To think some posters are very hard on the MILs

[meantosay]

They can't call around without an invite

They can't pick the baby up without permission

They can't buy the dcs presents because it's just 'junk' that 'clutters up the house'.

They can't ask to take the baby for a walk because that's 'taking over'

and on, and on, and on.

Read a lot on here about posters being reduced to tears by their MILs (sometimes understandably) but I wonder how many MILs go home in tears because yet another well meant gesture has been thrown back in their faces, or they have been made to feel like they have no right to a special relationship with their grandchildren?

I wish I still had mine.

She was wonderful, never said no, took an interest, she was a dream.

I'm not without my sympathy of course - my mate's mil is born of the maws of Hell, and even once physically attacked and punched my mate, so jealous is she that her son has grown up and moved on.

I realise that some mils are fucking horrible, I truly do.

But there are no two ways - some posters on here come over as unpleasant, mean spirited, and puffed up full of self importance when it comes to their well intentioned mils, who after all, just want a look in.

I don't like my ex mil giving my kids sweets because they would just end up eating far too many if my ex didn't stop her. My Mum sees the dc's every week, as a favour to me so that I can work, I let her get them a nice pudding that they can have after dinner, because she likes to be able to give them a treat. I did have to stop her buying them a donut for an after school snack as well as giving them pudding though. Then the ex does nice things on the weekends that he has the dc's and usually takes them out to eat and finish with a huge ice cream. Then they get treats when it's someones birthday at school, or when they go to parties. I already feel like I'm bottom of the list when it comes to giving the dc's treats, why should mil get to stuff them full of sugar every time she sees them when I have to say no to my own children on a regular basis. My Mum is doing us a favour, she helps out, she has paid for dc's after school activities when I've been short of money. She has way more right imo to be allowed to give the dc's treats than Mil who does nothing of any use.

That's not me being a mean dil, it's me trying to restrict the amount of crap my dc's eat!

I agree, there is seemingly a bit of an imbalance in threads- more about mother-in-laws than mothers, or any other family member. But actually, that mak es sense to me. As Bucharest said, "MILs are people. Some are lovely. Some are vile." Same goes for mothers, fathers, great-aunts, etc.

Now, my mother-in-law is an absolutely wonderful person. By contrast, my mother is a genuine horror, but I don't (generally) make threads about it. Why not? Well, it's nothing to do with pro-mother prejudice, or indulging her/letting her get away with it, or anything of the sort.

It's simply that by the time I joined mumsnet, after having my own children, I'd learned how to deal with my mother. Now, if the positions of my mother and mother-in-law were reversed, you bet I'd be posting on here 24/7! But as it is, I've had so much more time to learn how to deal with my family whereas other women will have known their in-laws for a comparatively tiny amount.

Obviously buying sweets for your GC isn;t going to ruin anyones life, however it can make the whole mealtime routine difficult and I think that anyone who posts about that is probably complaining that the GP is undermining the parent. It is about the bigger picture.

I think pretty much most people have agreed with you, yes there are some DIL out there who make too much of what their MIL has done,
but you cant say that all DIL are in the wrong in the same way you cant say that all MIL are evil!

I'm just pleased that everyone has somewhere where they can vent.

Can I suggest that next time you see a post from someone who you feel is being a bit precious that you tell them!

Like all people, some MILs are lovely and some are complete nightmares!

I am one of those women who won't let my MIL take my DC out on her own. When DS1 was a newborn she kept trying to push the pram up the middle of the road. She had very little concept of what was safe for a child to play with and she had a very jealous dog, that she was reluctant to contain. No way was I going to just happily hand my baby over to her.

That's before you get to the part about her wanting my baby to call her and FIL mama and papa and practically moving into my house.

New mums are trying to find their way and PIL who try to take over or who don't respect that you are the mum and ignore what you want/attempt to take over really have themselves to blame if the relationship is fraught.

All that said, I never expected my ILs to ask if they wanted to hold the my babies, I've never stopped them visiting and I don't complain when they spoil my DC. I do love that my DC have lots of people in their lives who love them and I do respect that they have a relationship which is independent of anyone else. I'd be quite happy if my MIL re arranged my kitchen cupboards (like my mum does if I go out and leave her to her own devices). I do like it if she calls before coming round as she brings her new partner with her and I don't feel at ease having a stranger in my house unannounced.

I'm waffling, but I'm just trying to say that a bit of thought on the part of the MIl in the early days, would go a long way to improving relations

I didn't read the thread, but I would have every sympathy with a Mum that got rid of a cake presented by someone else after buying or making one herself. The mil in that situation is just rude!

What's this about MILs having to wait to be invited and only then visit? Surely no one is that unreasonable that they'd think that a mother can't visit her son's family but should just wait patiently until dil+ds very kindly confer an invitation?

I think a lot of the problems can be generational. Both my mother and MIL had their mothers to stay for a month after baby was born and stayed in hospital for up to 2 weeks with their first child. They pretty much had no say on what happened with their babies because others took over. Apparently this was normal so they repeat the pattern.

I do think in some cases ground rules are required and some people need to respect boundaries but respect and courtesy is required on both sides.

I always try to be fair with both sides of the family and try to remember how much i love my nana and granda and hope that i help build a good relationship with my child and all of her family. Yes it's a pain in the arse sometimes and i don't always succeed but at least i can take the moral high ground!

Of course there are nightmare MILs who must drive their poor DILs insane. But there's a big difference between a MIL constantly criticising and stuffing the kids with junk food and a MIL who sometimes offers an opinion or lets her dcs have a few sweets when they come to visit. But some posters don't seem to understand the difference. And taking major stances on MIL having to ask permission to call around, or not taking the baby out for a walk in the pram (on the pavement of course) is upsetting for the MIL and unfair to the GC who can only benefit from lots of time with a loving grandmother.

I think some mothers forget that the MIL is just as much a grandma to their children as their own mothers ...

I think one of the obvious problems is that we quite often follow the patterns of our own families. So if the two sets of inlaws did things very differntly, it's not surprising that there's going to be a few odd differences.

When my Mum had me, she got annoyed with her own Mum for trying to take over, so she always made a conscious effort not to do that when I had my first. She always did things my way, which is something I am very grateful to her for. On exdp's side, his sister had already had 3 dc's and was more than happy to let her Mum do everything. Mil then expected it to be the same when I had her son's child, and probably genuinely couldn't understand why I didn't want her help or advice. With hindsight I can see that, but at the time it felt like she just wanted to undermine everything I did. Ex was always good a sticking up for our way of doing things though, so eventually she came round to respecting me as the mother, and even now I have split with her son, we get on well.

Or maybe she was trying to help out by buying the cake and saving her DIL the work, Curly.

One warning about letting your MIL taking baby out for a walk in pram. DD came along 8 months later (she was early)

I can't wait till more mnetters are old enough to be mils.

We'll never hear the end of it.

My MIL was a nightmare when we got married and I was dreading her being a nightmare when we had children. She has turned out to be absolutely lovely. My DH has made this face a couple of times recently when told him that I really do love MIL now and yes, I am describing the woman who was so distraught about losing her son that she didn't speak to me once our entire wedding day.

The reason why I have grown to love her is that she doesn't behave in the way some posters describe. It sounds like a lot of these MIL become nightmares in those difficult first few months of motherhood. I fully respect the right of those women to come on here and vent/rant and seek as much support as they need. YABU.

Maybe Swan, but surely it would have been a lot more helpful to offer in advance. It's not remotely helpful if you don't tell anyone that you are willing to provide a cake until it's time to light the candles! Surely that's just common sense?

Yes, obviously it would have been 'best practice' to ring and offer to make something for the party. But she got that wrong and must then suffer the insult of having her cake not served and then thrown out. Obviously everyone isn't as perfect as you curly and deserves to be treated like shit as a result even if it was a well meant and kindly gesture.

Err, personally, I would never throw out good cake. But I wouldn't have served it at the party either. I would have taken it home or saved it to have with a cup of tea give to the child when all the party madness was over. If that would be treating someone like shit, then that someone is oversensitive and should have thought fist.

If I was that Mum, I would possibly feel like I was being treated like shit if I had made a cake and it was not deemed good enough by the MIL. Why should someone have to serve two cakes and lessen the specialness (I know that's not a word really) of the cake they have lovingly made for their own child just to spare the feelings of someone that has been completely thoughtless?

I do think some MILs get a very raw deal on here and that there does seem to be this attitude that once a man gets married he is no longer entitled to a relationship with his own family. In fact I have even seen posts on here saying "they have to accept that you are his family now, not them"

In the past I had a falling out with my fil which led to some tention, but generally I get on fine with my MIL and even fil now. I don't know whether they like me or not (fil has implied otherwise in the past) but they don't interfeer in our lives and mil is generally happy to do things my way even if she doesn't agree with me. And while I know she has had differing opinions re discipline she has never undermined me.

I will be inviting myself to stay with them in the summer holidays (they live by the sea) without dh as he will have to work and it really doesn't bother me at all.

Mil said to me once "you know, it's only now that I'm a grandmother that I see how hard my own mum found it when I used to shout at my own kids."

I think sometimes we fail to see the reality before it's here, a bit like when we have kids we have all these preconceptions about how it's going to be, and then when it happens it's nothing like we imagined.

That being said I know a woman who I know must be the mil from hell purely from the things she says about her son and dil and how she turned up at the hospital within half an hour of her dil giving birth (at midnight!) demanding to see the baby because "that's my baby!" and saying that she will be playing an active part in bringing it up! (I think her dil has other ideas).

I have to say I nearly started a thread about my MIL the other day, she did something quite unforgiveable , only I wasn't going to suggest that it was my MIL! I'll let you into a secret about what she did, she was doing the washing up (don't have a problem with that!) with washing up liquid 1 third full, she proceeded to fill it with water - to make it go further - all well and good IN YOUR OWN KITCHEN WOMAN, was immensely pissed off as I came in and the lid wasn't on properly and it tipped over hence spilling all washing up liquid onto the floor rendering the diluted one third left useless apart from floor cleaning.

I think that was being massively unreasonable .

funnily enough, mil and I do get on better now we have dc, however there are times when I raise my eyes to heaven such as when fil told me of all the bargains that mil had bought in the sale for the gc, she managed to ge £400 worth of clothes for the boys and the girls (she has two of each - one of each from sil and one of each from us all the same age) for £100. Lovely i thought, except none of them came in this direction. Obviously she had said to FIL they were being shared between the 2 families but only made it to one. Her money her choice, but personally would prefer not to know especially as fil thought half were coming to us too.

But some MIL are vile. Some people on here have never been through truly shocking MIL issues and so cannot really put themselves in the shoes of people who have.

I have 2 MIL, one is lovely and one terrible. At first she was hideous. Many people sympathised, even her own family members. I fail to see why I should have seen her more than once a month or so since she was such a cow to me, why have her in my home? Why teach DD that it is OK to treat someone like dirt, you can still have what you want?

My MIL is really not pleasant- it's Dh that refused to have any mroe to do with ehr and tbh the only person who will now is BIL- FIl moved out, her siblings won't.

So I don;t feel bad; she would ahve merrily ruined my life several times over fo daring to marry her son.

OTOH I have seen what the OP says and absolutely agree. Most of us ahve ahd more than one MIL / 'almost' MIL with boyfriends etc and whilst they ahven;t always been really easy to get on with I have had one in particular I miss to shreds and it's a shame I can't have her but with my DH - a great MIL is a blessing; an adequate one is still pretty wonderful and I don;t think those who have one who cares enough to try (even if they get it wrong sometimes) realise how blessed they are.

I agree, some DILs are oversensitive and defensive and react to certain behaviour from the MIL in way that they never would if it were their own mother. But some MILs are, equally, difficult/vile/complete loons. Then again, so are some mothers. I'm sure the stereotype exists for a reason, but some people probably play up to it as well.

For the record, my MIL is less judgmental of my child-raising than my own Mum. And she has better taste in baby clothes :)

I think that the other thing is that it's easy to end up in a downward spiral even with the loveliest of people, just because emotions run so high at the birth of a baby.

MIL - very excited, desperate to see the new grandchild, gets very slightly overbearing as she's just a bit too keen
DIL - hormonal and overwhelmed, finds very enthusiastic MIL a bit too much, especially as MIL wants to hold the baby a lot when she's trying to establish BFing, gets a little bit defensive
MIL - feels a bit pushed out, and reacts by trying to push in a little more
DIL - feels MIL pushing in a bit and becomes more defensive...

and repeat until everyone is exhausted, and so is any goodwill that existed before the baby was born.

Add to that the fact that a MIL (unless very young) would have had a completely different experience of postnatal care, and it's easy to get the get the wires completely crossed.