Just reading Holly's recent blog entry about her mother in law and I started thinking.


My mother in law drives me bats. Anyone who knows me, knows this. She doesn't agree with any of our lifestyle or parenting choices. She takes many opportunities to say so. I get the distinct impression that she just doesn't like ME personally; that I'm the reason we've made these choices and were it not for me her son would be some 9-5 working stiff who only cared about money and having nice things.


But, differing from Holly's MIL, mine genuinely loves her grandkids and wants to spend time with them. Well, I think she's partial to our oldest (she hasn't wanted us to have three kids, she didn't speak to us for three days after hearing about Macey's pending arrival...still pissed about that one but I digress...) but she does seem to care about them. Part of me almost wishes she would leave us alone though...how weird is that? I don't actually want her doing things with my kids, I don't want her to be an influence on them, you know? I realize that most people with uninvolved relatives wish for more involved ones, but I really and honestly don't. Her values and ideals are so far removed from ours that I'm truly afraid of what kind of effect she will have on our kids. I think it makes me a lesser person for admitting that, but there it is.

I guess I feel that if she doesn't respect us and our ability to make our own choices, then she earns less access to our kids, and us. Unfortunately, while S sees her as annoying, he doesn't see her as dangerous like I do. He would never want to intentionally take her out of our family picture as it were. He puts more value on family than I do, and maybe that plays a part here. But she just really gets under my skin with her comments and actions. I agree to an extent that you choose to pick up arrows others shoot at you, you choose to inflict the pain on yourself. But damn this woman is one helluva markswoman.