Mother in law

Before I start, I would just like to say this is no criticism of my daughters in law, but a reflection on my behaviour with my own.  Of course I haven’t got a son-in-law yet, which must surely be the ultimate mother-in-law music hall joke!

It’s a fine line to tread, being a mother in law.  For one thing you become the butt of all those stereotypical jokes and you desperately don’t want to turn into that. But it’s not until you actually become one yourself that you know this.  I suddenly realised that all the times I’d moaned to my own mother-in-law about my husband, she must have really had to bite her tongue.  I was criticising her son, and in turn her. 

I have two daughters- in-law so far, and while they are far too well mannered to complain, obviously they have occasional niggles.  We joke about how their husbands have selective hearing, how they need to smarten up, drive too fast etc.  Then I think, hang on, this is my son you’re talking about, is it my fault?  Should I have done something more when they were younger? 

And then with a sinking feeling I remember all the whingeing I have done to my mother-in-law, telling her that her only son doesn’t help enough round the house, doesn’t take me out, never got up in the night with any of our four children, rarely made it to nativity plays, sport days or parents’ evenings.  I could cringe now thinking how she must have felt. 

This was her blue-eyed boy, the first born, the son she’d read stories to and bathed and played with and made her laugh.  The precious first grandson for her parents, the child they’d all been waiting for. And all I could do was moan that he never made the bed or wiped round the sink. 

Here was the boy that had passed his 11+, been the first in the family to go to university and held down a demanding job and I complained that he was never home.

Here was the man who supported me doing voluntary charity work while I sulked about not being able to afford to go out more. I’m sure my mother in law, like I am with my sons, is only too aware of their shortcomings and to have them pointed out is unnecessary.  After all it’s because of their mothers (and fathers) that they are who they are, and why we married them in the first place.  And they did choose beautiful, funny, clever and kind women as their wives!