My mother taught me a lot of things. She taught me to bake a delicious pie and roast a chicken. She taught me how to sew on a button and embroider a pillowcase. She taught me the importance of not cutting paper with my fabric scissors. Like I said, she taught me a lot of things. She taught me how to be a good wife and mother, but there is one thing (well, maybe more than one) that she didn’t teach me…she didn’t teach me how to be a good mother-in-law. Well, not intentionally anyway. She didn’t stand beside me and give lessons like she did with baking and sewing. I know she set a pretty good example, but I don’t think you learn much about mother-in-law-ing until you either have one or you become one.
Mother-ing and mother-in-law-ing are two very different kettles of fish.
Mothering begins in the heart the moment you find out you are carrying a new life within you. Mothering gives you the better part of a year to get your head wrapped around the responsibility that is about to be yours. Your relationship with your child runs deep. Your child is part of you, part of your past, present, and future. Your child is wrapped in your hopes and dreams. You grow them to adulthood; surviving potty training, puberty, grade 10 math, and the misery of their first break-up.
Your formal training starts early. In the somewhat bygone days of traditional gender roles, little girls were given dolls. We held them, fed them, changed their diapers. We were taught to be careful with them. Woe to the little girl who was caught swinging baby by it’s leg or had left it out in the yard to get baked by the summer sun. You take prenatal classes to learn how to birth your baby. You take parenting classes to learn how to handle toddler tantrums. You take part in Parent Advisory Councils to make sure you’re involved in their education. You read magazines, books, and blogs about how to be a good mom. Pinterest offers endless suggestions for successful birthday parties and Halloween costumes. In fact, parenting has it’s own category on Pinterest.
Did you ever do a Pinterest search for mother-in-law? You should try it. Suggestions for Pinterest boards include tag words like hate, evil, I hate my…, manipulative, and problem. Yikes.
You don’t really get a lot of input into the choosing of your new child-in-law. One day, your kid comes home, with their boy/girlfriend in tow and makes an announcement. And it begins.
There are no premarital courses for mother-in-laws. I can’t remember the last time I saw a book on how to be a good in-law, most of the books are on how to repair that relationship. Online articles all say pretty much the same thing: mother-in-law, just keep your mouth shut and your opinions to yourself. This seems to apply more often to mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships. Apparently mothers of sons sometimes have a hard time letting go.
At this point, I need to offer a bit of an apology to my own mother-in-law for springing myself on her the way I did. You see, the first time we met was to let her know that I had already made her a grandmother and was about to make her a mother-in-law too. To her great credit (and my father-in-law’s) they didn’t overreact – at least not in front of me and from day one, she has been a wonderful example to me of how to be a good mother-in-law!
So how do you learn to be a mother-in-law and preferably a good one?
I’m finding it’s pretty much the same as building a good friendship. I try my darndest to be supportive and encouraging. Opinionated though I may be, I mostly keep my opinions to myself and if I just have to put in my two cents, I ask first if I can offer an opinion. I listen carefully, pay attention and ask questions to help me get to know our daughter-in-law better. I’d be lying if I said I was doing it perfectly, I know I’m not. But I keep trying and I’m blessed with a daughter-in-law who seems to be pretty patient with me. (And she’s a mother of two sons, so maybe she already knows that someday she’ll be walking the same path.)
Today is our daughter-in-law’s birthday. We will be celebrating with her later, gathering together to make sure she knows that she is loved and we are so very glad and grateful to have her in our family!
So happy birthday, Dear One, and thanks…you’re making this road an easy one!
