My mother in law wants to decide what to keep from a baby shower/donation.

[Gennah]

Hello everyone,

So I am currently living in Japan, and I live with my husband and mother in law. (It’s common to live with family especially when the baby comes so they can help)

I am 37 weeks pregnant now, and she has insisted that I keep all baby stuff in storage and refuses to let us use an empty room for a nursery. (Saying babies don’t need their own room)

I will be receiving a package today from my husband’s cousin which has second hand baby items. I was so excited to get it, but my mother in law said she is going to look through it and decide what to keep or throw away. (She also made me throw away a ton of clothes because she said I don’t need that many when I moved in. We can’t really afford to move out at this point considering the baby, maternity and paternity leave income cuts and my husband is going to inherit this house after she passes.)

I can’t help but feel angry about this. I am a first time mother and I appreciate help, but it’s my baby… I feel like I should have a say in what my baby will need or not need.

Considering the cultural differences and my feeling of inferiority to an experienced mother in law and elder, I am wondering if I am being unreasonable or if I am valid to feel the way I do.

Thank you for reading and for your thoughts.

Nope.

Not in Western culture it doesn’t, I agree. But this is how it is in Japan, and the point is that launching a one woman crusade won’t get the OP anywhere.

@Rosscameasdoody one woman can become many women. What is your motivation in so firmly advocating for a system of coercive control?

She’s not advocating for a system of coercive control FFS! She’s trying to explain that the OP is living in a culture where the “rules” as we understand them, as OP understands them, do not apply. Whatever your or I or OP think about that , it is what it is. So better OP understands the situation she is in and can act in a way that will be to her advantage rather than to her detriment.

I answered you upthread…

MIL could chuck them out. They can’t afford to rent.

MIL could disinherit them (they are counting on getting the house).

Others who know Japanese culture have also answered this question …

MIL could effectively bar her gaijin DIL from the local Japanese community.

MIL could withdraw her post natal help (in a country where MIL’s help is very much the main source of support).

The school would not respect the Mum and could be very difficult - and again the community runs on the parents/family being respected by the child’s teacher.

OP disobeying her MIL could result in the family being homeless social outcasts with fewer opportunities for their child.

@StormingNorman what a wonderful civilisation! Do this to your future grandchild (and son and DIL) all over a “few baby clothes”.

A MIL who decides to live with them???

ITS HER HOUSE.

Yep. The British Embassy in SK are not going to intervene in a Japanese family behaving according to Japanese social norms.

No. They’re saying she would find it difficult to find housing and would have limited options eg shared amenities and very little privacy.

In fact, I have a child with a Japanese man myself so I am not entirely ignorant of the situation in Japan. Obviously it is more difficult to find housing as a foreigner but it is not "impossible"

We were not talking about baby clothes though were we Mrs Troll. It was about Mil taking control of OP's life. Do I have to repeat ad nauseum?

But the OP lives with her MIL! In Japan. And the MIL does not seem to be "taking control of her life" . She is setting some simple rules for them while they are living in her house!

Also someone mentioned OP leaving the country with a baby.

MN has a terrible habit of encouraging international child abduction.

It will be easier to win accommodations from the MIL once OP has earned her trust. Once she has gained some respect in the community for being a good DIL & embracing Japanese culture and has a highly-prized Japanese child she can start gently negotiating for concessions.

It will be a slow process of developing mutual respect with the MIL and understanding how the MIL can move towards a more western approach to parenting/grandparenting without losing face.

OP is not going to impose western-style feminism on her MIL. All of them would lose out in the eyes of the community and the one who suffers most with be the mixed race child with the disrespectful eccentric gaijin mother.

She needs to take it slowly and carefully.

And there we have it. The mixed race child is also potentially facing a lifetime of discrimination.

The baby clothes are a red herring. OP is obviously struggling to adapt to the norms around pregnancy and maternity. Most of us now aren’t talking about the baby clothes but about how the OP navigates life as a mother in Japan

None. I have no skin in the game beyond what I know from a close relative having similar problems. I’m not advocating for anything beyond that which will make OP’s life easier and able to leave with her child. You are outraged - I understand that. I was myself on behalf of my SiL but one woman from a culture not understood and not tolerated is not going to be able to change things single handedly. You seem resistant to understanding that, and it’s key to being able to help OP.

Taking control of her life how? The only examples given have been about clothes, and not giving up spare room for baby (in a culture where it is apparently considered very innapropriate for a child to sleep in their own room under age 3).

The British embassy in South Korea really isn’t going to have anything to say or do about OP’s relationship with her MIL- as annoying and interfering as she may be. Honestly.

Japan is well known for it and it is very slowly changing. There is a Japanese guy on Facebook stories who interviews mixed race Japanese about their experiences growing up and how things have changed for them over the years.

So as one woman, potentially facing the loss of her child if she doesn’t conform, put your outrage aside for a moment and tell us what you would do.

Which will have potentially disastrous consequences in the case of Japan. The Hague convention gives Japan the authority to insist that other signatories return the child to Japan. Non - negotiable. After which the OP would be denied entry to the country so likely wouldn’t see the child again until they reached the age of their own agency at 20.

How many of those 2.5 million (in a native population of 125 million) are either on a business contract providing accommodation or of chinese/Korean descent and living there for generations already?

How many of the 2.5 million are heavily pregnant?

What is the chance, in an environment where a native Japanese has to stump up 6 months rent in advance, plus taxes, duties and unofficial briberies like "key money", and foreigners up to double that amount, that the OP will find that money and a letting agent to sort her out, no matter how foreign friendly they seem to be?

Add to that the probably that her hanko (a sort of ID stamp used for official business) is linked to her husbands, meaning even if the letting agency finds her a willing landlord, she won't be able to complete the paperwork? I doubt anyone pointed out to her to have her own made before marriage and keep them safe, just in case she wanted to bail. Getting own hanko now will require divorce papers, more money, more time that OP doesn't have.

Now you see why this is highly unlikely?

😂.

And apparently having an interfering MIL rises to the threshold of persecution under the refugee convention, or at least should invoke protection from one’s state consulate!

Not potentially, certainly.

Go look what happened to Naomi Osaka, after all she's done for the country.

Those railing against it from a western values point of view won’t. I’ve wasted my breath, and been insulted for simply trying to explain the culture and the problems OP faces. MN likes to shoot the messenger. I give up.