Israeli in-laws staying after pfb birth

[Roooary]

Pfb is due in June. DH is Israeli but has lived in the UK for 10 years. I am English and not Jewish. My ILs live in Israel and this will be their first GC. Yesterday I found out that ILs have booked flights for 2 weeks before due date. They have not consulted me or DH or booked a hotel or return flights home. DH spoke to them and they were expecting to stay with us and have offered to compromise by staying in a hotel until I return from hospital. I do not want them to stay here, visit before the birth or immediately after the birth.

If pfb is a boy ILs will be pressuring us into having a circumcision on the 8th day (Jewish tradition). DH is atheist and does not see the point in circumcising but agrees with MIL that had he lived in Israel he would probably have allowed it. I am strongly against circumcision. I do not want the first 8 days of potential DS's life to be a battle. If it is a girl ILs will be welcome earlier but I still don’t want them here until I feel physically recovered and able to look after the baby. MIL takes over everything and she already objects to so many things we are planning to do. I don't want her here taking over and showing me how to do everything before I've even had a chance to try.

I don’t want ILs staying here because they have had no respect for my personal space and I need a break from MIL. She stands very close to me, talks very loudly and touches my arms and face a lot which I hate. Last time she was here she “helped” us by moving the contents of all of our kitchen cupboards around while we were at work. She feels entitled to give advice about literally anything, from my PhD to my clothing to the way we spend our free time. DH agreed after last time that ILs will not stay here again but thinks that a baby changes this.

In the interests of fairness I should mention that:

• In Israel a new baby is basically public property. ILs genuinely think it is normal to expect to have unlimited access to GC while they are here.
• ILs had much less involvement in our wedding than my parents and think they should be “paid back” now. They had almost no input because they were angry with DH for marrying a non-Jew so they refused to speak to him for ages. They changed their minds about 3 weeks before the wedding and expected us to change plans for them which we mostly couldn't do.
• Last time I spoke to FIL it was before the recent elections in Israel and we had a disagreement about politics. He has mainstream opinions which I find offensive (supports settlements and thinks that Palestine was never a county, does not have a culture and that Palestinians should just move to other Arab countries and stop hassling Israel). He is worried that I will try to “punish” him and MIL for their political views using access to their GC.
• DH is torn because he thinks that what ILs are doing is normal in their culture but not in mine. He views it as a cultural clash rather than ILs not respecting our choices.

AIBU to insist that ILs do not come here until they are invited, book return flights, stay in a hotel, and only visit for a couple of hours at a time? The way they are acting you would think I have said they will never meet the baby.

Roooary
I'm very glad to read your last post. You seem to be approaching this very sensibly, and I'm sure you will have been reassured that (almost) all the comments here have been supportive.
I do hope that the GPs will be sensible so that they can play a proper part in your new child's life.
Good luck with the birth!

Fuck that! YANBU in the slightest! You married an atheist and did not become Jewish and even if you had done whether or not you choose to circumcise your future possible DS is entirely up to you. Do not let them stay with no end in sight. It will ruin your first days/weeks with your LO, they can visit by all means, no need to be a bitch, but you'll need space and privacy and the peace to bond with your LO. Good luck but stay strong, remind your DH about their behaviour in the lead up to your wedding.

You sound so level headed, strong and balanced about what you are saying, YADNU.
Make the best decisions for your little family unit as you're the one that has to live with them. Talk to your husband and agree everything now then he needs to help communicate your Decisions asap
Good Luck

You sound lovely op. Best of luck with the baby and stay strong.

To andrew hacking bits off children's genitals is abuse. I would like to see anyone complying/performing this prosecuted for sexual abuse/battery and jailed. Disgusting ignorant vile perversion.

I've just caught up on all the posts and there are some right knobs on here. Your baby, your decisions!

Sorry just seen your update! Took me ages to write my post on my phone whilst trapped under the bambino! You sound like an amazing DIL whose done an awful lot to try and fit in with your ILs. Breast feeding wasn't too much of a nightmare for me but until my milk came in and basically for the first week all in it hurt like hell and I spent the whole time with my boobs out, would've been a nightmare if my ILs had been here 24/7

So much that could be said but, in short, put your foot down 100% now and in the long run, you'll end up having a better relationship for it.

Pussyfoot around, give them an inch, and them ruining your first weeks with your baby (and they will) could well be the first step towards no relationship at all. Which would be a shame.

There'll never be a better time. You will have become a mother, a 'proper family' of you own - it will be a huge time of change. Strike while the iron is hot and turn into that uncompromising matriarch. They won't like it, but they'll accept it - and you will be on the road to workability instead of the road to utter hatred.

Your MIL sounds like the MIL of someone I know. They had clashed before, but the arrival of pfb sent MIL into interference overdrive. To cut a very long story short, the mum blamed MIL for breastfeeding failing, which was tremendously important to her, and the subsequent slight PND. And from what I heard (not only from her, but from guilt-ridden previously fence-sitting husband and son of MIL) she was right to blame her. By the time they had their second, there wasn't an issue, because MIL wasn't allowed to set foot over the doorstep. She saw her second grandchild at a family party when it was three months old. Her DIL hates her with an absolute fury. There will never, ever be a proper grandparent relationship.

Don't let that be you. Good fences make good neighbours...

I don't have any experience of PILs as DH's are dead but I would personally not feel comfortable with relatives staying for an indefinite period of time. I understand they are coming a long way and want to see their grandchild, but it will probably help if from the outset everyone has a clear idea of the length of the stay and it would probably be better if they stay in a nearby hotel. Maybe they can stay with you when the baby is a bit older and sleeping better.

In the early days I found it difficult to do anything non baby-related (even post on MN - didn't have so many gadgets then) so help around the house might have been useful, but not if I felt it was interfering or invading my space, or when I was struggling to BF. It's difficult because due to the geographical distance they can't just pop in.

My dad is originally from Israel though has lived in the UK for most of his adult life. My mum is English and not Jewish (she spent some time on a kibbutz after school where she learned some Hebrew, although my dad did not speak it to my sister and me when we were growing up - fortunately his mum spoke fluent English). My parents only had daughters so did not have to deal with the circumcision issue - my mum would have been opposed, my dad also opposed but might have felt obliged to have it done as his family would have wanted it. I would stand your ground on this. If you have a boy, he can make his own mind up about his religious beliefs in later life.

My mum never got on particularly well with her MIL and as a child there was about a six-year gap when I didn't see my grandmother as my mum couldn't face any more visits to Israel and her health was not good enough for her to travel to visit us.

andrewfogg, plenty of men miss their foreskins very much. One guy I met in my 20s who was distraught and angry at having had no say in what was done to his body and his total lack of enjoyment of sex was enough to convince me. When DS was born my MIL (an atheist!) put me under constant pressure to have him circumcised. DH was ambivalent at first but supportive, more so as time's gone on. I completely understood that MIL (she'd married out, DH is her only child) was sad about a break with tradition, but any tradition that mutilates a child's body without their consent, without medical need? You can keep it! OP, it's clear you're going to stand your ground, AIBU doesn't even figure.

AndrewFogg yes I would make it illegal if it were up to me. If a child needs to be circumcised as a medical procedure, carried out by a qualified surgeon, then that is a medical need. It baffles me how we can have a legal system which allows unqualified people to hack off parts of a child's genitals in the name of religious beliefs, when any other similar act would quite rightly be punishable by a very long spell in prison.

OP Isn't Anti Jew she is Anti Arsehole

Pil 's problems are themselves, not cultural

I haven't read the whole thread so I apologise if this repeats posts. I think you need to let go a little. My DH is secular Israeli-Jewish, I am secular christian and we live in the UK. His family can be overbearing (try adding South American background to the mix) but they have the best intentions and whilst I can totally understand monopolising a PFB will be difficult, in time you may be grateful. When MIL visits she is more than happy to have the GCs all day, every day and when we visit she will have them overnight so we can go away. Wish my own family would do that! Just think it's only for a few weeks a year, be grateful they don't live down the road, I often am!

Re: the political situation. Just don't get into it. My views are probably more right wing than yours but surely you understand living in that situation makes for more extreme views than seeing it from the safety of the UK where it is easy to be objective? Plus you should know arguing with an Israeli never works out well!

If Op has a son, surely he can make the decision to be circumcised if & when he wishes?

Why must it be done as a baby??

Agree this has to be your DH battle and not yours

Not read thread - will do but that's initial reaction

Good luck - tough one

By the way one of my few regrets is how much dp and I fell out over a house guest just before my pfb was born

With hindsight . I overreacted

But - before your first child is such a scary scary hormonal time and you do tend to imagine the worst - like what you said about your mil grabbing your breast and positioning it

I understand how vulnerable you feel- and take it easy , have DH handle and love the idea of the non- willy - cutting ceromony at the liberal centre

They will be staying for a limited time so i can understand that they will want to see as much as possible of their GC.

so with that in mind it might have been better for them to have waited to be invited!

to give OP time to feel stronger within herself & perhaps establish bfeeding.

To mention circumcision knowing that Op is not Jewish & that their son no longer follows the faith is just insensitive beyond belief imo.

I would worry about being bullied by them if they visited when husband was not there tbh.

They have shown Op no respect & MIl sounds overbearing.

The constant touching -yuk!

Do you say anything about that OP?

OP, a person holding those political views wouldn't be welcome in my house, so you're a better person than me for even having a relationship with them.

I liked what PP said about 'good fences make for good neighbours'. Wise advice. Good luck with your baby and don't let PILs spoil it.

Tbh the whole thread is hypothetical.

You are talking about things that you are sure they are going to do. They haven't done it yet. I.e. about breadfeeding.

What they have done wrong is to book the flights before talking to you.Deal with that but dont make assumptions about everything else.

Yoko that's why I said that they are mainstream opinions in Israel. FIL is a member of the majority party which just won the election. As far as I can tell he is no more controversial in Israel than a Tory is here. He is not the Israeli equivalent of the BNP or UKIP. If you judge them within their culture they're perfectly normal including being devastated about their DS marrying out and expecting their GC to be circumcised. The problem is that I don't judge them from within their culture. I guess someone in the equivalent cultural position here would be an telegraph reading Tory who goes to church on Chritmas and Easter but talks about Christian values and expects their GC to be christened. That's not evil and I would try to be polite and accepting of that person's opinions so I feel like I should with ILs because they're a different culture's version of that. I'm not sure that makes any sense.

Laquitar the OP was getting really long so I didn't mention everything. ILs have already made a lot of unnecessary comments about the pregnancy and our parenting plans. They aren't happy that our DC will not be Jewish or Israeli. They don't want me to breastfeed. MIL has already offered her niece to come over here to be our nanny so that DC can develop Hebrew and a Jewish identity if DH fails. We don't want a nanny. When that was suggested in a skype conversation I was shocked and I said it made me feel like MIL was trying to dilute my influence on my DC and she smiled and said something about just wanting to make sure that DH was represented. DH lives here and does not work away and he will be representing himself in our DC's life. There have also been a few snide comments about my parents being more involved already and how they're not willing to take a backseat role like they did in the wedding. They had a lesser role in our wedding because throughout most of the planning they were refusing to come.

Ah ok sorry . I didn't understand that they have already made comments about your parenting and breasfeeding. Apologies.

Blimey they do sound VERY overbearing!

The breastfeeding thing is not cultural. The Israeli mothers I know/ have known breastfeed.

But don't deny your children knowledge of a second language, even one as limited as Hebrew. I understand knowing any second language can open up pathways in the brain to make it easier to learn a third or fourth language. Plus your children may want to know their heritage in person. Israel/ Palestine/ the levant has such a fascinating history, I'm sure visiting in person with even limited Hebrew will open up new doors. You never know, by the time they're adults there may even be peace in the ME.

And learn to ignore comments, it takes practice but makes for a more harmonious relationship.

DH says that the reason they're coming two weeks before your due date is because they're expecting a brit at 8 days old.....

The breastfeeding thing is weird. Breastfeeding is totally the thing in Israel, more than in England I think. No Israeli mum who wanted to breastfeed would accept this from a dm or dmil.

I'm half Israeli roooary. My dad's israeli and mum's English. I was brought up in England but my Dad moved back to Israel when i was a teen. I met dh when I was studying there and lived in Israel for 7 years altogether. DD1 was born there but now we live in the US.

I couldn't imagine my Israeli MIL ever ever doing someting like your PILS are doing. Yes, involvement of gps is more accepted and there's not this weird English thing about the postpartum period and no visitors but they're pretty out there and towards the extreme end!

i would suggest that your dh has this conversation with them via skype and you listening in - either sat next tohim or out of camera range, simply so you know exactly what has been said and can step in if needs be.

stick to your guns re

• they book return flights Insist they stay in a hotel or bnb - which means their funds will be limited to some extent so they would have* to have return flights booked Tell them you will be having private family/alone time everyday* so there will be a limit on visiting hours - and provide them with links to touristy stuff they can do the rest of the time
• set your boundaries - no rearranging things/circumcision/certain topics of conversation
  and lastly have a 'run to' place arranged beforehand just in case they do turn up on your doorstep and refuse to leave or insist on staying 'for a bit' etc and/or dh doesn't come through with standing up to them re daily visits etc

always have a plan B...i know if it were me i'd rather stay in a hotel/anywhere else with my newborn and enjoy that precious time, rather than be forced into accepting people walking all over me in my vulnerable state in my own home during that time.

Roooary you sound so sensible and understanding and culturally-sensitive, I can't help but think you are going to find the right course here. Your boundaries seem spot-on.

Your MIL, Israeli or not, is more than a little bit toxic and you've got her number, I don't doubt. Hope your DH steps up to the plate as well when the time comes.

I know a bit of Yiddish. It goes like this: Oy vey!!!!!!