MIL bragging my baby looks just like her

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I totally get it, it's very annoying. MY MIL does this all the time - according to her my kids are 90% her (not her husband though - there is zero of that despite obvious resemblance); 5% her son (my husband) and 5% me. she will seek remote relative s on her own side to explain was obviously coming from my side. She will also claim things that all babies do are unique to her son (e.g. my son's poop was this exact color") . all this is especially annoying because my parents have passed always and are not there to provide a balance.

I say this gently, but is it possible some of your annoyance is not hearing your own parents say the same things?

my parents are dead. I doubt they would do the same thing - I knew how they reacted to their first grandchild (my sister's daughter) and it was very far from "this is us us us". if anything it was the opposite - like, she doesn't seem to be pulling much from our family.

In any case my MIL is perfectly aware my parents are not able to balance her idiocy but rather than acknowledging that the children must have something in common with them, too, that merely emboldens her. it is also telling that she never says the kids look like her husband (my husband's father). it's always only her and her ever more remote relatives. it's really a sadistic move, not loving as someone clueless people here are assuming.

There is a theory that nature makes newborns and babies resemble the father and his people so the father knows it is his child and does not reject the mother or baby.

Over time the real features come out, once the dad has accepted the child as his own.

this theory has been refuted stop with the garbage

You need a little less anger.

Your MIL raised the man you love. She wants a connection with her child's child. That is perfectly normal and completely loving.

Try looking at her from a filter of one who will someday be a MIL yourself.

if resemblance is necessary for connection then my MIL, by hoarding all resemblance, is preventing me from connecting to my own children. that just your own logic.

you clearly don't have any experience with this and don't understand that this is specifically designed to hurt others - it's not something innocent minor or well meaning.

[Anonymous]

How does your MIL seeing her nose on her grandchild take a single thing away from you.

2 of my kids look nothing like me or anyone in my family. The other one has my coloring, and grew into features like my family but looked like my husband's family for the first 3 years. None of them could see a single feature that looked like me.

And when there was a feature that resembled me as a child (like curly hair) they could not figure out where it came from (was it a great uncle several generations back???) because they had zero idea what I looked like as a toddler.

Really, truly I understand wanting your kids to look like you, but someone not noticing that resemblance to your babyhood is not an affront to you, nor is you MIL seeing herself in her grandchild

There are plenty of real affronts that a typical MIL makes to a DIL. Why create a snub where there is none? Why get hot and bothered by a grandma having a perfectly loving and normal reaction to her grandchild?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does your MIL seeing her nose on her grandchild take a single thing away from you.

2 of my kids look nothing like me or anyone in my family. The other one has my coloring, and grew into features like my family but looked like my husband's family for the first 3 years. None of them could see a single feature that looked like me.

And when there was a feature that resembled me as a child (like curly hair) they could not figure out where it came from (was it a great uncle several generations back???) because they had zero idea what I looked like as a toddler.

Really, truly I understand wanting your kids to look like you, but someone not noticing that resemblance to your babyhood is not an affront to you, nor is you MIL seeing herself in her grandchild

There are plenty of real affronts that a typical MIL makes to a DIL. Why create a snub where there is none? Why get hot and bothered by a grandma having a perfectly loving and normal reaction to her grandchild?

it takes the nose, specifically. now, most people don't care about their nose or any other part in particular, but when a MIL claims 99% of everything, physical, behavioral or other, then that sure gets old quickly - not that you would know because clearly you have zero experience with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does your MIL seeing her nose on her grandchild take a single thing away from you.

2 of my kids look nothing like me or anyone in my family. The other one has my coloring, and grew into features like my family but looked like my husband's family for the first 3 years. None of them could see a single feature that looked like me.

And when there was a feature that resembled me as a child (like curly hair) they could not figure out where it came from (was it a great uncle several generations back???) because they had zero idea what I looked like as a toddler.

Really, truly I understand wanting your kids to look like you, but someone not noticing that resemblance to your babyhood is not an affront to you, nor is you MIL seeing herself in her grandchild

There are plenty of real affronts that a typical MIL makes to a DIL. Why create a snub where there is none? Why get hot and bothered by a grandma having a perfectly loving and normal reaction to her grandchild?

it takes the nose, specifically. now, most people don't care about their nose or any other part in particular, but when a MIL claims 99% of everything, physical, behavioral or other, then that sure gets old quickly - not that you would know because clearly you have zero experience with this.

You are picking the wrong hill to die on, DIL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does your MIL seeing her nose on her grandchild take a single thing away from you.

2 of my kids look nothing like me or anyone in my family. The other one has my coloring, and grew into features like my family but looked like my husband's family for the first 3 years. None of them could see a single feature that looked like me.

And when there was a feature that resembled me as a child (like curly hair) they could not figure out where it came from (was it a great uncle several generations back???) because they had zero idea what I looked like as a toddler.

Really, truly I understand wanting your kids to look like you, but someone not noticing that resemblance to your babyhood is not an affront to you, nor is you MIL seeing herself in her grandchild

There are plenty of real affronts that a typical MIL makes to a DIL. Why create a snub where there is none? Why get hot and bothered by a grandma having a perfectly loving and normal reaction to her grandchild?

it takes the nose, specifically. now, most people don't care about their nose or any other part in particular, but when a MIL claims 99% of everything, physical, behavioral or other, then that sure gets old quickly - not that you would know because clearly you have zero experience with this.

You are picking the wrong hill to die on, DIL.

stop patronizing me. I am not dying on this hill (we have much bigger - financial - issue with her as she can barely survive without our help) and never said to my MIL anything about it - I just let her freak out when others point obvious similarities to my family. I want OP to know that her feelings are completely normal and not a teasing for PPD screening as some bitter grandmas here are suggesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does your MIL seeing her nose on her grandchild take a single thing away from you.

2 of my kids look nothing like me or anyone in my family. The other one has my coloring, and grew into features like my family but looked like my husband's family for the first 3 years. None of them could see a single feature that looked like me.

And when there was a feature that resembled me as a child (like curly hair) they could not figure out where it came from (was it a great uncle several generations back???) because they had zero idea what I looked like as a toddler.

Really, truly I understand wanting your kids to look like you, but someone not noticing that resemblance to your babyhood is not an affront to you, nor is you MIL seeing herself in her grandchild

There are plenty of real affronts that a typical MIL makes to a DIL. Why create a snub where there is none? Why get hot and bothered by a grandma having a perfectly loving and normal reaction to her grandchild?

it takes the nose, specifically. now, most people don't care about their nose or any other part in particular, but when a MIL claims 99% of everything, physical, behavioral or other, then that sure gets old quickly - not that you would know because clearly you have zero experience with this.

You are picking the wrong hill to die on, DIL.

stop patronizing me. I am not dying on this hill (we have much bigger - financial - issue with her as she can barely survive without our help) and never said to my MIL anything about it - I just let her freak out when others point obvious similarities to my family. I want OP to know that her feelings are completely normal and not a teasing for PPD screening as some bitter grandmas here are suggesting.

Obviously your issues with your MIL run far deeper than this rather trivial nonsense about the baby looking like MIL (or so she says). You probably have reason to resent the heck out of her, you don't really even like her and when she compares your baby to herself that just goes all over you.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, Op. My babies looked just like my husband's side of the family. They really didn't resemble me at all. Thankfully I love my husband and his side of the family are decent people.

I think that if they had been making life difficult for us I would have been sad to see that my babies resembled them so much. As it was, I saw the cuteness in it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does your MIL seeing her nose on her grandchild take a single thing away from you.

2 of my kids look nothing like me or anyone in my family. The other one has my coloring, and grew into features like my family but looked like my husband's family for the first 3 years. None of them could see a single feature that looked like me.

And when there was a feature that resembled me as a child (like curly hair) they could not figure out where it came from (was it a great uncle several generations back???) because they had zero idea what I looked like as a toddler.

Really, truly I understand wanting your kids to look like you, but someone not noticing that resemblance to your babyhood is not an affront to you, nor is you MIL seeing herself in her grandchild

There are plenty of real affronts that a typical MIL makes to a DIL. Why create a snub where there is none? Why get hot and bothered by a grandma having a perfectly loving and normal reaction to her grandchild?

it takes the nose, specifically. now, most people don't care about their nose or any other part in particular, but when a MIL claims 99% of everything, physical, behavioral or other, then that sure gets old quickly - not that you would know because clearly you have zero experience with this.

You are picking the wrong hill to die on, DIL.

stop patronizing me. I am not dying on this hill (we have much bigger - financial - issue with her as she can barely survive without our help) and never said to my MIL anything about it - I just let her freak out when others point obvious similarities to my family. I want OP to know that her feelings are completely normal and not a teasing for PPD screening as some bitter grandmas here are suggesting.

You’re missing the point.

I’m not one of the PPs, but my PPD originally manifested as a lot of over reactions to some inoocuous things like this. Not everyone is weepy, or anxious, resents their baby, etc.

The thing about PPD is, not every woman manifests it the same. Even the questionnaires didn’t help me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, Op. My babies looked just like my husband's side of the family. They really didn't resemble me at all. Thankfully I love my husband and his side of the family are decent people.

I think that if they had been making life difficult for us I would have been sad to see that my babies resembled them so much. As it was, I saw the cuteness in it.

+1

DD looks *EXACTLY* like DH's side (MIL). Witchy MIL insists that DD looks *NOTHING* like her. And, MIL insists that a nephew looks just like her, because it's her daughter's child. LOL. Yeah, it could be worse OP. If you have a kind, warm MIL, who is accepting and inclusive - be grateful! This is your MIL's way of being positive, not negative and witchy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does your MIL seeing her nose on her grandchild take a single thing away from you.

2 of my kids look nothing like me or anyone in my family. The other one has my coloring, and grew into features like my family but looked like my husband's family for the first 3 years. None of them could see a single feature that looked like me.

And when there was a feature that resembled me as a child (like curly hair) they could not figure out where it came from (was it a great uncle several generations back???) because they had zero idea what I looked like as a toddler.

Really, truly I understand wanting your kids to look like you, but someone not noticing that resemblance to your babyhood is not an affront to you, nor is you MIL seeing herself in her grandchild

There are plenty of real affronts that a typical MIL makes to a DIL. Why create a snub where there is none? Why get hot and bothered by a grandma having a perfectly loving and normal reaction to her grandchild?

it takes the nose, specifically. now, most people don't care about their nose or any other part in particular, but when a MIL claims 99% of everything, physical, behavioral or other, then that sure gets old quickly - not that you would know because clearly you have zero experience with this.

You are picking the wrong hill to die on, DIL.

stop patronizing me. I am not dying on this hill (we have much bigger - financial - issue with her as she can barely survive without our help) and never said to my MIL anything about it - I just let her freak out when others point obvious similarities to my family. I want OP to know that her feelings are completely normal and not a teasing for PPD screening as some bitter grandmas here are suggesting.

Obviously your issues with your MIL run far deeper than this rather trivial nonsense about the baby looking like MIL (or so she says). You probably have reason to resent the heck out of her, you don't really even like her and when she compares your baby to herself that just goes all over you.

it's not "trivial nonsense" - it's all related. good people/MIL don't go around and claim everything about their son's babies is theirs. they just don't. it's very likely that OP has or will have other issues as well. i don't mind my children being like my MIL to some extent - she was successful in variety of fields, and she was attractive. she is very industrious. but yeah i would rather not raise my MIL's clone, much less 3 times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does your MIL seeing her nose on her grandchild take a single thing away from you.

2 of my kids look nothing like me or anyone in my family. The other one has my coloring, and grew into features like my family but looked like my husband's family for the first 3 years. None of them could see a single feature that looked like me.

And when there was a feature that resembled me as a child (like curly hair) they could not figure out where it came from (was it a great uncle several generations back???) because they had zero idea what I looked like as a toddler.

Really, truly I understand wanting your kids to look like you, but someone not noticing that resemblance to your babyhood is not an affront to you, nor is you MIL seeing herself in her grandchild

There are plenty of real affronts that a typical MIL makes to a DIL. Why create a snub where there is none? Why get hot and bothered by a grandma having a perfectly loving and normal reaction to her grandchild?

it takes the nose, specifically. now, most people don't care about their nose or any other part in particular, but when a MIL claims 99% of everything, physical, behavioral or other, then that sure gets old quickly - not that you would know because clearly you have zero experience with this.

You are picking the wrong hill to die on, DIL.

stop patronizing me. I am not dying on this hill (we have much bigger - financial - issue with her as she can barely survive without our help) and never said to my MIL anything about it - I just let her freak out when others point obvious similarities to my family. I want OP to know that her feelings are completely normal and not a teasing for PPD screening as some bitter grandmas here are suggesting.

Obviously your issues with your MIL run far deeper than this rather trivial nonsense about the baby looking like MIL (or so she says). You probably have reason to resent the heck out of her, you don't really even like her and when she compares your baby to herself that just goes all over you.

it's not "trivial nonsense" - it's all related. good people/MIL don't go around and claim everything about their son's babies is theirs. they just don't. it's very likely that OP has or will have other issues as well. i don't mind my children being like my MIL to some extent - she was successful in variety of fields, and she was attractive. she is very industrious. but yeah i would rather not raise my MIL's clone, much less 3 times.

You are wrong.

This is common behavior by loving grandparents on both mom and dad's side.

It only becomes an issue when you have an antagonistic relationship like you do, or when you have something else like PPD happening.

Otherwise, that common grandparent behavior just warrants an eye roll or giggle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does your MIL seeing her nose on her grandchild take a single thing away from you.

2 of my kids look nothing like me or anyone in my family. The other one has my coloring, and grew into features like my family but looked like my husband's family for the first 3 years. None of them could see a single feature that looked like me.

And when there was a feature that resembled me as a child (like curly hair) they could not figure out where it came from (was it a great uncle several generations back???) because they had zero idea what I looked like as a toddler.

Really, truly I understand wanting your kids to look like you, but someone not noticing that resemblance to your babyhood is not an affront to you, nor is you MIL seeing herself in her grandchild

There are plenty of real affronts that a typical MIL makes to a DIL. Why create a snub where there is none? Why get hot and bothered by a grandma having a perfectly loving and normal reaction to her grandchild?

it takes the nose, specifically. now, most people don't care about their nose or any other part in particular, but when a MIL claims 99% of everything, physical, behavioral or other, then that sure gets old quickly - not that you would know because clearly you have zero experience with this.

You are picking the wrong hill to die on, DIL.

stop patronizing me. I am not dying on this hill (we have much bigger - financial - issue with her as she can barely survive without our help) and never said to my MIL anything about it - I just let her freak out when others point obvious similarities to my family. I want OP to know that her feelings are completely normal and not a teasing for PPD screening as some bitter grandmas here are suggesting.

You’re missing the point.

I’m not one of the PPs, but my PPD originally manifested as a lot of over reactions to some inoocuous things like this. Not everyone is weepy, or anxious, resents their baby, etc.

The thing about PPD is, not every woman manifests it the same. Even the questionnaires didn’t help me.

i am sorry you had PPD but that is not a reason everyone who is justifiably upset about some majorly mean behavior should be screened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does your MIL seeing her nose on her grandchild take a single thing away from you.

2 of my kids look nothing like me or anyone in my family. The other one has my coloring, and grew into features like my family but looked like my husband's family for the first 3 years. None of them could see a single feature that looked like me.

And when there was a feature that resembled me as a child (like curly hair) they could not figure out where it came from (was it a great uncle several generations back???) because they had zero idea what I looked like as a toddler.

Really, truly I understand wanting your kids to look like you, but someone not noticing that resemblance to your babyhood is not an affront to you, nor is you MIL seeing herself in her grandchild

There are plenty of real affronts that a typical MIL makes to a DIL. Why create a snub where there is none? Why get hot and bothered by a grandma having a perfectly loving and normal reaction to her grandchild?

it takes the nose, specifically. now, most people don't care about their nose or any other part in particular, but when a MIL claims 99% of everything, physical, behavioral or other, then that sure gets old quickly - not that you would know because clearly you have zero experience with this.

You are picking the wrong hill to die on, DIL.

stop patronizing me. I am not dying on this hill (we have much bigger - financial - issue with her as she can barely survive without our help) and never said to my MIL anything about it - I just let her freak out when others point obvious similarities to my family. I want OP to know that her feelings are completely normal and not a teasing for PPD screening as some bitter grandmas here are suggesting.

Obviously your issues with your MIL run far deeper than this rather trivial nonsense about the baby looking like MIL (or so she says). You probably have reason to resent the heck out of her, you don't really even like her and when she compares your baby to herself that just goes all over you.

it's not "trivial nonsense" - it's all related. good people/MIL don't go around and claim everything about their son's babies is theirs. they just don't. it's very likely that OP has or will have other issues as well. i don't mind my children being like my MIL to some extent - she was successful in variety of fields, and she was attractive. she is very industrious. but yeah i would rather not raise my MIL's clone, much less 3 times.

You are wrong.

This is common behavior by loving grandparents on both mom and dad's side.

It only becomes an issue when you have an antagonistic relationship like you do, or when you have something else like PPD happening.

Otherwise, that common grandparent behavior just warrants an eye roll or giggle.

this is absolutely not true. i don't know a single case except my MIL (and OP's) where MIL's claims of resemblance are so excessive.

[Anonymous]

^^^ Sometimes our bias and perspective do not reflect reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it really bothers you that much, simply say, "Mary, the baby looks like me and my side of the family, too. I had a little something to do with it, after all!" In a lighthearted tone and with some humor.

Don't say this. You will look very childish. You may not like her but, what harm is she doing? It is just a way to bond with baby and make conversation.

It isn't "childish" to gently make your feelings known. Not throwing a hissy fit and threatening to throw MIL out of the house would be childish. But letting on that this is a sensitive topic for you is not childish.

I stand by my word. How often does your see your mil? Who really cares if she thinks if mil that ops baby looks like her family? Its not like ops mil is a stranger. Mil is related to ops kid. Maybe that is the root of the problem

have you actually had an experience similar to OP's or are you just taking out of your ass? MIL pouncing on everything as supposedly related to her robs you, the mother, of the pleasure of seeing yourself and your parents in your children. while it certainly does not make that experience impossible it makes it more difficult by introducing additional uncertainty into what is a leaf reading process anyway. I can't take normal pleasure in knowing my kids look and behave like me because I have this annoying narcissist at the back of my brain screaming "this is just like! I was like this! Me me me"

To be honest yes. The difference is it is just conversation and chat
My kids are a mixture of both sides. You are pronably very simular to your mil which is why at the root it bothers you so much


After reading all your responses i feel sorry for your spouse. Yikes!€/