MIL only one not to say my baby looks like me

[TheAquaFawn]

My MIL never says my baby looks like me. Everyone else - friends, family, strangers, says he’s the spit of me but I noticed she stays quiet and only comments that he looks like her son / my DH and at a push, that he looks like both of us. It’s starting to annoy me, and wonder whether it’s a slight at me, am I being silly? DH isn’t insecure at all that people say he looks more like me and joins in.

I guess but I’m talking from my experience whereby nobody on my side has commented on their features/looks. Probably did when they were born, but that was it. MIL still 7 years later muses of their features at great length.

💐💐.

Maybe she sees her son in his face because it’s more familiar to her. Nor worth worrying about.

DC is almost my double. When people meet us/them for the first time, they always comment on how similar we are. ILs never comment on who DC looks like.

I guess if DC took after their side of the family they would comment.

This

It’s not actually a competition.

I think this is normal for some relatives.

It was obvious from birth that I took after my DM and there was not the remotest trace of resemblance to my DF or his family. Didn't bother him in the slightest, he thought it was hilarious how I grew up like my mum's younger identical twin.

However from his mum I had 20 years of 'your hair is curly like Great Uncle x, your eyes are the same colour as Cousin Y' etc etc.

I mean, my mum would be right in the room with us, it was fucking obvious I looked like her and not some obscure relative from my DF's side of the family.

We just laughed about it in the car on the way home.

My mil is like this. She was like it when my dd was a baby. She'd apparently show people my dd in a photo and they'd say she was her double. She wasn't. But it used to annoy me. In the end I snapped and said she looks like all of us. It doesn't really matter. She never says it anymore.

Yes, there’s mildly annoying and then there’s genuine pain and cruelty. 🌷

Why do you care? He’s obviously yours! They say babies look like their dad at first, something to do with genetic surety? I think a baby is its own person, who cares who they look like?

You’re being silly. Do you really care about this? Just smile and nod.

Our children look like neither of us, nor each other. Sure, we get comments that they look like their dad or me. They don’t, not even slightly, and I actually like this genetic diversity on show.

DD1 did look like dh's side. Less so as she grew up. She's now a mixture in looks but very dh in personality.

Dd2 is very much my side, there's a very distinctive look and way of moving which is my uncle/brother/mum's cousin.
This is so distinctive; I had only met my mum's cousin once or twice growing up, but as an adult I saw someone coming towards me and knew he had to be related because he was so like my uncle/brother. Turned out to be my mum's cousin, who was (as we were) visiting the area.
Facially she's like me, and always has been.

Ds is so like dh that both have them have been stopped in the street to ask if they are related to the other one. He's the spit except for hair colour. We have child photos which could be either one of them. He's more like my dad in personality though.

Thing is both me and dh were fair/blue-eyed as a child, so people could see what they wanted to.

However, I do get where the op is coming from. There were two points I can remember feeling irritated:

One was when dd1 was about 2yo. MIL stayed and literally everything was just like someone in her family. Yes, dd1 was alike, but not that distinctive. The point it hit exasperation point, was we were taking dd1 to the park. I put out my hand to take dd1's hand to cross the road and she put her hands behind her back, because she didn't want to hold hands.
"Oh... oh look. She's walking with her hands behind her back. X used to do that all the time."
"She's only done it because she didn't want to hold hands crossing the road."
"Y used to do that too..."

I mean, honestly. That was pushing it.

With dd2 she used to go on about her eyes. Apparently because they were blue that was her side of the family. She's actually got my dad's eyes, and he's got his dad's, most of her is mum's side of the family. They're a very bright blue, whereas dh's side are very grey-blue.
Apparently her eyes are like her mother/herself/my fil/one of dh's siblings/her cousin etc depending on the particular person she was thinking at the time.
Thing is she was so like my side of the family, that I think blue eyes were the only thing she could latch onto as like them.

What I have just realised, and my dc are adults now, and it hasn't occurred to me before, is that my side of the family has always acknowledged the likeness to dh's side, and never particularly commented on how alike dd2 is to me.
It's been mentioned very occasionally, but just in a "tall like her uncle" way rather than "sooooo like in every way....". They're far more likely to comment how like ds is to dh than how alike dd2 is to me, and when dd1 was a baby they commented that she was like dh.

She can quite easily do right. All she has to do is say oh he's got your eyes OP! You're a great mum!

It's not hard to be nice to a new mum. Thank you for such a beautiful grandbaby wouldn't go amiss either, all she has to do is acknowledge mum and her input as she did all the hardwork instead of acting like the baby is 100% her son. If it's possible to see anyone in a baby it shouldn't be hard to see OP in them should it? A baby is half and half, it's common courtesy to acknowledge both parents.

Grow up

My former MIL used to say my son looked like his dad. He had the same white blond hair that his dad had as a baby but other than that, the boy is my absolute double. It never bothered me

My MIL is the same and it used to upset me to
she would say all my sons looked like there dad one of my sons is the spitting image of my brother
She would say that my daughter who strongly resembles me looked nothing like me but Dh elder daughter my stepdaughter.
Then as my children got older I realised that some of the facial expressions and looks that my children would make would make them look more like the certain family members that she used to say they looked like so I think we see things differently in different people.

The thing I find puzzling is - and I am honestly not trying to be facetious here - I rather like my husband, that's kinda why I chose to have children with him. So I actually like seeing him in my kids too - I don't see people commenting on that offensive to me at all.

It doesn't matter 😁But I go through something similar despite the fact that MIL isn't fond of either DH or me. My twin daughters are literally the spitting image of me and everybody says it and you'd have to be blind not to see it!! Neither of their personalities are anything like me though. MIL loved to say that they looked like her 🙄And while they definitely have quite a few of their dad's features, I don't see anything from her. She doesn't make much of an effort now anyway but because these girls were twins and her first grandchildren, she tried to be present

Then with DS was born, he was honestly always a mixture of both DH and I but again, because this was her first grandson, she was all over how it looked like her and her husband who sadly died very young! Again not a big deal but you could tell she was trying to show some sort of possession over the children.

My younger 2 daughters - one of them looks very similar to DH to be honest and the youngest is pretty similar to me. At this point, MIL had gotten bored and her favourite child had had a granddaughter so these two were irrelevant to her. But with DS (her only grandson) it is always about her.

It just always comes across as so snarky. She knows what she's doing. Oh DD started walking early! Yes she gets that from me. It just isn't hard to be nice and pay some respect to the parents. But we have learned to always just ignore it tbh. The kids have a much better grandmother on their other side anyway and realistically, it doesn't affect us. So while I get your pain, just grit your teeth and move on

My MIL did this. Even said she looked like a family friend and would consistently say "she doesn't look like you". I don't know why, but it annoyed me so much 😂.

But truthfully the comment “ oh he’s got your eyes! You’re a great mum” is a bit OTT and non sequitur-ish.

I’m sure that could kickstart a dil thread: “ Aibu to think this was pass agg and taking the piss?”

For perspective. my friend was devastated to come home after her mum had been babysitting to find it hadn’t gone well. Dc had cried and cried, dm couldn’t get on top of the situation and said “ I’m just not sure how to approach things . Your Dc are entirely unlike any of mine were.” My friend cried for hours after that.
The problem is we want family to relate to them and feel a connection, but only to the point we don’t feel threatened as the Numero Uno relative of the child. As DILs we can be touchy creatures. Might as well admit it.

100%.

I do think "oh the baby looks nothing like our family, just like you dear DIL" would be taken as rejecting the baby as not part of the family

Exactly this.

OP, why this need for everyone to see you in your baby? Do you think your mother in law is trying to ‘even up’ the conversation about who the baby looks like ?

I think new mums need all the encouragement they can get. I certainly don't think you need to avoid all compliments to the mother of your grandchild incase she thinks you're passive aggressive 🙄

No I don’t think so either. I also do t think that sort of comment is necessarily passive aggressive ( I think the term is totally overused). But I nevertheless think plenty of Dils would manage to take it amiss.