- Jun 23, 2009
- 1,484
- 10
- 151
My in-laws were fine, for the most part. They would come over, visit, and leave. It's my mother that was always driving us nuts. She gets into everything. Empties the dishwasher and then puts things where she thinks they should be stored, not where we keep them, and I don't mean putting a few things in the wrong place because she doesn't know where they belong. She re-arranges the drawers and cupboards.
She's taken scissors to my houseplants when I have repeatedly told her not to. She says they have too many leaves for their roots to support. They're epiphytes; they don't have much for roots and they get moisture from the air. It takes years to grow them to size, and she's hacked them up more than once. I finally had to hand her a book on them, and tell her that before she hacks up something I've spent years on, she should at least understand what she'd doing. I told her that I'd learned a lot from her all my life, but told her that she doesn't know everything, nobody does. That seemed to do the trick.
She may get into everything, but she always helps with things when she comes to visit. For everything she doesn't know, there's ten things she does know.
When our daughter was born, my wife's entire extended family descended on our house. I spent my entire first weekend of fatherhood cooking for them and doing dishes because there were far more people than the dishwasher could keep up with. One of my wife's aunts was sitting in the sunroom, in easy earshot of the kitchen, and asked my wife "Doesn't your husband like the baby? He's hardly been in here to see her!" and my wife said "who's been feeding you all weekend?"
My wife even came into the kitchen and started helping me do dishes ... two days after giving birth, so of course the entire collection of women eventually showed up, told her she should be off her feet ... and she said "somebody's got to help him clean up." They set my wife off to sit down, all pitched in, washed a dish or cleaned off a plate, and within 5 mins they'd all wandered off again and it was me and the dishes and dinner to get ready for 30 people. When our second was born, and we needed someone to watch our daughter while we were at the hospital, my wife asked me if my mother would come out instead of getting her mother to come.
So ... I guess you should learn to put up with the meddling, and welcome the assistance. Eventually you might convince your in-laws that no matter how much they want to feel like their children still need them, you are capable in your own right but still appreciate the assistance. It sounds like for all his ol' man grumbling, he's spending the weekend doing work around your house.
She's taken scissors to my houseplants when I have repeatedly told her not to. She says they have too many leaves for their roots to support. They're epiphytes; they don't have much for roots and they get moisture from the air. It takes years to grow them to size, and she's hacked them up more than once. I finally had to hand her a book on them, and tell her that before she hacks up something I've spent years on, she should at least understand what she'd doing. I told her that I'd learned a lot from her all my life, but told her that she doesn't know everything, nobody does. That seemed to do the trick.
She may get into everything, but she always helps with things when she comes to visit. For everything she doesn't know, there's ten things she does know.
When our daughter was born, my wife's entire extended family descended on our house. I spent my entire first weekend of fatherhood cooking for them and doing dishes because there were far more people than the dishwasher could keep up with. One of my wife's aunts was sitting in the sunroom, in easy earshot of the kitchen, and asked my wife "Doesn't your husband like the baby? He's hardly been in here to see her!" and my wife said "who's been feeding you all weekend?"
My wife even came into the kitchen and started helping me do dishes ... two days after giving birth, so of course the entire collection of women eventually showed up, told her she should be off her feet ... and she said "somebody's got to help him clean up." They set my wife off to sit down, all pitched in, washed a dish or cleaned off a plate, and within 5 mins they'd all wandered off again and it was me and the dishes and dinner to get ready for 30 people. When our second was born, and we needed someone to watch our daughter while we were at the hospital, my wife asked me if my mother would come out instead of getting her mother to come.
So ... I guess you should learn to put up with the meddling, and welcome the assistance. Eventually you might convince your in-laws that no matter how much they want to feel like their children still need them, you are capable in your own right but still appreciate the assistance. It sounds like for all his ol' man grumbling, he's spending the weekend doing work around your house.
