Ask a DIL...

DIL123, if you've learned nothing else from this thread you'll have picked up that a lot of grans are very twitchy about any perceived criticism. Stay strong. As Bionicwoman said up thread, grandparents should listen more than they talk. Quite right.

I'm with m0nica in not really understanding the possessiveness of some grandparents, the wanting to have and to hold and have grandkids stay overnight from a very early age. Fortunately my DD has never wanted me to have hers overnight without her! I'd do it in an emergency but it's never been something I yearned to do. I like having my DD visit as much as I like having the grandkids.

cassandra don't push them!!
The girlfriend might run.
I had a lovely boyfriend when I was young but his mother was extremely pushy - although, funnily enough I was very fond of her! - but I think it did drive a wedge between him and me.
I married someone else.

Undoubtedly parenting is more prescriptive these day and mothers in particular are under even more scrutiny for their parenting ability than ever before, but I think also Grandparents, especially grandmothers have also begun to see their grandchildren as the be all and end all of their lives in a way that previous generations did not.

Both my grandmothers lived within walking distance when I was small, and I adored them, but neither was involved in any significant way in my day to day care. It was wartime, my father was serving overseas and my mother was effectively a single parent, but that made no difference. One certainly helped in emergencies and in illness and I saw both regularly, but otherwise my mother was expected to manage.

Things were not much different when my own children were small. Both sets of grandparents lived further away, but help was always there in emergencies and for occasional sleep-overs, but again the feeling was that they were our children and we should cope.

Perhaps if grandparents were to distance themselves a bit and not run their lives around their grandchildren and at times, not become almost psychologically dependent on having their grandchildren in their lives, relationships with their parents would be better. I am not talking about where necessary childcare is provided, but even that should not be open ended.

When I was young I thought I knew everything. I didn't have a good relationship with my MIL because I never tried. She died of Cancer two years after I married her favorite son. After all these years I look back now and regret all the missed moments. We have but one picture of her holding my oldest daughter at three months of age. I have only to see the look of love and devotion in that woman's eyes to realize me how young, insensitive and foolish I was to have squandered the short amount of time we both had left to become friends. Life is too short for MIL's and DIL's to be at odds over love for their families. That is something that should bring us together, never separate.

I have just read through this thread, what a shame that DIL123 felt she couldn't contribute further. This is a very emotive subject and a DIL perspective is valuable in being able to understand why this matters causes so much angst. Maintaining good relationships is key but also for MIL and DIL to recognise when certain behaviours cause hurt and be big enough to apologise and forgive. Sons have a part to play in managing MIL expectations and communicating clearly. I have a disastrous relationship with my ex DIL and have had to fight to maintain contact with my grandchildren but happy to see them when I do. I now stay out of any emotional scrum and sit on the sidelines until asked to join the team. Its a much happier place for me and less tension for the children. Child rearing today appears to be more complex than my day and mothers seem to be bombarded with advice which makes them feel they have to do things right and they feel insecure in their abilities -add an experienced and competant MIL to the mix - only adds to Mums insecurity as she may feel she doesn't 'come up to scratch". I tried really hard not be that demanding MIL, to offer support and understand the parenting style - such as baby lead weaning and attachment parenting but we got off on the wrong foot from the off (still don't know why) and circumstances within the family deteriorated with catastrophic impact on my DGs. So MILs bite your tongue, accept that things are different now and enjoy life beyond grandchildren. DILs recognise the value MILs can bring and embrace their experience. In the end its the children that count.

Suzzied. You should get a dog and that would solve the crumb problem. When my DG are eating he sits under the table just waiting and wet wipes are always on offer.

I think DIL 123 might be the DiL of the OP who posted a while back about offering her DGD a piece of orange and having problems.

The relationship between MiL and DiL will always be contentious and frustrating for most as it always has been. There are of course the lucky few who do get on well with MiL.

Hi DIL123. All I want to know is, how do I get one of you?!!

My son is in his mid thirties and over the past seventeen years I have been introduced to seven significant others. One was sufficiently significant to share his life and start to plan for a wedding - and it broke his heart when she found someone else - but that was about ten years ago, and he now lives and works in another part of the UK, where he tells me he is now very happy.He is attractive to women, but I do not think he takes advantage of this,and gets on well with most people of all ages and both sexes.

I have liked ALL his girlfriends. They have - every one of them - been decent, hard working, intelligent girls - who have also been prepared to get on with his old Mum. The latest is no exception - and this one is also a really caring person who clearly thinks the world of him and wants an LTR. The only trouble for me is that she is his age,so if he does not get his finger out, their chances of having children may be reduced, as has happened already in our extended family.Also,a (younger) friend of mine had a son with Down's Syndrome when she was around 40 and though the child is/was much loved,I saw what a big impact this had on their whole family.

I have never interfered with the upbringing of my daughter's only offspring - she lives at a distance, so maybe this helps! I am also lucky to have a good relationship with both my adult children.But I am now in my late 60's and time is running out for me if not for him.I would like to think that I might live long enough to become more than a framed picture on the wall to any other GC......But if I mutter about any of this, I am told by my son to back off. Which I can, in fairness, understand.

But what I think now is this. My father's generation who survived WW2 could not wait to get back to the UK and get a life. They did not think they needed to be in a relationship for 5 years plus with as many girls before they took the plunge. They knew they needed to grab a good thing while they had it - and I suspect the percentage of marital success achieved was probably not a lot different from today....Time is not an inexhaustible resource.

Any dissatisfied DILs who want to chat to an old lady about stuff, send them in my direction. I am on their side. Well, I used to be a girl once myself, who was warned by her then fiance that the more he liked a girl, the more his mother hated her.......!

I hope you're still reading this thread DIL123 as I have a question for you which will follow some back ground information.

We were very close to our estranged d.i.l., well I thought we were. We gave her a job; she'd fallen out with her own parents so they married abroad with only myself and Mr. S. present; they moved just 15 doors down the road from us just before they got married, my ES said tongue in cheek, it was so they could have free child care. When she became pregnant with the first child I was asked to have him 2 or 3 days a week when she went back to work, I accepted; we used to hug one another and say 'I love you', and I did love her; on the eve of their wedding I gave her my bride's bible that my wedding bouquet was attached too, it was the most precious thing I could have given. She used to say she wished I was her mother.

The first time we saw our GS and held him you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. When we popped in to see them, asking if it was OK first, you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. If we held him, you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. And no, it wasn't post natal depression, everyone else was welcome to hold him, change him etc.; it was just us.

I kept suggesting that we go out to buy all the things we'd need for me to look after him at our home when she went back to work but nothing was ever arranged. Eventually, we purchased the things we would need; a cot, high chair, safety gates etc as her return to work was getting closer. She got another job, 3 days a week so I was asked to have him one day a week as he'd be going to a childminder for the other two. Then, I received a 'phone call from her telling me that our son had re arranged his working week so he'd be available one day a week and the child minder would have him for the other two. I wasn't going to be looking after him because I hadn't spent enough time with him.

If we invited them to our home, they were never available; things went from bad to worse and 4.5 years ago we were CO. I have the hand written note from our ES in which he stated we were no longer a part of his or our GC's lives and were to stay away. After we'd been CO the lies began to surface, the lies that first she and then both of them had been coming out with for more than a year; their precursor to cutting us out.

Sorry for the long post, it could have been a lot longer believe you me; now for my question WHY????

"...how come always the husbands' mothers?"

Is it? Mostly, I think. But Iv noticed that a few of the egps on GN are the wife's mother. So it's not "always" a mil/dil problem.

Experigran - how sad! I think the dad needs to handle this though. He needs to speak to the doctor and maybe insist that baby has a name. And she needs to understand that her niece's opinion doesn't matter - baby needs a name. But if she's suffering from serious ppd, maybe she can't yet.

I was very lucky to have a wonderful MIL and even after I was divorced from her son she remained the same as ever with me and does to this day. I was 17 when I met her and I'm 63 now and she's 88 and still lovely .Shes been more of a mother to me than my own mother was and a fantastic Nanny to our two girls.

Hear hear Leticia, that is EXACTLY the problem, ie how come always the husbands' mothers? We're being blatantly marginalised as if - and I got this from a horse's mouth - they are 'the other woman'. I am hearing of this discrimination again and again from others and it is also my own experience.

A young woman friend of a friend is the horse's mouth and told me how shocked and disappointed she is in her peers that they treat their MILs in this way and admit it. She could not understand why...

Here's how it feels DIL 123: you're controlling for your own over- involved (with you) mothers to get the lion's share of everything at the expense and, frankly, intended humiliation of the husbands' mothers.

Thanks for your input. She chose Christopher herself. It was her grandfather's name. She has been asked if she could call him by a nickname but prefers to call him gorgeous. He'll love that when he goes to school. Her niece sent her an email soon after to say she doesn't like the name -her own great grandfather's name and it has stemmed from there. Christopher looks so sad and lost. She is always doing things with him, but just refuses to call him by any name. The problem is that neither does anyone else now, or it causes an argument. We just don't know what to do other than speaking to her doctor. She really needs help as does Christopher.

Some of your hostile responses to DIL illustrate how hostile some MIL's can be as you don't seem to want to listen to DIL. Is this how you spend to your own DIL when she says something you don't agree with.

My observation is that being a mum for most people is the happiest time of their lives. ( that's why some people keep having babies). It is also a time when we are our own boss and can be in charge of our home and children. When people become GM's they want to relive that time through the grandchild forgetting they are not the mother.

Since you had your children research has changed child care and practices a lot. At this point GMs say well my child was ok so what's wrong with the way we did it. Well I expect your mother said exactly the same when you did things differently.

My final point is that for some DIL they find it difficult to cope with this women she has to share her husband with and vice versa.

Everyone is different and it is great if you don't have problems but many people do.

Lizzypopbottle , my MIL was the same exact way. Practically tried to force me to go back to work even though she knew we planned for a long time in being a SAHM. Along with endless advice and constant pressure and guilting to see them more although we already saw them all the time. Before I even had the baby it was decided they would have him for sleepovers. Nothing wrong with that usually, grandparents and family can be wonderful for those kinds of things, but as much as parents shouldn't force child care on grandparents, grandparents should not force their AC to leave their kids with them either? Sure GPs are family, but not always the best caregivers. I would say that same thing about my own mum. She loved my children and saw them regularly, but if she watched them on a regular basis on top of seeing us as much as she did my kids would be spoiled brats. Anyways, I would never expect grandparents to just be my free nanny, nor should they expect their ACs to use them as that either if they don't want to!
In my case years back I found the best way to deal with our family and to have a good relationship with them was to visit with them as a family, but we had a babysitter for our kids. Our kids grew up having a great relationship with GPs probably because of that fact.

Has no-one else noticed similarities between the OP and a recent thread from someone complaining about her DIL? The mention of giving unsuitable foods to taste etc. Just wondered if it's the same MIL/DIL.

I had rules for my mum to follow 55 years ago. Why would I not want what was best for my children?

Thatbags I'm talking about now not 30 or 40 years ago when our children were young and we left them quite happily unlike now where some gp have to jump through hoops just to prove their suitability to look after their gc

I don't agree, Sweetcakes. My parents and parents in law weren't pushy or stand offish. They took their cues from their grandchildren's parents. That's all there is to it. Grandparents shouldn't come over with already set ideas about how they want things to be.

I think Lizzypop has hit on the kind of annoying stuff that the OP might have been thinking about. It's ridiculous to put pressure on new mums to leave their babies in someone else's care if they haven't volunteered to do that and asked for help with the child-minding. The pressure put on Lizzypop's daughter is so wrong.

I think these day's Gp are caught between a rock and a hard place if they take to much notice and want to be involved they are perceived as controlling and if they take a step back then they are uncaring we just can't win. I follow what my Dil's wants and dislikes are and maintain them however like other gp I do have rules at home I look at them as safety rules for their own protection I remember my own sons tea tray and stairs need I say more!!
But I remember when I left my boys with my mother and father for a weekend they would be well looked after and never had a second moments thought about it I trusted them now it texts every hour checking up its sad really

DIL123, good idea for a post. Having been a DIL I know how a relationship can go wrong and I understand why frustrations happen.

I will be a MIL soon and I'm going to use the bad experiences I had to avoid making the same mistakes as my (late) MIL did.

I just want people to be happy, myself included, and I'll do my best to make it so. xx

Until I joined Gransnet I didn't realise so many families had MiL/DiL problems.

I had a lovely MiL and rubbed along with FiL, who was an elderly father so an elderly and ill grandfather and we get on so well with DDil and her family that both sides see themselves as one family linked by the marriage of our DS with their DD.

Of course we are not perfectly matched in every way, but where has the normal tolerance that enables us to rub along with other people with different attitudes and views gone? Surely this tolerance should exist even more in family relationships?

We were all DiL's once, even the oldest of us, and some of us still have ongoing relationships with our MiLs. Most of those are successful and rewarding - it is the failed ones which get all the anguished posts. I don't think we really need to ask the OP why DiLs get annoyed about what MiLs do. All that is needed is for them (some of them) to use their imagination and their memories of what it was like to have a baby or small child, and then apply the Do-as-you-would-done-by rule.

Similarly, DiLs (some of them) could just use THEIR imagination to consider just how emotional a thing it is when your baby has a baby, and how much MiLs want to be involved and helpful - and apply the Do-as-you-would-done-by rule too.

Hard to believe, perhaps, but granny has done it all before, and often got it right, too. "We are none of us infallible, not even the youngest of us." William Hepworth Thompson (27 March 1810 – 1 October 1886 - there is nothing new in the perception of the young that they are the only ones to be in the right)

I typed deferentially and my kindle substituted preferentially ?

DIL123 My daughter has experienced huge pressure to go back to work, out for meals and drinks etc. and leave her child in someone else's care as much by her friends as by her mother-in-law! She has had no burning desire to leave her child at all but plenty of others think she should. She certainly has felt pressure from her parents-in-law to have them to baby sit or to leave her child at their house overnight. They bought a cot for their house before her child was born!

I had an excellent relationship with my own mother-in-law. She was a lovely, kind person and was aware and respectful of boundaries. She never overstepped the mark in any way. I was lucky in this because my own mother never had a good word to say about my dad's mother and was very vocal about her to my sisters and me. Luckily, I never expected all mothers-in-law to be hostile. I'm mother-in-law to my daughter's husband and I don't think he has any complaints. I get on well with my younger son's girlfriend. When we went to Kew Gardens a few months ago, she very preferentially offered me the front seat in the car. I would not dream of expecting her to sit in the back! Her place is beside my son. (It was horrible in the back seat in the London traffic! ?)