Communication is always going to be easier and more fluid with one’s own parents. You’ve known each other since you were born!! So of course it will be easier to tell them how stuff in the house works, how to babysit the toddlers, what’s going on.

In laws you may have only met 1-3 times a year in person. Or have totally different speaking styles or ideas of privacy.

Absolutely your own adult kid owns the family of origin relationship you have with his or her nuclear family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maternal grandparents help constantly but paternal grandparents still want half the holidays.

This! My mom has done so much to help us over the years. The ILs help would have been welcomed but was never offered. So yes, I make more of an effort for my mom compared to my ILs when it comes to the kids.

Lol! My inlaws are watching my sick child today and will have a hot dinner on the table when we get home. My inlaws jump at the chance to help. My inlaws help 75% of the time, my mom 25%.

My DH also has a healthy dynamic with his family. His mom obviously treated him and his sisters equally, so it all has translated into tight bonds.

You are lucky! In 8 years my ILs have babysat for our kids twice, even though they are 10 years younger than my mother and there are 4 of them to her 1. DH only has brothers and ours will be the only grandkids. According to my DH, both sets of his grandparents were very active and involved in his life, but his parents choose not to pay it forward.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maternal grandparents help constantly but paternal grandparents still want half the holidays.

This! My mom has done so much to help us over the years. The ILs help would have been welcomed but was never offered. So yes, I make more of an effort for my mom compared to my ILs when it comes to the kids.

Lol! My inlaws are watching my sick child today and will have a hot dinner on the table when we get home. My inlaws jump at the chance to help. My inlaws help 75% of the time, my mom 25%.

My DH also has a healthy dynamic with his family. His mom obviously treated him and his sisters equally, so it all has translated into tight bonds.

Anonymous wrote:Maternal grandparents help constantly but paternal grandparents still want half the holidays.

This! My mom has done so much to help us over the years. The ILs help would have been welcomed but was never offered. So yes, I make more of an effort for my mom compared to my ILs when it comes to the kids.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know the answer but my plan when I have DIL:
-Treat her the same way I treat my sons
-Show up the day a baby is born and say “what help do you need?” If the help they want from me is to scrub toilets, I’ll scrub toilets.
-Attend as many of my grandkids school functions and extracurricular functions as possible.
-Stay busy with my own life so I don’t sit around and come up with expectations for my sons and their spouses. While I hope to be involved in my sons’ life and his family’s life, I won’t be Marie in “Everybody loves Raymond.” Whether my son has a wife who breastfeeds or bottle feeds, I will be supportive of her decision.
-Honor their family and right to parent as they wish. Don’t impose my opinion on their lives.
-Show a genuine interest in their lives.

Family first. No time for drama.

Slow down there, sister. How about get to know the actual woman before you make all of these plans about her?

I'm a "slowly get to know you type." My FIL made an effort to get to know the actual me, and I opened up to and trusted him first.

With my MIL, it took years before I felt comfortable with her. She came at me hard, like you are describing, "treating me like she'd treat her own children." But I'm not her child, and I had my own parents, and I wanted to be respected and treated like an individual adult, not another child. (It didn't help that her daughter is gay, and she tried to get out all of her "feminine daughter white lace wedding dress jollies" on me as a result.)

Slowly, over time, she learned to back off a little. When I saw that, I grew to feel I could trust her more. Then we built a closer relationship from there. But not everyone wants you scrubbing toilets--I personally don't want help when people are guests in my home. You have to get to know the actual PERSON, not just the concept of "DIL."

Anonymous wrote:I have two sons. With luck, at least one will be gay so someone will want to spend time with me when I am old.

-only half joking

Well, my mom's gay son isn't exactly Mr. Family Connections, either. In fact, he makes more of an effort to call now because he gets encouragement to do so by his boyfriend.

So again, some more, it's not about a boyfriend or girlfriend or wife or whomever "taking away" the focus and attention and time. It's about your son's personality, sense of family connections, and (in part) how he is raised. At the end of the day, if your son is the kind of guy who calls and sends birthday cards before marriage, that will probably continue. If your son isn't into family stuff before marriage, he probably won't be after marriage, either.

Wake up, people. How about a new saying for 2019:

Your son is your son, this much is true
Don't blame his partner, whatever you do

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know the answer but my plan when I have DIL:
-Treat her the same way I treat my sons
-Show up the day a baby is born and say “what help do you need?” If the help they want from me is to scrub toilets, I’ll scrub toilets.
-Attend as many of my grandkids school functions and extracurricular functions as possible.
-Stay busy with my own life so I don’t sit around and come up with expectations for my sons and their spouses. While I hope to be involved in my sons’ life and his family’s life, I won’t be Marie in “Everybody loves Raymond.” Whether my son has a wife who breastfeeds or bottle feeds, I will be supportive of her decision.
-Honor their family and right to parent as they wish. Don’t impose my opinion on their lives.
-Show a genuine interest in their lives.

Family first. No time for drama.

I know wonderful, generous women whose DIL still complained about them. You just don't know what kind of DIL you will have. You do the above, you may still have a DIL coming on here and complaining about an overbearing MIL. You do the above, you may still also have a DIL coming on here complaining about an uncaring, distant MIL who doesn't love her grandchildren.

I'd focus instead on raising as good a son as I can, because the kinder, more generous and good the man, the better his wife will be and the happier the relationships will be.

I have two sons. With luck, at least one will be gay so someone will want to spend time with me when I am old.

-only half joking

Anonymous wrote:It seems to me that maternal grandparents are closer and more involved with their grandkids. Is this true? What are your experiences like?

Yes it is true. Mother-daughter connection in healthy families grows when the daughter becomes a mother. It's normal. Women shape households in ways that men don't.

My DH comes from a family of nine children. Five girls, four boys. MIL is way closer to the children of her daughters. Children of her sons are closer to their maternal grandmas.

Growing up, I was very close to both sides.

My kids are closer to my MIL than my mom but she is just way easier to get along with and doesn’t try so hard. My mom tries too hard with them and she and I have a rough relationship.

Anonymous wrote:Your son's you son till he takes a wife but a daughter's your daughter all your life.. yes, it is true

No it really isn't.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know the answer but my plan when I have DIL:
-Treat her the same way I treat my sons
-Show up the day a baby is born and say “what help do you need?” If the help they want from me is to scrub toilets, I’ll scrub toilets.
-Attend as many of my grandkids school functions and extracurricular functions as possible.
-Stay busy with my own life so I don’t sit around and come up with expectations for my sons and their spouses. While I hope to be involved in my sons’ life and his family’s life, I won’t be Marie in “Everybody loves Raymond.” Whether my son has a wife who breastfeeds or bottle feeds, I will be supportive of her decision.
-Honor their family and right to parent as they wish. Don’t impose my opinion on their lives.
-Show a genuine interest in their lives.

Family first. No time for drama.

Sounds like an excellent plan! Add to that never criticizing your DIL to anyone and you will be golden.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your son's you son till he takes a wife but a daughter's your daughter all your life.. yes, it is true

I like my mother-in-law better than my own mother. There, I said it. But it's true.

--signed, a daugther-in-law

+1

Unfortunately my MIL lives more than 14hrs away so I don’t get to see her often. But when I do, she cares for me too. Laundry, cooking, whatever she can do to help ME. I stopped existing to my mom once I had kids.

I stopped existing too except when my mom needs something. My MIL has dementia and I do most everything for her. She was always warm and kind to me and if she could have, probably would have helped. I try to see her weekly to every other week but the nursing home is not that close.

I don’t know the answer but my plan when I have DIL:
-Treat her the same way I treat my sons
-Show up the day a baby is born and say “what help do you need?” If the help they want from me is to scrub toilets, I’ll scrub toilets.
-Attend as many of my grandkids school functions and extracurricular functions as possible.
-Stay busy with my own life so I don’t sit around and come up with expectations for my sons and their spouses. While I hope to be involved in my sons’ life and his family’s life, I won’t be Marie in “Everybody loves Raymond.” Whether my son has a wife who breastfeeds or bottle feeds, I will be supportive of her decision.
-Honor their family and right to parent as they wish. Don’t impose my opinion on their lives.
-Show a genuine interest in their lives.

Family first. No time for drama.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your son's you son till he takes a wife but a daughter's your daughter all your life.. yes, it is true

I like my mother-in-law better than my own mother. There, I said it. But it's true.

--signed, a daugther-in-law

+1

Unfortunately my MIL lives more than 14hrs away so I don’t get to see her often. But when I do, she cares for me too. Laundry, cooking, whatever she can do to help ME. I stopped existing to my mom once I had kids.