MIL and her constant trips down memory lane

[popsoc]

Does anyone else's mother or MIL take constant trips down memory lane? At any opportunity remembering what their kids did / ate, how they mothered them etc ?

My mother rarely does this. She mainly does it in private and not in front of others. MIL just cannot help herself and has to refer everything back to how she did it and tells tales of the olden days a lot. It's so boring. She makes it all about her. Even my DH finds it so annoying.

Also, constantly pushing her traditions on us and our kids. It's just all about her and what she did and how great it all was.

Examples include :

I buy my DS a special coat and she goes on about how she still has her children's coat and must give it to us.

Her wanting to carry on traditions she had with her kids, like a special broach they all have. My kids have to have one too now. A special prayer she used to say to them, she now wants to teach to my kids.

Just small examples. But they add up. I know that it's not mean of her, but it excludes me, doesn't it. It's all about their thing and what they did. My mum might tell me things in private - like, ' oh it would be fun if you send DD to ballet, like you used to, maybe she'll enjoy it'. But she won't make a whole saga out of it. Whereas MIL will give me a huge trip down memory Lane about how she took her DD to ballet and if I take my DD, she'll say ' aw look, DD is doing ballet, just like her aunt did '.. I know it sound silly and miserable, but it adds up and makes me feel alienated from my kids and like I never had a childhood to share with my own kids. Like I'm just an irrelevant third party anyway and my kids are basically an extension of her own children.
Annoying. Rant over !

You sound like fun OP. One day youll be a MIL too. Make sure to take your own advice and done bring up happy memories ever in front of your DIL or SIL

‘Lowest form of conversation’ 🙄

My ex MIL is like that, I think it’s nice that my DC are now part of that family history.

My DM used to do this and, to a lesser extent, my Dad. My husband used to feel excluded and as if his family and background didn't matter as much. My DM definitely a narcissist and pretty insensitive. I think this is the sort of thing that you mind much more if there's a difficult relationship anyway.

I don’t know if maybe you haven’t explained yourself very well because I feel like I might know where you’re coming from due to the way my MIL used to act. She would say things only to me about DH like when family were visiting ‘oh everyone gets ditched for insert cousins name’ or when talking about how she did things with her kids, especially if I didn’t necessarily agree it was always ‘well my boys were fine’ or she would often ask what I was cooking and say ‘DH won’t eat that’ (he always did).

She made me feel like I was going crazy sometimes because it was such subtle aggression and she always saved these types of opinions for when it was just me and her!

All the time you're with your children is an opportunity to talk about things you did as a child. You've plenty of time.

I can't see what's wrong with it to be honest as a lot of older people but not all do this.

YABU, you sound unpleasant

What’s wrong with you lot tonight? Christ.

OP, I don’t think you sound awful at all. It’s not the individual things (though anyone trying to teach my DC a special prayer would feel my rage), it’s all the things adding up to one non-stop thing: MIL trying to turn your DC’s childhood into her own creation. The prayer, the brooch, the coat, the memory, the this, the that, instead of letting them exist in the here and now, or you starting your own family traditions, or having your own history. Sounds tedious in the extreme.

Can DC start a hobby she has zero history with? Axe throwing or something.

I feel sorry for your MIL. One day, you might be in her position where watching grandkids brings back all the lovely memories of your own.

It does sound horrendously tedious. But I think your idea that it’s alienating you from your own kids is unreasonable, even a touch paranoid or hyperbolic. Your MiL is not going to alienate you from your own kids by droning on about how she did things. The kids are going to like some of it and as they get older it’s going to start to annoy them just like it does you and your DH.

You sound a bit as though you’ve bought into the idea that there is a competition or power struggle between you and MiL over your kids. But there isn’t. You have their attention. You are the major influence on their life. You set the stage for how they think about things. No amount of “special” family jewelry and prayers is going to change the fact they look to you. The thing most likely to do that is if you start treating them like weapons in a war with your MiL.

Take a step back. Deep breaths. Develop a shared look with your DH when MiL starts down this path (eventually it’ll become a shared look with your kids as well, then you’ll have your own tradition that “excludes” MiL). Nod and smile. Try and engineer things so that DH does more of the time with his family while you do your own thing.

It’s going to be fine. She isn’t going to ruin your kids. She will provide them with love and fun and well developed patience. And it won’t be a touch on their relationship with you.

My MIL does this, on repeat. I find it very dull. Thankfully though her DS (my DH), manages to listen and tries to reminisce alongside her. Memories are pretty much all she has and he is a kind man.
Remember the old adage " How a man treats his Mother is a good indication of how he will treat his wife and his daughters".

Mine can be boring like this sometimes. It’s irritating as fuck because the theme that links all the stories is what a superior mother to me she was, despite all the evidence saying otherwise. You don’t sound awful at all, most people would be irritated.

Just small examples. But they add up. I know that it's not mean of her, but it excludes me, doesn't it I suppose it depends on how you take it. I'd think she was including you by telling you things about your husband's childhood, I'd think excluding you would be not wanting you to know anything about it. Hard to know really.

My two little GC like nothing more than to hear stories about how naughty daddy was, they will always ask about a favourite story of his exploits and then I try to think of something new but in all honesty I'm running out of stories although he was a bit of monkey and there are quite a few funny stories. I don't do it to exclude DIL and I hope she doesn't think that.

How in the world does her mentioning fond things from their family past exclude you? The fact that it appears your mum does very similar things but is ok with you makes it even worse. You must have it really good if this is the biggest thing you have to complain about.

Aw I think that sounds really sweet. If it makes you feel like you 'never had a childhood to share with my own kids' then just share yours and do your thing as well.

Yours isn't too bad. My mum keeps telling my husband about how she breastfed me and apparently very often I was not eating, but just plying with her nipple. Every time my husband listens to this, he dies inside.

Oh my MIL would also insist DD looked like xyz family members when they were young (she didn’t) and deny she had any resemblance to me as a kid (she’s literally my twin).

So yeah like I said I think I might know where you’re coming from and I think what others aren’t getting is how subtly aggressive these types of comments can be if constant.

I don’t think anything you’ve described is bad, but if there is a history between you both I can see why it might bother you.

It could be worse though, my MIL likes to rewrite history completely… none of her children ever had a tantrum (the youngest was still having tantrums when I met them!), never teethed, they were all toilet trained before a year old, and were basically perfect robots. All down to how good a mother she was in comparison to me, presumably! 😁

She sounds tiresome. Spend less time with her?

Grow up OP. You are lucky she loves and wants to share time with your children. You sound jealous & immature. It not her fault your side of family don't know/want to share/spend time with your kids. Think about the example you are teaching them -if someone is "boring " they are of no value! You need to lighten up there are real problems out there

My mil did that. I think she was trying to find common ground. I was going through first time parenting and she shared her own experiences of the same. I think it's a fairly normal thing to do when making conversation

Yes, you do sound "Silly and miserable".
One day this will be you.

I think bringing up small kids can be a very intense period of your life, so you have lots of memories of it.

You are not being excluded! You are with your children all the time. How is she harming anyone?

As you get older looking back could be better than looking forward! And if she reminisces about the lovely things that she did and wants to share the love - then why object?

I think you are being a bit crabby honestly. It is not as if she is taking over the GC's lives.

When you are her age I bet you will find yourself wanting to do similar - I hope you have a kind understanding DIL when the time comes.

I think YABU. Older people often enjoy thinking and talking about when they were in the prime of their life. If you’re bored, just nod and smile 🤷🏼‍♀️

Sounds like there’s a big back story though so… whatever.