

It is natural I think and means nothing.

I had never thought to get upset over it...I just let her talk.

We have this here too. DD is the double of me as a baby - doesn't look like DH at all. According to MIL, she gets her looks from MIL's father?! But then they do treat me as a human incubator at the best of times, so not really surprised!

My MIL does this too... I see her visibly wince every time a stranger says to me "Doesn't your daughter look like you?"

I get this too.

With ds2 I took to replying how funny he looked like his dad as we weren't actually sure who his dad was

that shut em up.

I get exactly the same too. MIL sits comparing dd to random members of her family. If anyone mentions she is like me in anyway she says 'oh but she (dd) is her own person you can't compare her to others'. She also keeps saying what a daddys girl she is- she is two months old!
Guess now I've finished incubating my work is done.

My PIL openly refer to me and SIL's DHs as "the outsiders"

Imagine her dismay when both of my children were born looking just like me

DiddyDragon is a total clone of me which drives MIL nuts. When she was born she had jaundice so looked more olive skinned (Mediterrannean in-laws) so they were all pleased.

I pointed out that I had black hair when I was born (now a pale, blue-eyed redhead) but they didn't want to hear it. As soon as the jaundice cleared it became perfectly obvious that DD was a total Mini-me & they've been grumpy about it ever since.

Her hair is exactly the same as mine, blue eyes, the lot. They can't understand how the dominant dark gene has been thwarted in this instance.

I put it down to bloody mindedness on the part of DiddyDragon & all the women in my family that she's descended from.

all MILS do this though i reckon.

my ds was the spitting image of me as a toddler - photos of us both age 2 really do look the same. MIL spent his entire 2nd birthday party informing anyone who would listen that he looked exactly like FIL....

and even now,when both dc have very blond hair she always goes on about how they're both like their dad was at that age despite firm photographic evidence that his hair had darkened to a mid brown by then!

pumperspumpkin That's horrible! Poor you and your mum!

My MIL never ever compares my children to me. She does however say that they get their hair (which is obviously from me) from their distant cousin who isn't even related by blood. When I pointed this out to her she just looked completely blank!

This used to really annoy me too. Every photo we showed them of the children was compared to some onscure relative of theirs. I gave up being annoyed when one one occasion when they were visiting we showed them a photo that looked identical to a photo of me (big close-up) at the same age. I even got the photo of me out to 'prove' it - before I knew it MY photo was being compared to their 'cousin Paul'

I find this very strange about my MIL too. I have a DD from a previous relationship. DD2 (with my husband) has the exact same eyes as DD1. My MIL will not acknowledge that in any way. She keeps saying "DD2 has the same eyes as {various relations of hers}. Even if I say "She has the same eyes as DD1" she completely ignores me as if I haven't said it at all.

Very strange people.

I suppose the MIL's could just be reassuring themselves that the DC are related to them.

After all, it's obvious that we must be the mothers but they only have our word for it - and any tenuous physical resemblance they can come up with - that the DC belong to their precious sons.

I am not saying anyone here has or would cheat on their DPs btw, just trying to work out why the MIL's go so loopy over making our DC's into looky-likeys of themselves/great Uncle Bob thrice removed.

I think your MIL sounds fine in OP...she is quite sweet to notice little things about the baby and to want to make associations with the family, and not surprising she thinks of her family rather than yours...she is more likely to remember what they looked like/character traits from when they were young, and your family will compare your baby to one of them.

Also, if its your brand new baby and you see your MIL making assiciations with traits or people that you view negatively, then No WAY are you going to agree with it , but it might be that she doesn't see it the same way.

My kids are all aged between 0 and 7 years girls. It's been going on for 7 years too - MIL twists everything and things are very emotianally loaded (she is so negative about everyone else and thinks she and her kids are the bees knees) but thankfully my family are very fair and logical. They are more down to earth and thats what i'm used to.