Mother-In-Law will not let up.

[Anonymous]

My daughter will be three at the end of August. All of her life, I have spoken to her in German. In her first year of life, I stayed home with her and spoke to her in German while my husband spoke to her in English. Once she started daycare (English speaking) at my university, my husband generally spoke to her in German as well when we were at home. We also all go to a German-speaking "round-ups" on Saturdays. Husband and I are both Americans, he learned German in the army and my mother, a first generation American, spoke to me in German (as her mother, who was an immigrant from Germany, did to her) By the time I was about three, my mother started teaching me Latin. I attended a German-English grade school and a high school that focused on languages. Thanks to my mother (and schools) all languages come to me easily and I have always been a good student with no language delays in English.

My daughter's language skills in both languages have always been very strong. My mother-in-law was not on board with our raising a bilingual child, especially in German, but never harped on it and changed her mind when she realized how well our daughter was doing in both languages.

Now, we have enrolled our daughter in a French-American bilingual preschool. This school is within two blocks of where I work which is important to me. The school is for children who don't speak French (or don't speak it well) and has lessons in both English and French as well as all teacher being bilingual in French/English. And my mother-in-law is VERY, VERY against our sending her to this school. She says it will confuse her to the point of our daughter hating school and falling behind and delay her learning the basics.

My mother-in-law is harping on this and voices her opinion every chance she gets. Every time I speak to her, every time she visits, every time my husband speaks to her... it has been relentless since March (when daughter was accepted into this school and we made the decision to send her there) and she does not seem to be letting up anytime soon.

I'm already tired of hearing about it and cannot fathom an entire summer of her protestations. And who knows if she will stop once our daughter is actually attending. My husband, a get-along-kind-of-guy, thinks we should just grin and bear it until his mother sees how well our daughter does in school but I honestly don't think I can stand hearing her talk about what a mistake we are making for another year. I want to tell her to stop talking about it - politely and respectfully (at least to start) - and am now so angry that I'd be willing to tell her off if she continues.

What would you do? My mother-in-law loves our child and has always been a good grandmother up until now. I fear her constant protestations in front of our daughter will eventually make her anxious about her new school and, honestly, I cannot stand to hear one more word about it.

[Anonymous]

She is completely out of line and should not be telling you how to raise your daughter. She should've made her objections once, then not brought it up again. My advice would be to tell her, "MIL I love you but back off. This is my child and I get to make the decisions."

[Anonymous]

"The pediatrician says it will be fine."
On your part, stop worrying about your daughter becoming anxious. Stop modelling anxiety to your daughter. Laugh when Grandma clucks over this.

[Anonymous]

"Yes, you've said that." Then change the subject.

[Anonymous]

Your husband needs to grow a pair and speak up to his mother. He needs to firmly tell her "this is the decision we have made and you need to respect that. Please do not bring it up again. You had your chance to raise your child now please let us raise ours."

If she brings it up again he repeats the above statement.

The end.

[Anonymous]

Find some reseaarch that shows what you're doing is beneficial (of course, there is plenty). We are raising two bilingual children, and my mother, A TEACHER, constantly told me during my first pregnancy not to go ahead with our plan to speak both English and Spanish (DH's native language) with our children. They will be confused, they will talk later and have speech delays, they will end up in special ed., they need to know English first then introduce another language, etc. It came from a good place, and the fact that she really believed what she was saying explains why she kept harping on it.

I presented the information from a few studies showing the benefits in brain development and language skills that bilingualism has for chidlren, especially in the early years. My older daughte ris now 3 and my mother seems to be content with bilingualism, or at the very least, she doesn't bring it up anymore.

If you do the same, and your MIL continues to protest, try the above suggestions of "You've made your opinion clear, this is what we've chosen, the end." If she is a good and caring grandmother in all other respects, I would take this nagging as her desparate attempt to stop you from doing something she truly believes is harmful. If she has the information shjowing that it is not harmful, maybe she will move along.

[Anonymous]

Your MIL shouldn't interfere but why is is so important to you to have a child that speaks three languages? Seems very excessive and pushy to me.

[Anonymous]

This has to come from your DH: "mom, we understand your concerns, and we've considered them. But we've made our decision, and the subject is now closed. We'd appreciate your not bringing it up again." From then on,'she gets one warning: "mom, we discussed this, the subject is closed." If she doesn't drop it, you leave or hang up the phone. It should only take a couple of times to get the message across.

[Anonymous]

I would just politely shut her down. "We are aware of your opinion, but we are comfortable with the choices we are making. (You can insert some expert or pediatricion to back you up). Let's not discuss this again."

My well, meaning but intensely annoying MIL will harp on things and ignoring (what FIL, DH, and SIL have done all their lives) her seems to invite her to repeat herself however she's great about honoring my request to move on once I've acknowledged her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your MIL shouldn't interfere but why is is so important to you to have a child that speaks three languages? Seems very excessive and pushy to me.

It sounds like they are doing the french pre-school out of convenience, it is close to OPs work.

FWIW my kids are exposed to 3 languages. English, DH speaks to them in Chinese and takes them to Chinese school and their daycare providers speak to them in Spanish. Exposing kids to multiple languages young is really good for them. You obviously can't expect them to keep up with all languages for the rest of their lives but it's great to give them that base early on,

[Anonymous]

When MIL says anything. say, I'm sorry that subject is off limits, I have to go now. Let me know if you want to talk about anything else. Do not invite her over until she stops. If you go over there, leave if the subject comes up. Do it politely, but leave and tell her the subject is off limits.

She needs training in boundaries. And until she can keep those boundaries, you just do not talk to her or ask her over. If you visit, be prepared to leave as soon as the subject comes up.

I had to train my dad to not bring up the fact he lost his drivers license (age 80 something). He would harp on it, only talk about it. I just started telling him I would leave when the subject came up. It worked, he knew I was not someone to talk to about losing his drivers license.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has to come from your DH: "mom, we understand your concerns, and we've considered them. But we've made our decision, and the subject is now closed. We'd appreciate your not bringing it up again." From then on,'she gets one warning: "mom, we discussed this, the subject is closed." If she doesn't drop it, you leave or hang up the phone. It should only take a couple of times to get the message across.

Yep. And, if DH won't do it, you can. "If you can't drop this subject, I'm hanging up the phone/ it's time to end this visit/ etc."

[Anonymous]

"We have heard your concerns. Please do not bring up this subject again."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has to come from your DH: "mom, we understand your concerns, and we've considered them. But we've made our decision, and the subject is now closed. We'd appreciate your not bringing it up again." From then on,'she gets one warning: "mom, we discussed this, the subject is closed." If she doesn't drop it, you leave or hang up the phone. It should only take a couple of times to get the message across.

Yep. And, if DH won't do it, you can. "If you can't drop this subject, I'm hanging up the phone/ it's time to end this visit/ etc."

And then you really have to do it. It may take a couple of times, but if you say that and THEN DO IT, she'll get it. If you just say it and do nothing, then she will continue.

[Anonymous]

My mom did this with my DC's school as well. She just couldn't understand why I wanted to send him to a Montessori program and would.not.drop it.

I explained my reasoning a few times and then just stopped. "Mom, I've already explained why he's going there. This is the best decision for him and he's very excited about it" repeat, repeat, repeat. EVERY time she brought it up, I'd say the exact same thing and then change the subject.

Now, a year later, she still sniffs a bit when he talks about his school and asked why we weren't considering our IB school for K, but I just trotted out the phrase again "His current school is the best fit, we talked about this last summer. He's staying and very excited about returning next year." Rinse, repeat.

I did have to hang up on her a few times last year "Mom, I'm not going to argue about what school DC will be attending. I've done the research, this is my decision and we're both very excited about it, I have to go." I always emphasized how excited DC was too, to remind her that he's invested in it too and his feelings count.

I never had to get to the point of physically leaving, but I have on other subjects in the past, so she knows when I'm serious about not wanting to discuss a topic.

The first time dealing with this is the hardest. It gets easier as time goes on.