Finding my MIL increasingly odd..and we have a baby on the way..Help!

[itdoesnthurttohavemanners]

I have been with DH for 2 years now. MIL has always been a little strange, and although we are civil, I don't see that we will ever be friends as such.

I am expecting our first baby, and MIL is already annoying me with her comments and general attitude. FWIW she had 4 children, and none of them reached their full potential. Her only daughter is 28 and practically 28 stone, and living in squalor (even though her own house is fairly posh). She told me the other week that I should enjoy the baby/toddler stage of parenting, because once they get to the age where they have an opinion, there is nothing you can do for them, and you have to sit back and just watch what path they choose in life, even if you don't like it. LIKE ERM...WHAT??!!! Basically, I think she was a lazy parent. Personally, if my daughter was 28 stone, unemployed (and happy to be so), taking drugs and generally wasting her life away, I'd feel hugely responsible and be dragging her back into some kind of sense! DH is incredibly bitter that neither of his parents took any interest in his education and he left school with no qualifications (he has dyslexia) as he had no support at home. He said that neither parent ever attended parents' evenings, did not read his school reports and knowingly sent him to a rubbish school (MIL has confirmed this to me, but said that she didn't receive a good education and it didn't do her any harm!) This is just the tip of the iceberg, but overall I would say that my attitudes to parenting differ vastly from hers.

Anyways, with our baby on the way, I am most concerned as to the influence she will have on her grandchild. Would I be unreasonable to limit the amount of contact? They do not live close by anyways (2.5hr drive) so surely it would be more 'normal' for the baby to have a closer relationship with my parents anyway? MIL overfed all four of her children, all of whom were obese as children, and 2 are still morbidly obese now as adults. DH was 17 stone at 13 yo, and is now a healthy 12 stone (he's 5'11) - yet MIL comments that I'm not feeding him correctly and he looks malnourished. I would not want to leave our baby with MIL as I know she'd be forcefeeding him/her!!!

Finally, and most concerningly, PILS have 2 dogs. They are big dogs, Vymeramers (spelling?!), and I don't trust them. They are not walked regularly, are somewhat overweight and very barky/snappy. The very first time I met them, one of them jumped up and scratched me horrifically down one arm (MIL doesn't believe that you need to clip the claws of dogs!) which took 2 weeks to heal. I told DH that I do not want to take our baby into their house unless the dogs are contained in a secure room. DH is absolutely in agreement with this, but last week MIL said she couldn't see the problem with the dogs and that the baby would just have to 'learn' that dogs are part of their life!!!! I'm allergic to these dogs, so struggle to spend longer than a few hours at their house anyway, as she makes no effort to hoover the dog hairs before I come or keep them away from me. MIL and PIL keep saying they want to see much more of us once we have had the baby I can't think of anything worse :( I'm worried about the safety of the baby, and do not want to have to be constantly biting my tongue about various things.

Sorry this has rambled on a little bit. Not even sure it is making much sense. Overall, I guess I am asking - Do you believe it's important for your child to have a good/strong relationship with your MIL? How do you cope when your views/values differ greatly from hers? What would you do about the dog situation? As it stands at the moment, unless she agrees to get rid of the dogs when we visit (i.e secure in another room), I don't even want to get out of the car! What would you do? Suggest? Opinions please?

Hello :)

Didn't want to leave this unanswered and not sure how much I can help but here it goes..

PiL also have a horrible dog, not exercised enough, snappy, bites, barks and nasty..since the latest biting incident P and I both agreed dog is not anywhere nor ever will be near DCs. (I don't go into PiL house due to Toxic Dad so I have to trust P does this which I am pretty sure he does.)

No animal should ever really 1000% be trusted with young children imo and you should always trust your instincts as a Mama in regards to anything to do with DC as that is there best protection :)

With regards to forging strong relationships with PiL do what you feel is right..sounds like they are not that great a company anyway..do they visit you often? Its not your duty or obligation to visit more often and if they want involvement it works both ways..what does your DH think? Does he want his parents involved lots? Its difficult as its your DH's parents..I know in my situation I would rather not DC had too much time with FiL due to toxic/dernaged mindset but I try to manage the time spent there etc..fortunately he is lazy so kids have to be taken to him BY P..he didnt bother meeting dd till her christening at 8 days old then not till she was 13 weeks..he lives next door!!!!! So I guess its easier for me in that respect/
..plus he ignores me so I dont have to deal with him (he even ignores dcs when they are with me :( trying to get a deposit asap to get out of here asap!

I'd probably just let comments/views wash right over me as they are clearly a little off the wall. If you did try offer the alternative view would it really be listened to anyway?

reading this over its probably not that helpful and for that I apologise..I just really empathised with your post and I hope you have a wonderful pregnancy :)

xx

Hi OP, I grew up in a family dynamic that is similar to your DH. From what you have described, I think that your PIL were very neglectful of your DH and their siblings when they were growing up. Your MIL seems to think that 'love' = overfeeding, which is something my mother does to me. Hence why her children were all overweight when they were young. However, some really important issues of child rearing seemed to have escaped your PIL's notice/care - such as making sure your DH had a good education and teaching them about taking care of themselves in a healthy way.

I haven't commented on the other issues, but there is a very good book you and your DH should read about toxic parenting, because your PIL seem to fit into that category. 'Toxic Parents' by Susan Forward was a godsend to me when I trying to figure out what was going on in my family. Good luck with the pregnancy and I hope there is a way for you to move forward from this.

I think if you see them once a month or so, they would have very little impact on your child's upbringing to be totally honest. A bit of "overfeeding" when they get older, in an otherwise healthy diet is fine (I think most GPs fill their GCs with sugar to be honest).

The dogs thing I would hate though, I hate jumpy scratchy dogs anyway. I would have to put my foot down and say the dogs are locked in another room/outside or you meet elsewhere or they come to you instead.

As for whether its important to have a strong relationship - I think it's probably nice if you can, but my DS is growing up thousands of miles from his GPs and won't ever have a strong relationship, but he won't know any different. Lots of people don't have any family so on balance, I think it's probably positive if you can make it so, but certainly your DC won't suffer if you don't see them all the time.

I think living 2.5hrs away it will be fine. No need for 'enforcing' any kind of limited contact.
Not having baby in a room with the dogs is NBU.

don't worry yourself too much about it all at this stage. If the IL's live 2.5 hours away, then for any visits you and/or your DH are clearly going to be there with the baby too. it will also mean visits are less often than if they lived 30 mins away.

We had a very well behaved dog when DS was born, but he was still never left alone with DS. If I had to answer the door, go to the loo etc. dog was put in the utility room behind his baby gate first.

When your baby is born you will develop your own way of doing things and just make clear to MIL and your own mother what your way is. I would insist on keeping the dogs under control at MIL's though. Wait until baby is born and then make rules clear, but don't stress now, enjoy your pregnancy.

Also- try not to judge your MIL too much for her remarks re her dd: she clearly feels bad about her and wishes things would be otherwise. From what you say it sounds like she may have played a part in some of her dd's problems- getting her used to unhealthy food as a child- but is unlikely that she is actually force feeding her drugs or actively preventing her from getting a job.

Your SIL is an adult and has to take responsibility for her own life. One day that will happen to your baby too.

This is one of the scary things we take on when we have children (and I know you won't want to hear this now): we can teach them things and we can show them things and we can get them used to the idea that this is what those nice sensible people my parents think is a good way to live- but once they get beyond a certain age, we cannot make their life decisions for them.

I have a 12yo and a 15yo and I am already very aware that they are getting to a stage where they are forming their own opinions which will colour the way they lead their lives when they become independent. I can hope, but I cannot control for much longer.

We have wonderful, wise, insightful, caring posters on here whose adult or almost-adult children have gone badly off the rails. They are powerless to stop it, because you cannot stop an adult from making his or her own decisions. It's taught me to be less judgy.

Why is it more 'normal' for your baby to have a closer relationship with your parents? If you have a ds will you expect to have a secondary relationship with your grandchildren?

That aside, no animal should be left alone with a young child and if you don't think they are suitable for your dc you don't have to see therm too much as distance is clearly a factor. However, keep an open mind, maybe they will be great with your baby.

Thank you everyone for the comments. I was having a total stress about this last night, sat at home on my home! You all make some really good points. Agree that I should worry about this more when the baby is actually here, still another four months to go.

I'll just ignore some of the comments for now (like when she had a complete fit because we said we weren't going to find out the sex of the baby, we wanted a surprise. She said I was being selfish because she wanted to know whether she was having a granddaughter or a grandson!) Having had a later mmc in the past, I'm just going to be extremely grateful for a healthy baby at the end and am struggling to enjoy the pregnancy as it is.

DH has taken some academic courses since he has been with me, and has gained much pleasure from studying and the sense of achievement he has derived. MIL actually told him he was wasting his time because clearly he wasn't clever enough. Not once did she say well done, she simply said he should be out working! (which he was at the same time). DH has said recently to me that the more he sees his mum from outside the family home (if that makes sense) the more he thinks she has some issues of her own which could be to blame for the way she brought him and his siblings up.

Anyway, thank you for the comments. The important bit I think (from re-reading!) is making sure that the dogs are not left alone with the baby. That I will definitely insist on, and we won't leave the baby alone with them if we are at all unsure they will follow that.

cory Sorry, I realise I must have come across somewhat judgemental. I know that you can never predict exactly what will happen, but just be there to support/guide etc.

Just that she decided her kids were too hard work (and able to make their own decisions) when they were still primary aged!!!!!! She said it's pointless trying to get kids to behave, they either will or they won't. At high school, they were allowed to skive etc, at college age, if they got a job and didn't like it, then they just quit - any hobbies they did have, they were allowed to quit as they liked etc. Just very very different from my loving upbringing where we were taught to have responsibilities for our actions and to think about the consequences of quitting etc. (Mum would obviously let us quit something if we were desperately unhappy, but if for example, we were halfway through a training course and doing well, she would not have let us quit just because we weren't seeing enough of our friends!!!!) I think the fact that 3 of her children have gone wayward (won't explain the others, will take too long!) says her way wasn't so successful.

Oh. And just a random point - but does anyone else think it's a little odd that you would have four children and have not ONE single photo of any of them in your house??! Not one. Not that my mums is full, but there are piccies about of me and my brother from various ages (school pics) or graduation pics etc. Just seems very very odd to me!

Urgh, it sounds to me as if all of you (you, DH and the new baby) would benefit from less time spent with this toxic woman.

Good on your DH for managing to overcome a shitty start in life, and please do NOT fret about this. At 2.5 hours away, visits will be minimal and well spaced throughout the year. Learn to nod and smile and let it all washover you when you do see her and put her out of your mind in the time between visits.

"You've had your babies, MIL" will suffice if she starts telling you how to parent your DC.

I have a friend who's house I haven't visited with DD as she has a yappy bouncy clawy dog. She hasn't even noticed as we meet elsewhere (where she doesnt bring her dog) such as a friend's house, or my house. Is there anyone close to MIL that you could visit (another IL perhaps) and arrange to meet MIL there? That way no dog.

The baby has to learn to be with the dogs? Bollocks to that. That attitude alone would mean that I wouldn't take a baby into the house.

I have an ex whose parents were like this. Interestingly, he and his siblings all went back to FE college as adults in their spare time and started to build up some qualifications, as they didn't have a GCSE between them and they were all working in dead-end jobs. The mother was very good at twittering on about how they 'never really took school seriously'. FFS.

It is your values that you will bring up your child with. I don't see the problem with inviting the in-laws to visit and spend time with you your DC, though - it's good for a child to know who their grandparents are, even if they are a bit batty. (And you can gently let your DC know that you think they are a bit ... eccentric.)

linerunner that's EXACTLY what the MIL says! As if it's the children's fault!!!!!

Well, the light at the end of tunnel is that loads of FE colleges do courses for people who left school without qualifications, and most are very welcomong these days to people with dyslexia and other potential obstacles to learning; so your DP has lots of options, thank goodness.

You need to rise above the mad old bat, as a family.

You never know, she may be good at something with your DC one day - endless boring games of Monopoly or jigsaws or Morris Dancing or something...

I have lovely parents in law and would love to see them once a month but we struggle to do so as although they only live an hour away we are quite often going to parties with DD at weekends as well as extra curricular activities. On top of this we try not to take any colds/ illnesses down to them as FIL has chest problems.

I would say you could easily limit visits to your PILs in many ways, perhaps it would be best in view of the dogs and their strange opinions if they came to visit you in any case. At least then you would be in control of the dog issue and the food! If they question why you never visit you can tell her exactly what your reasons are. They can't make you visit them!