'Dad's side of the family'...is it really a thing?

[TheolderIgetthelessIknow]

I read recently, not on Mumsnet but somewhere similar, a young woman stating categorically that she would not take on responsibility for communication (such as making arrangements, sending birthday gifts, etc.) to her husband's side of the family. I was a little shocked to see in the comments that most of the respondents wholeheartedly agreed with her, even if it meant that communication with that side of the family dwindled to nothing, assuming that many men are not that bothered about keeping in touch or even remembering birthdays, etc. I'm an older woman with a daughter and a son, both married. My daughter keeps in daily contact with me but has virtually no contact with her PIL. As a result, I see a lot of her children and know what's happening in their lives. My son, on the other hand, literally only gets in touch when he wants something -usually money- and I never hear from my DIL at all. I only see their children when I visit them (self-invited); they hardly ever visit me and my DH although I've invited them lots of times ( they're always 'busy', often with DIL's side of the family) and said that they can come whenever they want to. Birthdays, mothers/fathers days and Christmas are a bit hit and miss regarding presents and cards from them, although I always visit with cards and gifts for them.
So, my query is: am I being unreasonable to expect at least some sort of regular input from them, regarding the children at least? Is it definitely a thing that young mums now refuse to take on the burden of keeping their MIL up to date and maybe sending birthday cards or whatever? It might make me feel a bit better if I know it's just my son's laziness (not that that's any excuse) rather than antipathy from my DIL.

Why would I send a birthday present to a relative of my husband when he knows them far better and could therefore choose a better gift?

Why have you only selected women for this criticism? You say you criticise your daughter for not having more contact with her in-laws - are you also disappointed that your daughter chooses presents for you, rather than leaving it to your son in law?

I'm just perplexed that women, knowing that their men are absolutely useless at this sort of thing, would deliberately let relationships suffer for the sake of 'it's not my responsibility'.

I would never have married a man who was useless at "this sort of thing".

I think Dads should model this behaviour for their sons. Women these days are bloody knackered, we spin so many plates and so no, I don’t take on the in-law admin, as I call it. I do have all their birthdays and anniversary’s in our shared calendar and I’ll remind DH the week of when I spot them but the rest is up to him. Quite simply, I’ve got enough to do!!!! But, he is very good at it all. He calls his Mum 2-3 times a week, sends cards, sends regular updates on the family, will send printed photographs over. They don’t live close enough to see them regularly but he does keep in touch well.

I think he is modelling great behaviours for our own boys. He makes a real fuss of my birthday and Mother’s Day and gets them involved (I’ve had some questionable gifts as he’s had them choose them themselves 🤣) - what was your husband like when your son was growing up? What did he see as a boy?

It sounds even more exhausting for her if she ends up doing his half for him as well as her own.

I am genuinely perplexed that this is such an issue. Are you all saying that you loathe half of your family? Your children's grandparents? Because the churlishness on this thread is honestly baffling.

So you all think keeping in touch with the in-laws is 'for him'. So you are all implying that if it wasn't for you, your other halves would never contact their parents?! And tough luck any way, yeah, not my job. Dont give me the mental load...back off MIL. Not my problem. I'm too busy with the chore of sending my family a Christmas card. Get in line, Grandma.I work you know!

I'm not being disingenuous. I just honestly can't get my head around that. I just don't see my ILs as a chore, or even the mental load. They enhance my life. Same for DH with my parents.

It definitely has something to do with how they're brought up. Our DS keeps in regular contact with us, arranges visits etc but then again so does his wife, our DIL.
OP, does your daughter say why she has virtually no contact with her PIL? I'm going to guess that it's for the exact same reasons as many posters have said earlier.
Not allowing your DS to get away with only being in contact when he wants something would be a start.

What?

I love my in laws. My husband loves his.

Being married does not mean I take on his responsibilities. He wouldn’t dream of taking over presents and cards etc for my family.

A decent man will remember birthdays and occasions and be capable of buying gifts and cards. And if he doesn’t? Tough. I don’t know any woman who’d take this on because she has she has a feckless and thoughtless husband.

Hahahaha why the HELL would I go out of my way to do those things when the person who’s actually related to them, doesn’t give a fuck. Why would I waste my time writing birthday cards, sending gifts and doing whatever else when I have my own family to do that for?

Don’t look at your DIL, look at your son who clearly doesn’t give a rat’s bum

were you close to him growing up? I often wonder whether it’s just a continuation of the relationship but everyone has more physical distance and are older

And it’s one thing to do these things because you love your In Laws family and a whole different thing to do it just because your husband won’t. Maybe the husband can try giving a shit?

The fact that you thought the other poster was unreasonable for not being the one to maintain ‘dads side of the family’, suggests to me that your son has been raised feel that it is not his job to make any kind of effort with his own parents.

Thankfully, women don’t have to put up with as much of this patriarchal cr@p as I’m sure the previous generation of women did.

All you can do is try to hold your son accountable for his laziness, or accept that you’re not going to have regular contact with your DS / DGC.

This is a conversation for you and your son. You Dil has enough to deal with without also being your son's mommy and telling him to keep in touch with his mother. You are misplacing the blame and letting your son get away with not taking any accountability by saying dil should suck it up because you're innocent.
You need to take accountability for the relationship you have with your son and work on growing that.

Can you not see the inherent sexism in your post?

I mean, clearly you can't, but please stop asking us all to collude with it. It's frankly offensive.

I'm just perplexed that women, knowing that their men are absolutely useless at this sort of thing, would deliberately let relationships suffer for the sake of 'it's not my responsibility'.

Thankfully it’s 2024 and my generation won’t continue to do things expected of us, just because

Is it though?
She was part of raising him so part of the failure to raise him to be someone who cares about this stuff is hers.

Hand on heart did you always take him to get cards and gifts? Did you teach him that this stuff matters or did you do it for him? First of all he's too young so you do it, then he's a moody teenager so you do it, then he's a young man and far too busy so you do it then you realise you've been part of raising someone who thinks someone else will do it.

I'm just perplexed that women, knowing that their men are absolutely useless at this sort of thing, would deliberately let relationships suffer for the sake of 'it's not my responsibility'.

It has nothing to do with being ‘useless’. It has everything to do with men having observed from childhood that the kin keeping is ‘women‘s work’. Boys who grow up watching their mums making all the effort in family relationships whilst their dad sits back and chills will internalize the view that it isn’t theirresponsibility to keep up with their own family.

The cycle has to break at some point. Men HAVE to understand that keeping up with their families is their job. I bet your son isn’t useless in maintaining his relationships with work colleagues. You are the one who taught him (even if unintentionally) that he doesn’t need to make effort with family because it is a wife’s job. YOU made him ‘useless’. That is your issue to either deal with or work to correct. Nag your son to stay in contact. Tell him it hurts your feelings when he forgets to send you a birthday card. Ask if you can babysit the grandchildren. Ask for photos of them. Call him. If you want a relationship with him and his family, he needs to get the message from you that this is HIS responsibility.

Op, as you are finding out, yes this is indeed a thing.

You are probably like me, from the generation where women were expected to work AND do all the shit in the home that a stay at home mum would have done - all the cleaning, all the laundry, all the running to after schools clubs and all the keeping up the social relationships.

The women who came after looked at that arrangement and concluded (correctly) that it was unfair and they weren't doing it,

And yes, it does mean that if the DH doesn't step up then he's left to fail, because they're not going to burn themselves out doing a double shift just because men (as a group) are lazy gits.

So he does his own laundry and his own ironing and if he doesn't then maybe he does have to wear a dirty unironed shirt to that important meeting but you can bet if you rescue him once the lazy guy will go it again.

Some men are decent men. A lot expect women to slave for them and have to be trained out of it be bring left to fail.

I'm divorced now. I spent fucking hours and hours and days and days building relationships with my exH's family. When he turned violent and I had to call the police and leave with my DD they didn't give a shit and they're already making nice with his new wife and replacement family. I really, really wish I hadn't bothered because they made really clear how much that relationship was worth.

100% it’s actually very tone deaf to come onto a forum where the majority of posters are women and make comments like this.

‘Women, I know your husband’s are thoughtless and don’t give a fuck about their family so why aren’t you stepping up and doing what needs to be done’ even though there’s nothing stopping the husband from doing said thing. The sexism is crazy

It's not shunning them at all. It's expecting the men to pull their weight, which they are perfectly capable of doing.

We never shunned my in-laws. DH was forgetful at times like birthdays etc. but they were under no illusions about what he was like and never blamed me. We still saw them a fair bit anyway. We didn't ignore them at all. DH had to learn his lesson, and he largely did.

How can you say it's through no fault of your own when you enable and excuse his behaviour?

You've set your rock bottom standards and he's meeting them. The pair of you are in this together. Stop trying to blame a third party.

Cherchez la femme indeed.

Why don't you spend some time working on your own internalised misogyny instead of projecting it on to your DIL?

Are you all saying that you loathe half of your family?

I don't loathe DH's family. I do hate spending my little free time on present shopping though, and when the day is finally done the last thing I want to do is pick up the phone and talk to anyone.

If DH was doing none of that work and I was doing twice what I do now, I would resent him and stop.

My parents in law started just contacting me about getting together when we married and I shut it down immediately just saying "that would be lovely to see you, chat to hubby and let's gets together" it worked. We see lots of them. But arranged by my partner.

''Their men are useless at this sort of thing''

I don't know where to start!

''Their men'' are perfectly capable people when it comes to carrying out tasks at work, though. Funny that.

Could it be because at work they know that there there is no women running around behind them saying ''Oh don't worry that, I'll do it ha ha ha you men are so useless! .....''

🙄🙄

Please OP - see that it's cause and effect. If you're not expected to be capable of managing a thing for generations and generations because you're apparently hilariously ''useless'' at it and someone else always trots along picking up the slack, what do you think is going to happen? They're quite happy being ''useless''!!

And you're here asking why women are stopping the madness !

Well, yes. And I say that as the mother of a son.

My DS is 16 and I expect him to remember his grandparents birthdays, etc. Not just use the excuse of well he's a boy so he shouldn't be expected to remember.

I posted a thread about this today.

I did all this wife work for years to help DH out, but ultimately his mother was extremely nasty to me so I’ve now stopped. I’m sure she blames me for this too as you seem to blame your DIL but in reality it’s your son/my husband who are to blame for not keeping in contact.

or potentially you,
if you’ve done something to upset them!

If you feel you are missing out then you need to take it up with your son

I would expect any partner to keep in touch with their own family. I wouldn't do it for them. I don't think it's a new thing. I send my ex MIL cards but only because we're not together anymore.
Your son should be keeping in better touch with you - if he was my son I would have a word about it and say I was upset.