Compilation of Posts ~ Mothers-in-Law, What I've Learned From Mine

The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly ~ No matter how neutral, or how problematic, a relationship has been with a mother-in-law, when I sat down and thought about it, I realized that I learned invaluable lessons from each of these women.  I also got an intriguing view of women with different personalities and backgrounds suddenly dropped into situations and circumstances they perhaps hadn't anticipated.  It was fascinating to see how each woman adapted to, tackled, or manipulated the people and situations in her life to make her existence tolerable and complimentary to her personality.

Mothers-in-Law ~ What I've Learned from Mine #1 

Mothers-in-Law ~ What I've Learned from Mine #2

Mothers-in-Law ~ What I've Learned From Mine #3

Mothers-In -Law ~ What I've Learned From Mine #4

Mothers-in-Law ~ What I've Learned From Mine #5

Mothers-in-Law ~ What I've Learned From Mine #5

I only got to meet MIL#5 once, so this may be the most difficult mother-in-law to look at in retrospection.  I had heard so much about this woman, so many fond memories along with lots of negative tales.  However, since I never got a chance to have an in-depth conversation with her personally, I'm likely to let much of what I've heard go in one ear and out the other; because, as we all know, there are two sides to every story.

Our meeting was brief, a few hours of one day.  One thing immediately stood out for me, and that was that when we were introduced, without hesitation, this woman reached out and hugged me-- and it was the type of hug where you knew she meant it.  (Remember, it hadn't been that long ago that I was coming off MIL#4, you know, the one from hell.) This threw me for a surprised and delightful loop.

Brief background ~ supposedly this woman was suffering from a combination of age-related dementia as well as some brain damage that occurred years before when she lost consciousness from a severe asthma attack.  I had been told (again and again) that it would be impossible to carry on a conversation with this woman and that she was pretty much unaware of important daily details, or at least not able to keep them straight.

Quite frankly, I didn't find this to be totally true.

She seemed to know exactly where she was and what was going on.  She was also savvy enough to listen in on conversation, and I could tell that she wasn't only listening in, she was absorbing and comprehending.  This made me question who was smarter-- this woman, or her caretakers (family members).  I suspect that there's much more to this story that I will never know.

So, in one day, in just a few brief hours, what did I learn from this woman?

• Sometimes it pays not to act as smart as you really are.  Think about it.  Who is going to have the advantage here?

• When you can't do anything about the situation that you are in (quite literally), you have to find ways to be happy, things you can still do, things you can still enjoy, positive things you can still focus on.

• You can't control the actions of others, whether this is poor choices and negative behavior, or sheer lack of intelligence, or personality quirks.  Learn to ignore and otherwise overlook it, because if you dwell on it, you will just add to the negativity of it all.

• When life throws you a curve ball, shrug it off.

Actually, I learned much more from MIL#5 than I realized.

Mothers-in-Law ~ What I've Learned from Mine #2

MIL#2...The first impression I had of this woman was a surprised and delighted, "She doesn't hate me!", which had been my previous experience.  It was the early 1980s, and I was in my early 20s.

MIL #2 was a tiny woman, bird-like in her build and movement, which was surprising when faced with the knowledge that she was the biological mother of ten children.  Her life was consumed with babies and child-rearing, filled with the existence of the stereotypical Farm Wife of another generation, at it's most basic, day-to-day hard work and unending responsibility.  Her husband was 20-some years older than her, a strict disciplinarian, a typical steely mid-west farmer with extraordinarily conservative and outdated views about women, including the very Christian mindset of "obedience" and "submission".

It wasn't until I had known this woman for sometime that I realized her gentle voice and smiling demeanor cloaked strong opinions, true feelings, and sometimes harsh criticisms, all of which were rarely revealed.

What did I learn from this woman?

I learned a lot.  

• I saw for the first time what the intrinsic link and connections can be like in a large family.  

• I learned the ethics of hard work, the idea of sticking together as a group-- loyalty, and the idea of sacrificing to help out and support family members (especially in time of need).  

• I learned that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar; and that sometimes it works to everyone's advantage to keep negative thoughts to yourself and work around them.  

• I learned that it's okay to accept your lot in life, even if it's not ideal, and to run with it, to grow from it at the same time you're moving away from it.  

• I learned the importance of a true and deep connection with Spirituality and how it can shape your life and your relationships.

Mothers-in-Law ~ What I've Learned from Mine #1

MIL#1...First up, it was the 1970s.  This was a woman in her mid 40s, a short slightly portly little woman who was just entering menopause and a mid-life crisis.  She was a Farm Wife who had been transplanted to South Dakota as a teen-age bride from California.  She spent her entire adult life living on an isolated South Dakota farm at the edge of a tiny typically German/Czech community. 

When I first met, her hormones were raging, she was menopausal.  She was married to a man older than herself, a man who seemed cold and unemotional, blind and content in his own little world.  This woman was obviously making an effort to cling to the woman she had been, to cling to her youth, to her memories.  She was making an effort to justify her life and her decisions. When she spoke, you could hear regrets.  Her pain escaped in random comments that drifted from her lips unheard.

What did I learn from this woman?

• I learned that self-sacrifice is a good and upstanding thing only up to a certain point.  

• I learned that when you've over-played it, or when the time for its natural cessation has come, you have to let it go.  

• I learned that it's not okay to give so much of yourself to other people that you are no longer "yourself" anymore, you are an empty vessel.  

• I learned that it's okay for women to create their own space, to take time away from daily demands to ground and re-center.  

• It's okay to follow your own dreams and ambitions, and it's okay to have your own goals.  

• I learned that you shouldn't live your life in such a way as to have great big regrets towards the end of it, because then it may all be too late.