Mothers of young sons

[saraclara]

How do you feel when you read the in-law posts on here? How positive do you feel about the role you'll have when your son and DIL have babies?

I didn't give it any thought before I joined MN, but now I'm so relieved that I have daughters.

There was no point at which I needed to be naked and bleeding all over the visitors and I just can't imagine what's going on for that to happen.

Yep. I had an emergency caesarian for one, and a natural birth and home 18 hours later with the second. On both occasions I was perfectly able to receive visitors for 10-20 minutes within 24 hours of the births, looking clean and decent (though in my case it was nightie in hospital, joggers and sweatshirt at home and definitely no makeup!) whatever was going on underneath.

There seems to be a bit of drama llama-ing going on.

Oh well, if you didnt have any issues then it should be exactly the same for everyone else of course

i hope i will be fairly laid back, if i wasn't there would be some kind of reason.

I have a better relationship with my grown up son and his wife than my sister does with her grown up daughter and her partner, so no, things we read on this site shouldn’t bother mothers of sons. Likewise, don’t expect everything to run smoothly if you only have daughters! My sister’s/teenage niece’s relationship was far more difficult than my relationship with my sons in their teenage years.

Honestly, it really bothers me. I've seen it several times in real life too that the maternal gps are really favoured and seen as more capable and the in laws are villified for doing things differently, or having pets, or being too interested/ not interested enough.

Even pre children, my own sister bawled her eyes out on Christmas morning on the only Christmas her and her now DH spent with his family in a different part of the country, because she wasn't at my parents house doing the things we had always done in our family. I can only imagine how her hosts felt!

I'm not someone whi enjoys conflict and it worries me that my DS's future partner might feel the need to "go NC" with our side of the family because we can't and never could live up to the DIL's idea of family.

@RHTawneyonabus and @CalamityJune I worry too. MN seems to be very anti MIL. They seem to think the only people's opinions who matter are female . We can raise our boys to look for a partner who will treat them as an equal and with mutual respect, instead of dictating and trying to control them. It is a red flag, if their OH uses their gender to get their own way or to manipulate them, without exception. We can give them the confidence to make good choices. I call BS and hide all the Bat crazy threads now. I hope my DS will be raised well enough to avoid meeting or being attracted to those kind of people. We can only hope for the best. Try not to let it upset you.

I have two boys.
I actually want them to grow up into functional human beings and I want them to have successful happy relationships.
I'd like grandchildren one day, but that's up to them and not me.
I guess I'll cross that bridge when we get there, but they're only 5 and 8 so it's a long way off yet!

Well, I've stopped worrying about it.

I'm a MiL, a BB and a Waspi - do I score a hat trick?

I am a mother of sons. I also have a hideous set of in laws.

It has nothing to do with gender.

If & when my children partner up I will treat those partners with respect, kindness and an understanding that i am a loving and supportive spectator in the lives of my adult children, nothing more.

I will remember how it felt to be on the receiving end of critical, demanding, manipulative people with poor boundaries and resolve to never act that way.

After that I will accept that I have no control over the situation and just hope that my child and their partner include me in a way that suits them.

@Clownfish123 plus son-in-laws aren't forced to interact with their in-laws to the same extent as DIL. Because the sexist world still puts organising family events/ child contact/ presents etc in the domain of the woman's job. Even for the mans family 🙄🙄🙄

I worry about it. I hope I get an in law like me, happy to live and let live and understand we won't always agree but family are important to the kids so whether we agree or not isn't as important as the benefit to the kids of having a good relationship

I hope I can be a good mil! My ex’s mum never liked me, and of course it was all my fault.. Now according to ds she says all of the same things about his new partner (who also seems to be a perfectly nice woman). It’s not something that’s remotely in my control though, so I just bring my boys up as best I can, and hope for the best for the future.