I felt like I got shut down in a weird way by my DIL

[TheWisePearlRaven]

I'm wondering if I dropped the ball with my DIL. I took my son to a baseball game recently because he’s been under a lot of pressure with work and he’s an awesome dad and I wanted to give him a bit of a break and my DIL felt like I should've offered to watch the baby so they could've gone on a date. She mentioned feeling like she's always solo-parenting and I didn't help them out as a couple. She said she felt she supports my son by raising my granddaughter saving the family money and giving my son piece of mind that she is in good hands with her mother and it’s not easy work doing this 24/7 as my son gets to leave his job but a SAHM never gets to “clock out” not to mention she handles all of the household tasks of the daily running of the household another less thing my son has to worry about it and she felt I overlooked that and only saw my son’s contributions to the family.

Now she's asked me to watch the baby next week for some me-time. Should I have thought of that date-day opportunity for them? How can I better support them both? I feel awful that my DIL feels I was just supporting my son while overlooking her as that wasn’t my intention at all. I guess as the grandmother I should be looking at it through the lens of supporting the family unit as a whole and not just focus in on supporting my son. I’m glad my DIL felt comfortable enough with me to express her hurt feelings and concern rather than harboring resentment towards me.

However AIBU to be a bit annoyed deep down that a kind gesture I did towards my son individually was basically shut down?

@Disturbia81

i know right! So weird and controlling.

you really need to do some self reflecting @ForBusyZebra

You're being ridiculous. OP is perfectly entitled to do something just with and for her son. Provided she treats her DIL decently I really don't see a problem here. I haven't had time to RTFT but presumably DIL also does things with her family. Two people don't turn into some sort of conjoined single unit just because they get married and start a family.

Oh, and to address comments you made in previous posts, 'having' one's child 'alllll day' is kind of what parenthood is about when children are little. It does my head in when people suggest mums are oppressed martyrs who should be in line for some sort of sainthood simply for doing what they presumably decided they wanted to do when they made the decision to have kids.

Too right .

sure she does but let’s not kid ourselves that it definitely sends some kind of message that the son is deserving of his efforts and her DIL does nothing but jack shit all day. The DIL is family too and the mother of her GC Howcome MIL doesn’t I don’t know take her out to lunch something to show she appreciates her? It always shocks me on here to see that DILs are expected to be treated like a coworker or an acquaintance at best or just the tag along with her son. I’m thankful my MIL doesn’t treat me like this. She knows both members of the couple are integral to the running of a household and family and wouldn’t dream of just recognizing my husabnd’s efforts while overlooking mine. I would be hurt and confused if she did.

Unfortunately she’s just doubling down.

I understand how she feels. Looking after a baby every day is as hard as going out to work, and I would argue sometimes it's even harder.
I understand that you weren't thinking and didn't intend to hurt your daughter in law. But I understand her frustration.
Does she like baseball? If so I would have just given them the tickets.

I don't think there is anything wrong with that but OP said she was taking her son out to acknowledge how hard he worked. I can understand why that would upset the daughter in law

Does she never go out with her mum while your son looks after their baby?

I think you should be able to spend time with your son without it being a problem.

It doesn’t “definitely” send any kind of message.

You seem ok to relegate MIL to the same status as cousins when it comes up seeing a member of the “little family” when kids are young. But on the hand when it comes to treating her son “DIL is family too”. Which is it?

MIL treated DS because of work stress, not because of anything to do with his household.

Agai, I had a great time when I was one maternity leave with one child. My colleagues & I talk about maternity leave wistfully. Because it a lovely time.

I enjoyed being with my baby for the most part.

I didn’t have to deal with project deadlines, colleagues I don’t like, people who won’t help me and demands I can’t met.

Looking after one baby as “as hard” as going to work? What type of work are you referring to?

The staff in my daughter’s nursery look after 3 babies each, when it’s toddlers it goes up to 7, a primary school teacher has 26-30 odd kids, fund managers have millions they could lose with consequence for people’s pensions, I have a friend who is a nurse whose patient crashed in front of her, I know of a doctor who missed a diagnosis and the patient died that evening.

Looking after one baby past the newborn stage is not, other than situations like depression, or additional needs, that hard.

@ForBusyZebra

so by this token Op’s DIL cannot do anything with her own mother unless it involves her partner?

At the end of the day a mother is allowed to spend time with their adult son or adult without their spouse being present. Simple as.

I’m on the side of mil being able to spend time with her son but just to counter this
I loved being with my babies but definitely harder than any job I’ve had as it’s relentless. All my friends say the same and going back to work was a break.

I think it really depends on what your work is. I’ve had jobs that were much easier than others.

Whwre I work people dream about their maternity leave.

Also one baby past the newborn is generally not relentless. They generally nap & sleep ok.

Compare that to a GP who has to see a different person every ten minutes, while getting calls from hospitals, paperwork etc.

I think people fall into a mindset of having babies is so hard because that is a narrative that is all over social media. I’d say absolutely there are things about having babies that are very hard - growing them, giving birth, post-birth, breastfeeding, lack of sleep. But all of that is a phase which generally passes sooner or later.

Her DIL isn’t a cousin her DIL is her son’s WIFE. Her son, his wife, and GC are now a part of their own collective family unit. A cousin isn’t so that’s apples and oranges. So separating her son from her DIL when it comes to being recognized is odd when it’s a team effort.

I understand that it’s n it the spending time together it’s the reasoning behind it. He needs a reward and a day out is definitely a passive aggressive message to the wife of, “well I’m going to take just my son out because he deserves a treat because you aren’t recognizing his efforts but you you don’t deserve a treat because he is the only one contributing to the family.”

Why couldn’t she have just said, “hey let’s go to a baseball game you and I what works for your schedule?” Not, “you need a treat for working hard for your own family.” Like it’s some short of huge act he is doing. He’s a father and of a young child working a job is literally something billions of people do everyday. The reward is the paycheck you get. NOT being a deadbeat isn’t something you should get rewarded for. I would have found it overstepping if my MIL had gotten this closely involved in my marriage this way if my MIL took my husband out rewarding him I would be thinking, “first of all he is working to provide for his child and wife not for you so why are you the one rewarding him. Second, “if we are rewarding someone for doing the bare minimum then why am I not getting recognized for carrying your GC for 9 months, putting possible risk to my body, pushing your GC out of my vagina, and caring for her everyday?”

I would have been FUMING if after looking after our child all week dealing witj my very sore breasts from pumping, the PPD that I had, the sleepless nights, the fussy baby all day. While cooking cleaning etc with little to no time as a family with my husband my MIL on the very little time we get together turned to my husband and said, “you need a treat you been working so hard let’s go out.” Yeah I would have been like wtf just HE deserves a treat what I do all week and how my body permanently changed forever means jack shit.

I read this thread to my friends and they all said the same things if their MIL pulled a stunt like this they would feel so overlooked

And again caring for a young baby doesn’t bring her DIL stress? Or is that stress ok bc she is a mother and mothers are expected to just deal with it. It’s such a boomer thing to coddle men and praise men for doing the bare minimum while overlooking women. A tale as old as time.

If it’s a tale as old as time it’s not a “boomer thing”. 😂

Also if her son seems stressed is a married man why didn’t she say anything about this to his wife? I would definitely feel like taking care of my husband as a woman is my role especially if the stress was due to something related to our family. No one has answered my question about what the big deal is with saying little family. We have one child so for right now we are a little family

All is well now. My DIL and I chatted on the phone for a little bit yesterday and I asked flat out does she feel under appreciated at home or is she upset bc she feels like I recognized my son’s effort and not hers? She said she definitely feels appreciated at home but was more so hurt by my actions.

Which I told her I could see how it could come across of me taken all the hard work she does for granted. She told me sometimes her husband doesn’t get home until after 6:00 PM and the baby is awake for maybe a half hour before bed and by that time they are both exhausted so by the time they have dinner and put the baby down they have very little time together so the weekend is precious for them to bond with their daughter together. I told her well my son said that day was ok and I went off of his word and that I do value our relationship a lot but as his mother I just wanted to do something special for my son not to diminish all the hard work she pours into her family but just like her mother once in a while might want to do something special for her.

I told her I feel like I generally do a good job at including both and treating them as a unit but this was a one off but I will make sure I recognize her hard work as well. Anyways all that being said this Saturday my son will have the baby for the afternoon and I’m going to treat my DIL to lunch and we are going to get a massage at the spa. It’s about the same amount of time she would have been by herself with the baby last Saturday. I reiterated to her I feel so bad I hurt her feelings. I really do love and care about her.

I do want to address the posters who are saying, I’m stepping on the toes of his wife by taking my son out for a treat due to his stress from work because that’s her role to notice bc he is working hard for her family and not for me. While yes that is true he is working hard for his wife and child and not me it’s not about who he is working hard for it’s about me as a mother noticing that he is stressed and having that maternal instinct to want to help out and do something about it. I don’t feel like it’s taking over his wife’s role as I am still his mother married or not and it’s nothing more or nothing less than a mother wanting to do something special for her son. Just because he is married doesn’t mean other people especially his own mother isn’t allowed to appreciate him. She doesn’t own him.

It’s not like a female friend took him out and treated him for all his hard work then we would be having a different conversation but my gosh a mother should still be able to acknowledge that is her son and not have to view him as “someone else’s husband” 24/7 without everyone saying “but he has a wife.”

Everyone isn’t saying that. Just one extremely vociferous and rather odd poster who’s borderline abusive. And I still think your DiL’s massively unreasonable which you’re now enabling.

I think your DIL was acting like a small child who threw a temper tantrum because she wasn’t getting treated . I really don’t know why you had to do so much apologising, and now treat her to a day of pampering. I mean fair enough if that’s what you enjoy, but just to get in her good books, for no reason, is ridiculous. What about the times when you do babysit for them, and her parents babysit for them? They get plenty of free time then. Do they both thank you ? Do they ever treat you for babysitting, do they ever invite you over and make dinner? Hopefully it’s not all one sided, or you are selling yourself very short .

You sound really sweet! I think it's fine to have some alone time with your son, you can just repeat the gesture with your DIL and ask if she'd like a day off with you doing childcare or what she'd prefer. Once a month babysitting sounds amazing!

You've done an awful lot of ranting on this thread about how miserable, awful, and generally haaaaaaaard is the lot of a SAHM. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say parenting isn't hard work. It is. But, as I said upthread, presumably women choose to be SAHMs because, in the main, they a) wanted a child/children and b) wanted to be a SAHM. So why all this foot-stamping and tantrumming (on the part of OP's DIL as well as on your part) about how awful it is to be a SAHM? I mean, I hope no one who's been reading your rants is currently struggling to conceive because I'm sure they'd jump at the chance of a SAHM's 'awful' life.

Could it possibly, just possibly, be as simple as both partners are working hard in their own ways, both partners are equally deserving of appreciation and downtime, but - gasp! - that doesn't necessarily mean appreciation has to be shown exactly the same way, or at exactly the same time, for both partners? Perish the thought...

As someone who has a narcissistic monster in law, you sound lovely OP. I think you were a bit unreasonable/thoughtless in only inviting your son out but your DIL clearly has a good relationship with you to be able to express her true feelings and you are making it up to her.

This is huge and honestly it's the best way. No one wins when there are huge rifts between a MIL and DIL.

Pretty sure there are many of us that wish we had a MIL like you!