MIL actively discouraging education

[GigglingLondoner]

NC for this. MIL benchmarks people. Usually ‘So and so got such a degree’ or something. So she takes education very seriously. Almost too seriously, they might have done nothing else but hey - they did that. They were in that set at school, or they know about this or that academic minutia. Indeed, it’s always been so important that anyone who achieved (especially monetary) success in a non academic field (like business) is actually inferior. My family had a lot of success in such an inferior manner which she bitterly resents.

So to the issue, SIL spends a lot of tine ramming the genius of her DC down everyone’s throats, something MIL participates in fully. MIL tells me more about them than asks about ours. As it goes, ours do nicely thank you very much but we just let their own progress speak for itself. I don’t feel the need to be do aggressive about it, especially considering the advantages they are at because of said inferior but non the less ever present legacy they can tap into unlike SIL’s kids (or her which again she bitterly resents).

So to the issue, so whilst MIL standard and well documented view is that education is the bee all and end all - even down to the very vocal joy she expressed as recently as even last week that SILs kids will be at such an advantage as they are so old in their year - she has almost taken to actively discouraging education with us: ‘if they don’t do well this year what does it matter?’ And ‘if they repeat a year or don’t quite manage to do this or that, it’s not important’. ‘It’s much more important that they just play’.

Now all kids are in primary, and if she had this view generally I would think she was pretty balanced but she seems to have one set view for everyone but us, where her view is almost at odds. So aibu to feel pissed off? That she is almost undermining? Like kids who say ‘it’s not cool to work’ whilst studying hard themselves in a bid to get ahead....(Not that it will work cos we would never listen to something so stupid). Or am I being far too sensitive and actually she’s just being a kind old grandma?

It's a backhanded insult isn't it. "Your children need to play.. because they have no hope academically!"

Classic narc. Have you read up on narcissistic mothers OP? It will help put the pieces together.

I can’t work out if you’re bragging, stirring up a private vs state debate, have an education chip on your shoulder (it’s never too late to study) or if you hate your mother in law, or what.

I suspect that the 'giggling' poster "name-changed" precisely because the thread was designed to do all of that, and more.

You all sound as bad as each other.
You with the smug let their success demonstrate their progress and MIL bigging up the others
They are primary fgs. Let them be kids and shine in their own way

You all sound as bad as each other. Your MIL and SIL are boasty about their academic achievements, you don’t boast but are secretly (or maybe not) very smug that your DC have the world at their oyster because they’re at private school and rolling in cash. You sound perfect for each other.

YABU. I’m not sure if it that you’re over sensitive or that you are actively working to develop a grudge. Education is important. Right now there are more important things.

You sound like bloody hard work to me.

@GigglingLondoner

My response, for what it’s worth, was that absolutely it’s important to take things easy and wondered if she had spoken to SIL about a more relaxed journey going forward as it probably was the tight direction to take. She then admitted she had made no such conversation with SIL

My MIL is very similar between our kids and DSil kids. Her family values daughters and it plays out in celebrating Dniece’s achievements above everyone. It’s rubbish. The kids themselves are very aware of the dynamic.

@RandomMess

She doesn't want your DC to achieve more academically more than SILs would be my assumption.

This.

Ignore her.

You all sound a bit mad to be honest

Competitive parenting/educating never ends well and it's really not a good example to set to the children.

I can't imagine any of these cousins will be close.

Ah no OP, I get you. It’s like the massively sexist primary maths teacher who said I needed a “little break” before being the first person in the year to start book 4 - said break allowing the boy behind me to catch up, become that first person and have a fortnight’s head start #bitter

She obviously is very invested in the favoured GC not being shown up. This is her stuff. You’re going to have to let it wash over you or you’ll go nuts.

You sound like hard work. She either thinks your DC have less to worry about BECAUSE they are at private school and therefore have plenty of advantages over their cousins, or she's just trying to support the way she knows you think and the very different way SIL thinks about the importance of formal education for success. Like hiving different advice to someone who is an attachment parent Vs a strict routine led parent.

What I find particularly interesting is the subtext of this communication. I would read from it that her daughters children are more ‘family’ than yours. She seems more invested in the outcome of her daughters children’s education as though your children are more removed from her.

That might be because she sees her daughters children more? Or it might be because she feels the bloodline is stronger if the daughter bears the children instead of the daughter- in-law.

@thecatfromjapan

You know, this is one of the things I really love MN for. It really do strayed the truth that you cannot live your life as a 'people-pleaser'. Because, try as you might, it is impossible to please everyone. There is simply no way to behave that cannot prompt a feeling of offence in someone. There is no behaviour so anodyne that it cannot cause ire in someone.

MN showed me that the ways to cause offence have an unimaginable multiplicity.

People have extraordinarily different value systems and codes of behaviour.

And you just have to accept that.

Which is both fascinating and - ultimately - liberating. (Once you get past the paranoia that you have annoyed many people by cheerily wishing them, 'Good morning,' of a day.)

This is so true (loving your posts by the way)

Thank you all for replying. Just for clarity at NO point did I say education isn't important. I never even said what education my parents did or didn't get. I merely said that my MIL views that she viewed education as everything, even if it lead to nothing, whilst going into business is less pure because it's all about profit and stuff as opposed to the common good (I don't quite see how creating a business that employs a lot of people and pays a lot of tax isn't for the common good but that's just me).

The point was more around her different set of standards. I don't care what anyone's views are if they are consistent, but this new matra to us that education doesn't matter but pushing, pushing for the other GC's to be destined for this or that is just grating.

I namechanged because there are other threads which could give indications of why she might be pissed regarding advantages our DC have, but I really wanted to keep away from that and I was right considering the angle some posters took on the private/state question. And why private education? To me, it's an I'll do me, you do you. Some kids from state do better than private, sometimes it's the other way round - we all choose to do what's best for our kids.

And that's what it's about really - the kids. If it is about the advantage they have, these kids are her blood and are able to have a leg up. She should be pleased. Her son has been able to build his life in a way that would have taken a lot longer to do otherwise. No DSIL (who she always did regard higher) doesn't get to have the same benefit, but then they could always look to herself about that - and it's not like SIL's family is anything other than a professional family anyway.

It shouldn't be about levelling down, but levelling up, and when someone looks to undermine my kids I will get aggrevated, whether they be 5,10, 15 or 50

@GigglingLondoner

Sorry that the way I have put all this is weird but tbh there was no context - she just brought it up between what she had for dinner and when she was having her jab. Yes she knows the kids school but I don’t talk about what they do or don’t do as she would usual show little or no interest.

Doesn’t sound like a ‘mantra’ to me, sounds like a one off conversation about it.

Also ‘pure’?!?!?!!!!

OP, you sound like an absolute nightmare

Thanks for that detailed insight mouldy. Appreciate your time and thought

Maybe it’s because we don’t know the other stuff that you wish to keep private that you seem like hard work OP, based on this one minor conversation between dinner and her jab.

Do you have a habbit I've over complicating things? Even the way your post is written is overly complicated. You are reading into this way too much.

Your most recent post is absolutely exhausting to read. You must not take after your family in regards to business prowess as you don't proofread, and you are seemingly unable to be concise.

You've been asked multiple times - how old are both sets of children?

Well I don't believe I have kept anything back that is really relevant.

I guess with 24 hours to think, and the valuable input from here, it's not like her view will have any impact on the kids (certainly mine) so at the end of the day, let's see what happens when it all comes out in the wash.

I don’t feel the need to be do aggressive about it, especially considering the advantages they are at because of said inferior but non the less ever present legacy they can tap into unlike SIL’s kids (or her which again she bitterly resents).

I don't understand what this means but assume it's to do with your kids going to private school?

I agree with pp that MIL perhaps resents that her DD's kids don't go to private school.

Is SIL golden child and is MIL closer to SIL's children?

I experience anti competitiveness in my wider family. I'll qualify that description.

My cousins were not very academic and had to be bribed to revise for their GCSEs. Only 1 did A Levels. When we (the younger sibling's family) got to exam age my Gran would try and say 'it doesn't matter what you get' despite the bribing she did for my cousins. We got good GCSEs and A Levels. I think my sibling got a token amount but I didn't receive anything. I did as well as I did for me and my future, not for the bribe or to show my cousins up. But my Gran favoured the older sibling and was peeved when their offspring didn't do as well as she hoped to show off about. She certainly didn't want the younger sibling's offspring outshining the older siblings!

So I think there can be more to it than a gran trying to take the pressure off. It can reveal underlying family dynamics, jealousy and resentment.

Yes polpot I repeated a couple of words. That's my career doomed I think.

I was asked twice from what I can tell, having already said they were in primary and chose not to be more specific. Shoot me.

Sounds to me like your MIL is trying reverse psychology to try to encourage you onto the same page as her. It sounds tedious and hard work and I would just keep doing what you are doing and smile and nod!