How (Not) To Be A Mother-in-Law

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published December 9, 2024] ©2024

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 embroidered “The only good in-law is a dead in-law.”  A tad harsh, I think.

I’ve learned a lot from both of my mothers-in-law.

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 second mother-in-law (Olof’s mother) actually liked me.  And I adored her. My own mother died when I was 25 so Olof’s mother was truly a second mother to me.  Although 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-laws’ good sides, and fortunately they are such sweethearts that they make it easy for me.  But occasionally, despite my best efforts, I’ve just screwed it up.  When my young grandkids were down visiting one time, 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 of the year, 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.  It was like, “Whoa! You don’t even have to chew this stuff! It’s nothing like the 12-grain cement blocks Mom feeds us!”

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 my daughter-in-law’s jaw tightening.  This well-intentioned happy activity was tanking fast.  It was such a good idea!  Which so totally failed!  The 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.

 

Living In A "Dog House"

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published December 2, 2024] ©2024

After our beloved English bulldog Winston died suddenly of a heart attack in our living room in 2016, Olof and I were so flattened that we swore we'd never have another dog. It's too depressing when they die plus so insanely expensive when they get sick. Never mind we're getting old.

But a few months later, a local rescue agency with radar for mushballs asked us to foster a dog just for "one week,"  and before we knew it, we were suddenly the adoptive parents of Lily, a then-7-year-old 15-pound bichon-poodle with rotten teeth and breath so bad it could scorch your eyebrows. Lily has now been an essential member of the household for eight years.

Dogs, even perpetually sick ones, give you the relationships you can only dream of having with people. For example, they would never roll their eyes at you, especially knowing how totally annoyed it makes you.

Keeping our house safe for democracy has always been Lily's full-time job. It's pretty much always DEFCON 3 here with the garbage trucks on Mondays, the lawn mowing guy on Wednesday, and the pool guy with that big scary pole on Thursdays.

While Lily ultimately became fast friends with our treat-toting pool guy, she regards our lawn maintenance man as her mortal enemy. The second he shows up with his lawn mower, 17 pounds of enraged white fluff is hurling itself at our French doors. "He's stealing our grass! Again! And you let him!"   She is eager to sink her three remaining teeth into the side of his mower.

Like many dogs, Lily considers it her personal duty to defend us from faunish peril as well, including and especially tiny lizards. Our back doors are open pretty much year-round to let air in and Lily out, so it is not surprising that occasionally a small reptile makes a wrong turn and ends up in the house. Recently Lily saw one scurry from the hallway into the guest bath. An alien life form had breached the barricades and invaded her personal territory! Totally unacceptable! When I came to investigate her frantic barking, I found her standing at alert just outside the open bathroom door, one foot up in pointer position. This would make more sense if she were actually a pointer, rather than a bichon-poodle mix. But she wanted me to be clear that the intruder was still in there. "You will not go in there on my watch!"  she seemed to be saying. 

But go in there and rout it out herself? Heck no.

And while we're on the subject of bathrooms, it is not surprising that dogs would consider bathroom activities to be social events. From Lily's perspective, every time she makes a shadoobie, we're always standing right there, opaque bag at the ready. The fact that we don't seem to need bags ourselves is irrelevant; it's still a communal activity. If the bathroom door is not closed tightly, Lily will nose it open and join the occupant. In fact, she's fairly annoyed if you exclude her and will park herself just outside the door where you can easily trip over her and do a face plant into the armoire which would serve you right for being so anti-social.

Once inside the bathroom, she will join Olof as he stands in front of the commode. She assesses the proceedings with the laser focus of an Olympic figure skating judge. Artistic presentation? Meh. But given the added difficulty elements inherent in Olof s age, she is more than willing to bump up the score for technical merit.

If you're a dog, there are always new threats to the household. Who knew that the toilet plunger in the guest bath could have been taken over by malevolent forces? She snarls viciously at it to let it know that its behavior will not be tolerated. I will finally come in and hide the plunger in a closet (vanquished!) Lily is genuinely baffled that we seem to be clueless as to the dangers in our midst.

When Lily arrived, we acquired a new feeding station with high sides. However, she still manages to hurl the occasional piece of kibble out on to the floor and then drag it into the carpet in our bedroom where we step on it in our bare feet and say bad words.

One of her favorite activities is to stuff toys under the sofa and carry on until we fetch them for her.  (We are so trainable.)

As an older dog, she will suddenly need to go outside at 3 a.m. As in, this instant. I barely have time to slip on my shoes and get the door open. Given the coyote situation, I don't dare have her outside in the front yard without me. Sometimes our newspaper delivery guy will pull up and see me running around my front yard in my nightgown in the middle of the night. I'm not sure he realizes I'm with the dog. I tip him well at Christmas.

We, of course, continue to be under the spell of Lily's charms. She gets lots of rubs, toy tosses, and attention, which is, of course, her due. In her view, she is an insanely attractive animal (regardless of the cruel things people say about her prominent snaggle tooth), and she has perfected all manner of adorable faces on us. When she tilts her head to one side and lifts her paw, we are powerless against her. It makes us think she is genuinely sorry for puking on the rug.

But for all that, this is her house. She s running the show. And we're so appreciative she lets us live here.

 Lily, guard dog extraordinaire