to be annoyed with MiL and think she should have cut DD some slack?

[Songofsixpence]

Had the PiLs to stay for the weekend, and MiL spent most of the weekend complaining about DD1's (who is 13) behaviour and picking at everything she did.

The in laws had arranged to get here about 6ish on Friday night. DD has an after school club on a Friday, she's a member of a team and doesn't like letting them down. The club finishes at 4:30 so she's home by about 4:45pm, in plenty of time for the in laws planned arrival at 6ish. Anyway, they'd decided to leave a couple of hours early to beat the traffic so arrived at 4pm. MiL was not impressed that DD wasn't home when they arrived - both FiL and I pointed out that they were 2 hours early

On and off over the weekend MiL was picking at DD - her hair (too long), her clothes (why doesn't she wear a dress - DD hates dresses, always has, but will wear one if she has to), she shouldn't wear make up, her 'attitude' - DD is 13 and just started her periods a few months ago (she got her period again on Thursday) and is struggling a bit with mood swings and hormones (she wasn't rude or anything, but was a bit quiet and tearful a couple of times). DH and FiL both had words with MiL about it several times over the weekend.

Anyway, yesterday we went out for Sunday lunch. Only down to our local pub for their carvery. It's nothing special, a quiet rural pub, all very casual. DD comes downstairs and MiL starts on at her about clothes - why doesn't she wear a pretty dress, etc. DD was wearing skinny jeans, a smartish top and some black pumps (not terribly different to what I was wearing to be honest). Then as we're walking down to the pub she's on a DD for dawdling and being glued to her phone (she didn't even take her phone out with her). In the pub DD was quite chatty, then went a bit quiet (not sullen, rude quiet or anything, just quiet) and MiL started on about her attitude again and how disrespectful she was, then criticisms about DD's food choices (DD and I are both veggie).

DD went off to the loo and I could see she was a bit tearful so I followed her to make sure she was OK, she said she was fine just felt like she wanted to cry. We had a hug and went back to the table.

So, we get back home and DH and FiL have a quiet word with MiL about the way she she treated DD in the pub and there was a bit of a row about pandering to teenagers and hormones are no excuse for bad behaviour and she insisted that they leave there and then.

Her parting shot was that by pandering to DD and excusing her behaviour as "hormones" we'd end up with a drug addicted tear away.

AIBU to think, that DD didn't do anything wrong, and there was nothing wrong with her behaviour. She wasn't rude at all (she was her normal chatty self, but felt a bit quiet and tearful at times). The way I see it is, she's a teenager, she has mood swings occasionally, it's totally normal and as long as she's not being rude, shouty and sweary (and there's little wonder she went a bit quiet when MiL kept picking at her all the time) there's absolutely nothing I can do about it

Not only did your daughter not do anything wrong, she showed her maturity by not reacting to provocation. Well done her.

Your MIL sounds like she's got issues about something. Not sure what or whether I'd care. Is she trying to show she's alpha female or something? Is she competitive with other women? Jealous? Insecure? Not sure it's worth the bother of finding out.

We don't see huge amounts of her, usually only see them for a couple of hours at a time, this is the first time in a couple of years she's been to our house and stayed for any length of time and she won't be coming again.

She does have daughters so she has had experience of teenage girls

I agree with CaspianSea when they say ... I wonder if she just felt left-out? Was she previously close to DD and feels cast-aside now DD is older and more independent? Worth exploring, maybe ask MIL. Actually, I agree with a lot of what you say although I would conclude that "I think grandmothers need to go the extra mile sometimes." and I too do hope things improve.

However, if strained or changed family relationships are not the issue then if this is not the case then your mother in law being very rude, I think the whole family should have been standing up for your dd.....

EG "Your hair is too long"

You and/or your dh - hug your child reply to mother in law "We love it, it's beautiful." Include child "You like your hair long don't you, darling?"

"After all it HER hair, HER choice."

Ditto the clothes. Perhaps point out loudly how she is wearing something similar to you. And end with "Anyway MIL we don't worry so much about things like that on a nice family lunch out the important thing is to be together." Arm round dd and quick hug. "I love being with MY family."

You said OP... that She was pulled up on it constantly, but it was like she was on a mission and just ignored everyone.

I think in those circumstances it is much harder but you kind of need to model good accepting behaviour to her, it is not just enough to pull her up on things, she needs to know how to talk nicely. I know it sounds silly but my mum is also very negative and it sometimes seems she does not know how to be positive! I didn't even notice it as a child and finally in her old age she seems a tiny bit more positive!

Some might say you could have taken her to one side and explained she was ruining your day out/weekend. And next time she said something negative you would make a joke of it. Maybe as someone said above she was suffering from hormones, maybe the 'complaining hormone fairy had come to stay!' OK Not exactly funny but a bit rude to her, just to show her what it was like.

I guess there are different ways of tackling it.

Ultimately I would not go for the naming and shaming bad behaviour in public, I would go for a quiet word in private and I would always want to model good behaviour to her.

I agree with others too, either you or your husband needs to call or write explaining that it was very upsetting they left early after your MIL had given DD a very hard time. Personally, I would want to do it. Partly because my dh would be too timid or 'round the houses' to get to the point!

And I disagree with Ginger that you were remiss in not tackling MiL. Time after time on here the advice for dealing with MiL issues is to get DH to do it, as it us his mother. The fact both FIL and DH were involved to little avail means I doubt that OP getting stuck in too would have had any effect.

She is a bully. Tackle her head on. Don't invite her to stay till she can change. Would you let anyone else bully your dd like that?

She sounds exactly like my grandmother, and I wish my mother had stood up to her instead of just having 'quiet words'.

You need to tell her, straight, what is and is not acceptable.

OP, I can see that you really tried to stick up for your DD, and that you're really on her side, but there just seems to be something that doesn't quite connect.

There needs to be a boundary, a real boundary that she (MIL) is not allowed to cross. And, as others have said, if she won't observe it, then she doesn't get to spend time with her DGC. Why should your DD have to tolerate someone in her life who bullies her?

It's not so much how you dealt with it on the spot - I really do appreciate how difficult that is - but it's more your reaction now. What lessons have you learned? What changes are you going to make to make sure this never happens again? If you can't trust MIL to behave in an appropriate, reasonable way, then what boundaries are you going to put in place?

It's not about being annoyed with her and pulling her up on it, but allowing and enabling her to keep doing it anyway. It's about saying that if anyone behaves this way to your DD it's completely unacceptable, and you will do whatever it takes to protect her from it.

I fear there's a family dynamic in place where MIL has always got away with behaving as badly as she likes, and people around her get upset with her but nobody actually says no, you just can't do this, and backs it up with action, with consequences. And I know how hard it is to go against that kind of dynamic, but I think you really need to do just that.

I presume you won't see her again for a while, but don't put your DD in this position again, please. I think being treated like that would make most of us quiet and tearful. Somebody needs to say "no" to this woman, and mean it.

^However, if strained or changed family relationships are not the issue then if this is not the case then your mother in law being very rude, I think the whole family should have been standing up for your dd.....

EG "Your hair is too long"

You and/or your dh - hug your child reply to mother in law "We love it, it's beautiful." Include child "You like your hair long don't you, darling?"^

That's not standing up for her, though, is it?

The correct response is:

"You are being very rude, please stop making unpleasant comments." At the VERY LEAST.

They've never been particularly close. We don't live near them and MiL is not over keen on children and she's very 'children should be seen and not heard' so they don't have a very close relationship

When we went out for lunch on Sunday, she wanted to sit at the table and chat for hours and didn't like it when I let DD2 go off outside (there's a huge garden with crazy golf and stuff like that and she'd seen one of her classmates out there). She expected them to sit at the table and join in with the chat, which they were happy to for quite a while, but MiL wants to talk about things like the general election and was pretty much ignoring the kids, It was a nice afternoon so DD2 especially got a bit bored

I would have thought it was quite usual to cut some slack for those we love.

Your MIL sounds rude & intolerant.

Actually, she's a bully, isn't she?

I think as little contact as possible otherwise she'll crush your daughter under her negativity!

Pick, pick, pick, bloody abusive!

There needs to be a boundary, a real boundary that she (MIL) is not allowed to cross. And, as others have said, if she won't observe it, then she doesn't get to spend time with her DGC. Why should your DD have to tolerate someone in her life who bullies her?

yy to this. no one, be it mil, the prime minister or the pope himself would get away with having digs like that at my dc. I would be furious, i would teach dd to stand up for herself and put the mil straight. if mil cannot behave (and she obviously didn't, the rude cow) she would not be welcome in my home. My dc are not teenagers yet but I expect anyone in the family to treat my dc with the same respect that i treat them with. why were you so soft on this nasty mil?

I would demand an apology for the comment about your dd becoming a drug addict. what a horrific comment to make If mil wouldn't apologise I would only maintain minimum contact, be polite but curt to her. What a nasty nasty person. I am so annoyed on your behalf.

Sorry, x-posted

I think DH needs to speak to her. She had a strop and left, we haven't spoken since

She has crossed so many lines here, and other than shutting her down and standing up for DD at the time, I'm at a bit of a loss. I can't police what comes out of her mouth and if I can't trust her to behave I don't want her around DD

We won't see her again for ages

We usually visit them, so it's a totally different set up and different expectations. We go there, spend a couple of hours with them and then leave.

"She expected them to sit at the table and join in with the chat, which they were happy to for quite a while, but MiL wants to talk about things like the general election and was pretty much ignoring the kids, It was a nice afternoon so DD2 especially got a bit bored'

who the f* is she, the offing queen of sheba? who cares what she expects or doesn't, she is of no importance.

may i ask how old mil is?

Tbh I think you were all a little bit soft on MIL too and I would actively avoid having her to stay. Any more snide comments from her I would be telling her straight that she's the only one being rude.

Sorry missed the bit about her leaving there and then. She's a massive pain and incredibly arrogant. I wouldn't hurry to make up with her.

Well fortunately your DD is getting of an age when the next time your MIL visits she can be off staying with a friend.

I find it hilarious that your MIL says that in her day girls wore dresses, etc. Really? She can't be much older than me and we wouldn't dresses unless forced into them, let alone her daughters.

She reminds me so much of my own grandmother who lived with us until I was twelve. She had been an absolutely perfect little girl apparently. We were ever so glad to see the back of her.

She's 65.

I knew DH back when we were 15 and 16 so DH's sisters would have been about the same age DD is now. They never really wore dresses as far as I remember. There are photos of them in frilly numbers from when they were about 5/6 but certainly not from when they were teenagers. Selective memory I think.

To be honest, even if DD was being a pain in the arse, she's her granny and I would expect her to be a bit understanding. My Mum would be

There's lots of guff about teenagers today not knowing they're born, and 'in her day', and no wonder they're all drinking cider in the park and getting pregnant at 15 when we're landing to them and excusing their behaviour.

If your MiL thinks teen pregnancies are up, she's simply wrong, in an objectively measurable way. Teen pregnancies in the UK are at the lowest level since 1969. Wikipedia says teenage pregnancies increased in the 1960s and peaked in 1971, and have been gradually falling since. If she's 65, that means there were more teen pregnancies when her kids were teenagers than there are now. There may well be fewer teen pregnancies now than there were when she was a teenager (that's harder to say, because fewer records of this were kept before 1969). She's just plain old wrong on this one.

Bloody hell, I thought she was donkey's years older than me, and she's not! She sounds like she's in her eighties!

(and my kids used to hang around the park on a Friday night! )

I hope you take your DD out somewhere as a treat to make up for a horrible weekend.

Sixpence i have nothing constructive to add, but just to say I think you, your FIL and DH sound wonderful. The fact that DH and FIL had words with your MIL, the fact that you are being so gentle, accommodating of your hurt DD's feelings, and explaining to her how you feel about your MIL's behaviour, it is all indicative of a really loving, sensible, solid approach.

My DM used to pander to my very difficult grandmother to the point that if we were faced with a situation likes yours, DM would have totally blamed me, said i was disgusting,a disgrace etc. It really harmed me. I think how you are talking to/understanding of/ respectful of and fighting in your DD's corner is absolutely wonderful.

I can't police what comes out of her mouth and if I can't trust her to behave I don't want her around DD

You can't police what comes out of her mouth, but you can police where it comes out and who hears it. So personally, I'd have slung her out long before Sunday lunch. "In this house, we don't treat people like this. Either stop it, or leave". By the sounds of it, she'd have been on a final written warning from her behaviour on Friday afternoon alone.

People like this get away with it because people enable them, and don't show them consequences. As it stands, she was able to bully your daughter for two days without any of the adults involved giving any protection. It sounds like the adult equivalent of the sort of useless parent who says "oh Tristram, don't do that" while Tristram beats another child at the soft play senseless. You knew the bullying was going to continue on Sunday lunch, so you could have protected your daughter by her not being there. Indeed, by none of you being there: send MiL and FiL out to the pub, and go somewhere else with your own children. And in the end, she flounced off (ie, holding the power) rather than you and your husband, who should have been protecting your children, throwing her out.

She's 65.

There's no excuse for this sort of crap from someone whose teenage years coincided with the Beatles. Babyboomers trying to make out they just don't understand these new-fangled ways should get a grip.

There are quite a few ageist and sexist remarks and even slurs on this thread. I agree that the grandmother was way out of line, but it is actually possible to express this, as many have done, without resorting to offensive comments.