‘Oh she looks so much like you, or me when I was younger or just basically anyone like you, the mother’

[OhDoOne77]

Not said like this obviously, but may aswell be.
Sil has always said and still continues to say how much Dd (4) looks like Dh or failing that, looks like her when she was younger (nothing like her) or their mum etc…or brother…just basically anyone but me.
It pissed me off when Dd was a baby but royally pisses me off now, as she says it in front of her

Aibu to feel rage?

When I had my first baby, my in-laws commented on how DS looked like my partners first child with his previous partner. Probably hormones but I replied 'nothing like me then?'.

I dont think they were being nasty, but not what you want to hear that your child looks like that of another woman.

Jesus wept

Can't say any of it bothers me much, but I did giggle at my daughters MIL's friend who insisted that our granddaughter looks like her MIL.
One has blonde hair and blue eyes, and the other has long dark hair and brown eyes.🤦‍♀️. Not sure where the " resemblance" came from. 🤔

I think you're over thinking this. It just shows the natural bias and their insensitivity. Some people have little understanding or interest in the feelings of others. If you let it get to you you're in for years of irritation/resentment/rage. Let it go, they're insensitive. You won't change them.

i believe @saraclara about the subconscious desire to express 'we know this is our son's baby. We welcome the baby, we accept her as our family''.

Obviously with DNA and IVF it's not like a hundred years ago where you could either never know for certain or pass off a baby as your husband's but our behaviours around new borns in to son's own nucelar families aren't going to have changed. If it's four times as likely to comment on resemblances to a father then the easy availability of dna testing isn't going to make that likelihood go away..

!!! I don't think ''baby looks like its half-sibling'' is an upsetting notion!

I think it's nice, if they share a look it'll connect them a bit as adultus.

Yes I get this. My ds1 had blonde curls when he was little, like a cherub. I have fair, wavy hair. DH has black, wiry hair.

MIL said Ds1 must have got his hair from DH.

I think YBU to think it’s intended as malicious in anyway, unless there is more to the story. Don’t forget that you have much more historic and intimate knowledge of someone’s face when they are family or you’ve grown up with them. You don’t just see features but all the subtle expressions and mannerisms etc. It’s much easier to see resemblances within your own family than someone you’ve only known as an adult.

I see my niece and nephew looking a lot like my brother when he was a baby/little boy. Obviously I grew up with him and not my sister in law, so this is how I can see the one sided resemblance. It’s likely on your side, your family members see elements of you in your children too.

Did you all grow up together from very young?

If not, how your dc possibly remind her of you when you were young, of course it's going to be only the people she actually knew as young children that she's reminded of. (Similarly how can you say your dd looks nothing like her when she was going if you didn't know her when she was that age?)

I wouldn't be able to resist.

"Thank goodness all DDs best personality features are from my side of the family"

My boys really look like their dad but DD is the image of me. So I’m totally used to people saying the boys look like DH’s family because they do but my DD really is like me. Strangers in shops etc have stopped us to tell us how much she looks like me. So when MiL repeatedly tells me DD is so like her dad and like her DSis, it’s definitely done to piss me off!

Firstly, my SIL does this about DS2. And I don’t get annoyed because she’s lovely and it’s true, and also DS1 looks almost entirely like me/my brother (which she also says). Once I showed her a photo of me at the same age as DS2 and sil was amazed how much he looked like me too (mostly the suspicious expression).

Secondly, my sister DID get annoyed with her in-laws for saying this about her DS. And that’s partly because they were quite annoying anyway, and definitely the sort to ‘claim’ things for their family - eg my sister and BIL’s house was always referred to as “Bill’s house” not “Bill and Wendy’s house” (names changed to reflect innocent parties).

I agree with PPs that there is an underlying biological need for the dad’s family to see their family in the child, and some reinforce this by the kind of verbal repetition you have with SIL. And my sister’s baby was also IVF - while you say there’s therefore no doubt of paternity, for some people it does create doubt about a mix up. And in fact my sister was worried (irrationally) when pregnant that there could have been a mix up, as their chances of success were so low (due to issues on both sides). So while it was reassuring to her that her son clearly looks like his dad’s family, she found not acknowledging her looks in him unsettling.

But mainly your SIL is just annoying.

Yes your SIL is annoying and as you don't like her it's even more grating.

I'd retort with 'how funny as he's not even her father' and let her flipping squirm! Obviously warn your DH that her comments are pissing you off so you want to shut her up once and for all.

Ours are adopted, we get people telling my husband our daughter looks like him, not only are they different ethnicities, even if they had the same skin colour they look nothing alike.

Well - for starters I think you don’t like your sil, and perhaps she doesn’t like you too, and perhaps she’s saying that to annoy you, and your being annoyed because, well you don’t like her to begin with.

Its entirely possible that the kids look like their side of the family and not you too tho, you’re all related after all?

my daughter looks exactly like me - my daughter is almost my twin (tho she has brown hair and me black) there is no way she looks like anyone else and I might as well conceived her myself. My son, is more of a mix and I can see my husband in him a little - my inlaws always say he looks like my husband - his twin (he’s not) but I let it go - they can hardly say that about my daughter so 😂 - I’ll give them my son to claim.

@Arthursmom laughed out loud at this! Aren’t people so bizarre sometimes.

I used to reply showing a picture of me as a child and passing it off as my child.
truth be told, some days they looked like me, others dh.
but it is an odd rudeness to utterly dismiss the other parents part in creating them. I don’t think it’s ever meant as that though. It does feel it though.

My SIL used to get this about my niece and me. It must have pissed her right off.

Now, my niece is all her mum.

My MIL used to do this a lot and I found it really irritating. Every attribute came from her side of the family and it was honestly like she believed I had had nothing to do with creating our DCs. Unfortunately, this extended to potential negative attributes - “He’s so hard himself, just like his uncle x, and I’ve always been worried he’ll harm himself,” “Maybe she’s bipolar like my cousin,” “There’s a high chance they’ll be dyslexic as all my children are.”

For whatever reason she eased up when we had DC3 and is now much more likely to ask if anyone in my family was blonde as a child or whatever instead of just saying, oh that’s my so-and-so. Most of the negative attribute chat has stopped too, thank god.

Me and my niece look identical in childhood photos. That's not an insult to her lovely mum.

My MIL does this all the time, everything about DD comes from her family, I do have a few stock responses that always go down well.

"Well I'd like to think she gets that from me seen as I made her"

"Ah that's fine if she looks like your brood hopefully she will get my personality"

But I am a passive aggressive wank so 🙄

Yep, there's so much reluctance here to allow the baby's father's family to express anything that links the baby to them. It's quite bizarre and possessive. Like an extension of the MIL issue on mumsnet really.

Yet more reason to feel sorry for, not just MILs but their entire families.On mumsnet they really are second class citizens who are not allowed anything like the same stake in their new relative as the maternal family.

Again, I'm glad to be the mother of daughters.

"Well I'd like to think she gets that from me seen as I made her"

So her father had nothing to do with making her? She's 100% your genes?

Isn't this just normal?
When DHs family talk about how much DS is like his dad, grandad etc I think it's lovely. I think DH is handsome so if he looks like him then I'll be happy!