The Mother in-Law’s Manual

While writing a book about mothers-in-law, I interviewed scores of women with married children. If every time a woman said to me, “I feel like I’m walking on eggs,” I’d gotten a coupon for a dozen eggs, I could now make egg salad for a battalion.

When talking about my own walking-on-eggs challenges with my older son, he said, “But mom, we are walking on eggs, too.” Since egg-walking is not a skill with much marketplace value nor one likely to provide the stress release of more conventional exercise, what are we all doing?

I think we are walking on eggs to avoid stepping on toes. We are walking on eggs to avoid having to scramble. Reasonable mothers do not want to hurt or offend their children and their spouses. Equally important, they don’t want to be hurt. We are all cautious in talking about what we are thinking and feeling in order to avoid harming and being harmed. The problem is that what we think and feel wants out. The urge to communicate is like the urge to nibble that dessert in the fridge. It can be very loud and insistent and ride right over our supposed good sense.

Mothers know the most basic rule of mother-in-lawing: Keep your mouth shut. This rule goes in the book with all those other valuable bits of advice: Do not eat fats; do not let the small things get to you; do not allow negative thoughts to disturb your equanimity; do not ignore the importance of sleeping eight hours; do not feel guilty for not observing all the shoulds and should nots. You know, all those virtuous impossibilities.

People walking on eggs are not helped by having more eggs. We don’t need more rules. But we do need something to help us develop the loving family relationships almost all mothers and children prefer. What I propose is that we work on adjusting our expectations.

When we expect things will go a certain way and they don’t, we are usually disappointed.  Our first impulse is normally to pin the blame on someone, someone who isn’t us. One of the things we mothers-in-law seem to expect is that we can offer good advice. In fact, I suspect that often, the advice we wish to offer is good. Where we get in trouble is expecting the advice is wanted – or needed.

Look, I think to myself, I’m smart, experienced and have the best interests of these people at heart. Surely, what I have to say is worth hearing. Ah, but that is NOT the point. Because I am saying it, I THE MOTHER, it is heard as louder and more insistent than if someone else said it. And what is heard as well may be an unintended subtext that sounds something like this: I don’t trust you to make your own decisions. You are not smart, wise, mature enough. I know better than you ever will.

What gets me in trouble is not so much my ignoring the rule to keep my mouth shut. It is my expectation that it is reasonable and helpful to offer my two cents. Really, it FEELS reasonable. Shouldn’t intelligent adults be able to discuss things calmly and rationally? The answer is certainly, unless the adults are parent and child or the child’s spouse. Here are some examples that show what I mean.

One 38-year-old mother of two, who strikes me as sensible and grounded, explained how she feels when her mother says the simplest things:

I tell her I’m thinking about interviewing for a part-time job and in her enthusiasm, I hear, “Well, it is about time.” I say I bought a new pair of great     pants, and when she approves I think, “Why does she think I need her approval.”     She doesn’t understand how vulnerable I feel as a mother and a wife, how unsure     I can be about what I’m doing. I both want her approval and hate that it matters.     What I need her to do is say, “Hmmmm … tell me more,” or “Oh, I love     knowing all that’s going on with you.” I want to tell her … but I don’t want     approval, which implies that her opinion should be important to me, or her     disapproval, which is like a punch. I feel crazy telling you this, but it’s true.

On the mother/mother-in-law side, one woman captures the feeling of many when she says:

I am just trying to make small talk and find ways to stay connected, but it seems     no matter what I say, I end up in trouble. I love my children, but I go home from     visits exhausted from holding my breath and weighing my words. This is crazy.

I have come to believe what can help us mothers is a mantra we can repeat to ourselves that goes something like this: My kids will do fine – or they won’t. Unless asked, I can’t help them. My opinions are not useful just now. This is not personal. This is structural. It is true for more families than not. Just listen and nod. Is there something I can cook them for dinner?

When we are lucky, when the stars align, we may work our way towards a place where we can say to each other: “Oops, that didn’t go down right did it?” But focusing on why it didn’t work so well may not be useful. Such conversations often trigger defensiveness. Some people especially dislike conflict. “Really, I don’t like talking about relationships,” one daughter-in-law said. She and her mother-in-law just have to assume they both love each other and move on.” Good advice for us all.

I am learning to stop expecting that my advice, my opinions, my assessments will be heard as the useful, thoughtful, wise words I think they are. Instead, I expect that what my children need is my love and my respect for their ability to manage their own lives. Instead of thinking that it is my job to try and save them from any harm, a job that seems encoded in my DNA, I am trying to remember that that is now their job.