Mothers-in-law don’t get great press. There are millions of horror stories about them doing the rounds on the internet, and if you google “jokes” you’ll see that most jokes are about mother-in-laws. Sure, some might deserve it but most are just women who are doing their best to navigate the tricky terrain of family relationships...
Q. I live in California and my mother in-law lives in New York, so we don't see that much of each other. She just sent a gift for our seven month old baby that I think is awful. It's a hideous looking jack in the box type thing, that has a scary laugh when it jumps out.
Q. I've never really liked my daughter-in-law. She is a manipulative and spoiled person. A few weeks ago I was at their house to babysit my granddaughter. I took her to the mall for an icecream and got her a haircut - she's about a year and a half, and really needed a haircut with summer coming. My daughter-in-law was very upset when she saw her daughter and since then I have not been invited back to their house.
Have you ever done a Grandparent Audit of your home? Tallied up how many gifts each set has sent or counted the number of photos featuring each one of them? No, of course you haven’t. You have better things to do with your time. But plenty of grandmothers have. They know exactly how much wall and floor space they occupy. And, they now exactly how much is occupied by The Competition.
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Hillary Duff’s Marriage Advice for New Moms | Babyproofing Your Marriage is available at any major bookstore, or online: |