Urgh, I know I shouldn’t get so worked up about it and in the grand scheme of things my MiL could be so much worse but I need a good vent.
TLDR = if anyone has any tips for being zen about MiL comments on parenting/relationship with DH then that’d be lovely!
Today’s delight was being told how lazy I am because DH does nursery drop offs. I WFH whereas DH gets the train to work from a station 5/10 minutes walk from nursery (it would be a 40minute round trip for me). I absolutely accept that it would be reasonable for me to do some drop offs but how we split childcare is not MiL’s business. Her plan is also that I should do pick ups every day and look after DD so that DH doesn’t have to worry about getting home from work on time. To be clear DH and I work in the same industry with similarly demanding jobs and get paid the same.
I know this conversation isn’t a big deal but it’s just the latest in a series of constant little digs. The most recent have been that:
- breastfeeding my 14 month old is “revolting”.
- DH coming home at 6:45 to do bath time meant that I was treating him like a househusband and surely he’d be fired for it.
- my parents are the “favoured grandparents” and she has “never been so angry” because they managed to give us covid which meant we had to isolate rather than seeing MiL.
- DH is terribly hard done by because he sometimes does night wakings and she NEVER would have asked FiL to do that (to be clear, I did all night wakings from 3-11 months, DH does now do his share because I have gone back to work)
- all the books we have bought for DD are not educational enough and in some cases are in fact harmful (the harmful one today is apparently the Gruffalo)
MiL is great with DD and I really want them to have a good relationship so I need to hold my tongue but I find myself sitting and wondering whether I am a rubbish, revolting, lazy wife and mother about 75% of the times I see her. Anyone found good ways to cope?