By Guest Blogger, Deanna Shoss,
What do father- and mother-in-laws have to say about the daughter-in-law relationship? “In most cases the mother-in-law has to bite her tongue.” “I don’t want to offend her.” “Usually it’s the female who runs the roost.”
In an effort to understand the Grandparenting Phenomenon (Over 100M people in the US are GrandParents) Author Jerry Witkovsky, author of The Grandest Love: Inspiring the Grandparent-Grandchild Connection worked with Catalyst to produce a video that featured national research and responses from a broad cross section of grandparents, adult children and grandchildren.
In this chapter (one of 8 on different Grandparent topics, available here), the grandparents share their experience and thoughts on their (or maybe they were thinking abstractly) daughter-in-law. (Watch the video below).
Thoughts from the Daughter-in-law
What’s missing from the video is thoughts from a real, live daughter-in-law. While mine is just one perspective, in our household “I’m going to tell your mother” was a last straw way in a fight to let my husband know he was really in trouble…because she always took my side!
We were interfaith (I thing she was traumatized by our son’s circumcision), intercultural (she is from Brazil, we communicated in Portuguese) and from different generations, but oh how I miss her!
If you read this story about giving her her first job, you will know why I love her…and will love her too!
What do you think? Hear what these mother- and father-in-laws have to say. What has been your experience with your in-law?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRqkFv9P3Fs]
“If you bite your tongue expect nothing more than for it to bleed. Swallowing your thoughts or feelings is not about building relationship. It is about power and control. Power and control causes discomfort and distance. Healthy balanced relationship don’t thrive in an atmosphere of discomfort and distance. If we want to experience what it’s like to swallow our own blood then I say let’s go ahead and keep biting your tongues. If we want to build healthy sustainable relationships then we truly must advocate against the unproductive practice of the silencing of one for the comfort level of another.” –Anue Nue
Well said, Anue. Plus we model behavior for grandkids by the way we approach our own relationships. Thanks so much for your thoughts on this!