Family Matters
gemmeg
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Frustrated w/ MIL
My SIL and I both had our first children this year about 4 months apart, both boys. My husband, son, and I live in our hometown as do both sets of our parents. SIL and her family live in another state. My MIL keeps saying that she is going to buy lifetime memberships for her grandsons to attend a summer camp near our hometown. I'm not sure why she wants to buy the memberships now seeing as her grandsons are babies and won't be old enough for summer camp for many years. While her wanting to send her grandsons to camp is not a negative thing, the way she's going about it is driving me nuts. She says the boys will be away from home for two weeks; 1 week at camp and 1 week spent with her. I don't know what conversations she has had with SIL and BIL about it, but each time she says she is going to buy the memberships, she says that SIL is ok with it, but BIL does not want their son to be far away from home for that long. For me, I'm not going to commit my son to a lifetime of summer camp (or anything else) while he is just a baby. She has never asked my husband or I our opinions on it or if it was anything we'd be interested in for our son. The only reason we know about it is because she makes the same (she repeats it pretty much verbatim each time) statement about how she is going to buy her grandsons the lifetime camp membership because one of her friends did it for her grandkids, the boys will go to camp for a week and stay with her for a week, and BIL has said he doesn't want his son away from home that long (but she's planning on doing it anyways). Every time she has said it, she seems to just be saying it outloud, not to anyone in particular, so I have not said anything in reponse to it, nor has my husband. We both kind of thought her enthusiasm about it would fizzle since BIL wasn't for it, but she continues to make her statement almost every time we see her. I'm not really worried about her buying the memberships, because if she does so without ever really discussing with us whether or not it's something we're in favor of, we won't feel bad at all telling her that she wasted her money because she knows exactly where we stand on "doing before asking". She has a history of buying/giving us things that we do not need/want/have room for and then getting upset when we politely decline. In situations like that, we always made sure that she knew we were appreciative of her intentions, but that she really needed to talk to us before having a king-size mattress delivered to our house, for example. Even though we let her down nicely, she still takes it personally and is the "score-keeper" type who adds it to her list of grievances against us that she may choose to throw back in our faces at a later date. Anyways, I am getting fed up with hearing her statement about the camp over and over. I know that my husband would say something to her if I asked him to, but he is always the bearer of bad news to MIL because I'm a chicken when it comes to any type of confrontation. I know he would like me to be able to be the one to tell her no sometimes, and after 3.5 yrs, I probably should. So, now all I have to do is come up with a nice way to tell her to "drop it" and then grow some cajones and actually tell her.
Re: Frustrated w/ MIL
I would make a comment, really as to not be complicit in keeping her in 'la la land.' That kind of crap can get really out of hand.
Just say, "He's too young for us to agree to that now. We'll talk about it when he gets older."
Every time she mentions it just say, "We already talked about that."
Don't be afraid to verbalize your boundaries for fear of making her upset. Just be calm and dismiss any attempt at drawing you in As your child gets older he needs to see his parents be authoritative in regards to his caring and how one deals with others that try to cross the lines.
Well, your husband should be the primary one dealing with it since it's his mother, but there's no reason you can't both tell her no.
The next time she says something, either one or both of you should just say, "That's a really nice thing that you want to do for our son, and we appreciate the gesture, but we don't know if that's something we want to commit to every summer. When he's old enough and if he wants to go, why don't we talk about it on a year-by-year basis?"
It sounds like no matter how you address it, she's going to be insulted. At least if you tell her BEFORE she spends her money on the membership, that's one less thing she'll have to throw back in your face.
Just tell her no. This isn't worth the emotions being used. You say no or let's wait and see. She will either waste her money or get pissed. You can't and won't win.
You and your H really need to start laying out boundaries with her. Y'all are the ones in her town so you are going to deal with her more. Stop hoping BIL with bail you out when it comes to her ideas. He isn't near her so its easier for her to dismiss him.