I was thinking about writing a guide on how to be a
good mother-in-law but truthfully it can all be summed up in two words: “Shut. Up.”
My long-time motto, to which I have, alas,
faithfully failed to adhere, has always been “A closed mouth gathers no
feet.” As anyone who has read my column
for a while might guess, letting an opinion go unvoiced is not my strong
suit.
But I really try hard with my two daughters-in-law who
are truly the daughters I never had and whose good opinion is my utmost
priority. Having been a daughter-in-law
twice myself, I vowed I would be a dream mother-in-law. A friend of mine insists that’s an
oxymoron. But then, this is a woman whose
bedroom sports a throw pillow averring “The only good in-law is a dead in-law.”
I’ve learned a lot from both of my mothers-in-law
(my second husband’s mother is still living).
My first mother-in-law only ever referred to me in
the third person, even when I was there, and preferably without conjunctions,
as in: “Ask The Shiksa she wants
dessert.” These in-laws escaped from
Russia in the dead of night with the clothes on their backs, enduring incredible
hardships in their new land all so that their son the doctor, their phoenix
rising out of immigrant ashes, could marry…me? SO not
part of the plan.
Ironically, with the passage of time (and the
raising of two sons), I have tremendous empathy for her position. Now that I have adult sons, I know I would be devastated
if either of them married someone I truly thought was wrong for him, regardless
of the reason. I wish she were alive
today so I could tell her. (She’d still probably tell me to drop dead,
but I’d feel better saying it.)
My current mother-in-law actually likes me. And I adore her. Although very fond of her son’s first wife, I
think she wishes Olof and I had married the first time around. (So do my former
in-laws.)
The one thing I told both of my daughters-in-law
from the get-go was that I was trying to learn their tastes so that if I got
them a gift they didn’t like, they needed to say so. As a cautionary tale, I
relayed the saga of a friend who, as a new bride, politely gushed over a
hideous china tchotchke her
mother-in-law gave her. She has continued to receive another one for every
birthday and Christmas for the last 34 years.
Two years ago, her mother-in-law surprised her with a display case for
them.
Honestly, I knock myself out to stay on my
daughters-in-law’s good sides, and fortunately they are such sweethearts that
they make it easy for me. But
occasionally, despite my best efforts, I just screw it up. When my tiny grandkids were down visiting a few
months ago, I thought it would be really fun to take a bunch of cheapo on-sale
hotdog buns down to our favorite sunset spot to feed the seagulls. Now at the time, the sun was setting at
around 5:00, so it was just before dinner.
Neither of my daughters-in-laws are food fanatics but they quite
reasonably prefer to maximize the nutritional value of whatever they happen to
be feeding their kids. So as you might
guess, not a lot of white bread.
But as soon as we got down to the sunset place and
each kid had a bag of hotdog buns in hand, they started eating them instead of
tearing off pieces for the birds. (“Whoa!
You don’t even have to chew this stuff!”) Mom quickly confiscated the buns and handed
them pieces to throw but these went into mouths just as quickly, despite
admonishments to the contrary. I could see daughter-in-law’s jaw
tightening. This well-intentioned happy
activity was tanking fast. It was such a
good idea! Which so totally failed! Kids were, of course, way too full of nutritionally-bankrupt
processed flour product to eat dinner. My daughter-in-law was totally nice about it. But in my mind’s eye, I feared becoming
fodder for her next dinner party.
Sadly I know women who really don’t like their
daughters-in-law and have even engaged in the ultimate mother-in-law act of
aggression, i.e. sending the grandchildren drum sets for Christmas. I’m going to continue to be phenomenally
grateful that I ended up with the daughters-in-law that I did. But next time: whole wheat buns. After dinner.
No comments:
Post a Comment