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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be irritated to receive a card from MIL

120 replies

MilkMonitor · 17/09/2007 16:56

signed love from Mummy and Daddy when it's addressed to me, my sons and my DH? I find it presumptious especially when she refers to my DC as her babies?

OP posts:

mm22bys · 18/09/2007 09:27

YABU, give the woman a break, she IS a mummy to her DS, your husband! How do you want her to sign off, just addressed to you? That would be presumptuous.

At least she is sending a card.

(I think this is another bad MIL thread - she might "only" be the father's mother, but she is still a mother, and she is still a grandmother!)

Original poster

MilkMonitor · 18/09/2007 09:29

If only you knew my MIL!

OP posts:

portonovo · 18/09/2007 10:03

The only problem I see is that it's signed 'mummy' when that's not how your husband refers to her.

Otherwise, no problem at all. Like others have said, our pattern is that if it's a card just for me, my in-laws will put their names. If it's for us as a couple, it will be from 'Mum and Dad' - it would look really odd any other way. They don't write cards to us as a family - at Christmas for example we get one card for my husband and myself, then one each for the children, signed from their grandparents.

I think it would be incredibly strange for her to sign cards to ALL of you as 'Granny' or whatever.

bozza · 18/09/2007 10:13

If my MIL signed a card "Mummy" I would have a private smirk to myself, but assume she was classing herself as DH's Mummy. Just because it said "Mummy" I wouldn't relate it to being anything to do with my DC.

Lorayn · 18/09/2007 10:19

"But this is what DH finds odd too. But he thinks it's harmless in cards to him" so obviously she writes this in cards to just him as well?? Which makes it seem it is just her way of siging cards, nothing more sinister. If her cards to him said 'mum' but to everyone said 'mummy'I would understand but as they don't, well, stop being silly.

Chickhick · 18/09/2007 10:20

I think your MIL is strange. If your dh is over the age of 13 he should have a mum and dad or even mother and father. Not a mummykins. Perhaps your MIL is aspiring to be a Hyacinth Bucket type and thinks it sounds posh.

OrmIrian · 18/09/2007 10:37

I don't see that 'should' has anything to do with it chick. Anyway it was mummy not mummykins.

Jennifer8 · 18/09/2007 10:37

Is she always trying to play mummy to your children? Is that what you mean? If so it would infuriate me too. My mum is very helpful but almost seems to want to be the 'good guy' and 'rescue' ds from his bad mother (me)
Yesterday she brought him home saying he'd trodden in dog poo, but she had cleaned his shoe. I askled which shoe as I have a procedure for this and she snapped 'It doesn't matter. It's completely clean, you don't need to know'.

wtf? If it had been her house he was walking into she would have had the cavalry out. But I have to submit to her stating it was 'clean enough'. I got home and looked at the shpoes. Both had remnants of poo underneath.

A bit off subject but it pisses me off when she tries to prove she's the one who knows best, especially for Ds.

WinkyWinkola · 18/09/2007 10:40

"I think it would be incredibly strange for her to sign cards to ALL of you as 'Granny' or whatever."

I think it's incredibly strange for her to sign cards to ALL of you as 'Mummy' when she's only mummy to one of you and he doesn't even call her mummy. What an odd woman.

But then again I guess different families do things in different ways.

portonovo · 18/09/2007 10:48

But what is she supposed to put? 'Love from Mummy/Doreen(or whatever she's called/Granny'

The mummy bit might be odd, but not just signing from Mum and Dad. My in-laws are not my parents and I would never call them Mum and Dad, but in say an anniversary card to us I find it more reasonable for them to write 'from Mum and Dad' than 'from Mum and Dad (Fred and Freda)' or 'from Mum and Dad/mother-in-law and father-in-law'.

Just as when we write a card to them, it would say 'to Mum and Dad' even though they are most definitely not my parents. The thought of my husband addressing them by their names is just weird. Or should the card just come from him?

Spandex · 18/09/2007 10:54

Is this still going on?

I think it depends on the background.

If the OP is finding her MIL difficult and trying to intrude and mother her DCs in general then she's obviously going find this sort of this annoying. It would annoy me in that case.

Signing from Gran and Grandpa would be better because then the children wouldn't get confused. I don't really see why the OP should have to explain the card to her kids. Or perhaps she should say, "Yes, it's a card to you too and it's signed Mummy because Grandma wants to be your mummy!" Maybe she should say that in front of the MIL!

portonovo · 18/09/2007 11:06

Are the children that easily confused though? When my inlaws go on holiday they always send us a postcard. It's addressed to all of us, and it's signed 'Mum and Dad'. It has never confused my 3 children. They know their grandparents are their Dad's mum and dad.

If the children are confused about why she still calls herself their dad's 'mummy', I would just say that's how she thinks of herself, as a 'mummy' and that everyone has their little quirks. Otherwise, do you have to explain to the children why a card to their mum and dad (and them) is signed from 'granny'. That seems equally odd.

I really don't see the problem, except that it probably lies much deeper in the whole mum-in-law relationship.

ItsGrimUpNorth · 18/09/2007 11:45

"I really don't see the problem, except that it probably lies much deeper in the whole mum-in-law relationship."

Exactly. Probably why it's a problem.

Hulababy · 18/09/2007 11:50

MilkMonitor

How would you like the card to have been signed?

Does DH's individual cards get mummy and daddy wirtten on them? Or just group ones?

suedonim · 18/09/2007 13:42

YABU. It's a card. I'm sure your dc are not in the least bit confused and know full well who is their mummy and who is their granny.

I'm a MIL, although not a grandmother, and sign joint cards to ds1 and dil as mum&dad/mummy&daddy (the exact term depends on my mood that day ). Cards to my rather lovely dil I sign as Sue.

ColdPenguin · 18/09/2007 14:13

Sorry to slightly side-track on this one, but would love to have some opinions on my in-laws.

They have never shown any interest in being called Nana, Granny, Grandpa etc... and sign their cards to my daughter 'love from Richard & Margaret'.

I think this is very odd. My daughter is almost 4 now and has never had a 'name' as such to call either of them.

Are they the only freaks that do this?

Original poster

MilkMonitor · 18/09/2007 17:08

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. It's not just the card. I keep trying to explain that. If it were just the card, then it wouldn't be a problem. I'm not that petty.

coldpenguin, has your dd ever called her grandparents Grandma or Grandpa - what's been their reaction? Maybe they think it makes them sound old?

OP posts:

lucyellensmum · 18/09/2007 17:29

MM is she incredibly posh or something?

Hulababy · 18/09/2007 17:39

MM - you haven't really said what the issue is though other than MIl wanting to be a mummy to your children. But not what you mean or how she tries to do that.

Jennifer8 · 18/09/2007 18:23

Coldpenguin, my Grandparents were art teachers and known to us always as Ivy and David. I don't know why. I think it is unusual but it does happen

Wisteria · 18/09/2007 18:31

Christ! If that's unreasonable can I swap MIL's ??

MaryAnnSingleton · 18/09/2007 18:34

I knew some girls who called their parents by their first names and that always seemed wrong to me - they were lefty bohemian types mind...

unknownrebelbang · 18/09/2007 18:37

It's obviously not the card, you've made that clear in subsequent posts, but the thread title just refers to the card.

Most posters seem to agree that what she writes in the card tends to be the norm.

Wisteria · 18/09/2007 18:41

Is it possible that she had a 'typical' relationship with her own MIL so wants to get across that she loves you and accepts you into the family?

I can't see a problem with her calling your dcs her 'babies' tbh and think there may be much more to this than you have said; ie. if she constantly takes over and treads on your toes in an nonsupporting way then you are already sensitive so may be reading more into it than is intended.

Original poster

MilkMonitor · 18/09/2007 19:05

Ha ha ha. Nice one. She definitely doesn't want to make me feel part of the family. In fact, she'd rather I was edited out of the family. She calls me a 'trouble maker' because I won't do what she wants.

Here is some background. No doubt, I will be regarded as unreasonable and that I should let her do exactly as she pleases.

She's a young-ish woman of 51 who has never worked as regards her grandchildren as her opportunity to parent again. Nobody has ever said no to her apart from me.

She has been continually negative, unsupportive and interfering in my parenting of my DSs because it is very different from the way she brought up her children. From the time they were born, making negative comments about my exclusive bfing until six months, trying to wean before I wanted (I caught her giving DS1 baby rice before I'd weaned him), literally elbowing (ouch!) me out of the way to get to any one of my upset DSs, slagging me off to other members of DHs family esp. SIL, intruding into my home whenever she liked, demanding to see her GCs although I put a stop to that pretty quickly by taking the house key off her. I should have known she was a nightmare when she uninvited some wedding guests of mine behind my back!

She signs the cards from Mummy and Daddy because she would like to be their mummy. DH said he hasn't called her 'mummy' since he was nine. She's already told me she's their second mummy. It's bollocks and I'm tired of it. My mum doesn't feel the need to behave like this. Why does MIL? The card is just the sodding straw that etc etc etc. .. .. .. ... .. .

OP posts:

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