to want mol (mother-out-law)to stop arranging things for us?

[ilovetochat]

we are busy enough as it is.
OLs love visiting people, they visit us once a week , youngest son 4 or 5 times a week, middle son once a week, then they visit an old neighbour weekly, sister and brother weekly, sister's widow weekly, dp's ex weekly, you get the idea, they are retired and drift from house to house, sometimes leaving ours at 8pm going on to someone else before going home. fine, nowt to do with us.
except that when they visit all these people they talk about dp and our dd and show them pics, most of these people are in their 70s and 80s so they are interested and ask about dd and say they haven't seen her ever/in a while and they would love to see her. then OLs visit us and say their old neighbour wants us to visit or dps auntie's friend or FILs schoolfriend.
These are people i have never met in 7 years with dp, dp never sees/speaks to them and we don't want to visit them.
OLs then pester saying what day will we visit them as they are keen to see us and if we say we are busy they say oh next week then. they can't understand why we don't want to go round all their friends visiting.
DP works mon-fri and every other saturday and an occasional evening in the week, he also has a meeting one evening a week and goes to the gym etc. OLs visit one night a wk, we maybe have 2 nights a week to ourselves and sunday and have our own friends too.
why can't they tell these people we are busy, why do they have to involve us and then we look like the bead guys for letting people down.

don't mind them showing them as such but im not keen on them keeping them when they don't know us and we dont know them, i mean why would you want a picture of a child you don't know and you dont know the childs parents? not sinister necessarily but you never know.
and then if we did these planned visits what would we talk about with people we have never met before, strange i think and we wont be going.

I don't think they'll be missing out by not getting a visit from someone as self-absorbed as you.

feel free to go in our place florence as you are so perfect

Is there a birthday or an occasion coming up you could organise that they would like to celebrate with all these fiends and you could go and 'visit' them all at the same time. Your dc would be the belles of the ball!

OOPS friends not fiends (or...)

I can totally relate to the OP.... and unlike Florence think it is a little odd to be totally happy about complete strangers having copies of photos of your children. My MOL is exactly the same, has no hobbies/is bored/won't leave the house without POL, but likes to think she's doing "good turns" and assumes that we don't mind all her random acquaintances knowing every minute aspect of our lives. Consequently I keep her at arms length as much as possible and watch everything we say around her. Think there's also definitely a distinction between your in-laws and parents friends whom you've grown up with yourself, and then just their recent random/newly-formed acquaintances.

screamingabdab, I agree in that it would be lovely to see older people enjoying the company of toddlers, but more often than not I just seem to experience tut-tutting and disapproving looks at little ones' exuberance......

I can't believe someone is suggesting that you should actually include these total strangers in your life in any way. They are not your friends, you have not chosen them, you wouldn't recognise them if they were waiting at the same bus stop right next to you. Why on earth could anyone expect you to visit them, invite them to a birthday party or anything at all?

ilovetochat, completely with you. Be non-committal for ever!

thanks all, i agree that its nice at parties to see some family you hardly ever see and some of these people, like the old neighbour (who dp lived by till he was 4) we do visit occasionally like 4 times a year and dps aunties widow would be at parties etc.
but a friend the OLs have met at a carboot sale or the aunties friend or FOLs schoolfriend who we have never met in our lives wouldnt really be at any parties and we will never be visiting them.
lily i think we have the same MOL, she has no hobbies, cant drive, needs FOL to go everywhere with her and the only thing she enjoys is visiting, except when they come here weekly they say can you put emmerdale on now, now can we watch coranation st etc so dont really chat to us.

if i thought DP had a secret brother, lol.... definitely the same MOL.... the soaps thing drives me mental - and I can't make conversation about them as I don't bloody watch them, much to her disgust, ggggrrrrrr

Oh dear, I sympathise completely. My iL's are forever telling people we will be places without telling us, then acting disappointed and saying we've let everyone down when we can't make it.

weird things arent they, OLs
MOL tricks me sometimes she says ilove do you like my cardigan, i say yes its nice and warm looking (it has dog pics on it) and she says oh i will get you one, i say no thanks its not my style, oh so you dont like it then. aaagh i cant win.
also, she says we had a lovely time monday at a carboot, its great, so i try and be polite saying that sounds good did you buy anything etc, then she says oh come next week and tells dp we are thinking of all going, no we are not.
lily - MOL will say did you see emmerdale this week, i say no, so she proceeds to tell me in great detail what has happened. then FOL gets in on the act telling me about smallville which i have never seen in my life but he keeps saying oh you know sos and so, no, married to sos and so, no, lives at x, no. it takes all night.

screamingabdabs

bit of a hijack but could you give me some details of this project to take children into residential homes. Both my parents and DH parents are dead and the children have no grandparents. They would love to build up a relationship with an older person who perhaps doesn't have grandchildren nearby and I don't know where to start.