Dear Coleen: My mother-in-law is making me feel like a bad parent

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Dear Coleen

I hope you can help with a problem I have with my mother-in-law. I’ve been married to her son for two years, but we’d been together for years before that and have two children together. Our families are very different, though – my husband’s family is stiff and starchy, all about rules and, quite honestly, boring sometimes.

I, on the other hand, come from a big, noisy family, my parents have always been pretty relaxed, and we know how to have fun. I’ve been bringing up my girls the way I was brought up and my mother-in-law doesn’t even try to hide her disapproval, although she’s never said anything to me directly.

Instead, she sighs or huffs or rolls her eyes if my kids do or say something she doesn’t approve of and she does the same with me. I can feel the red mist descending when she does this, especially if there are other people around, but I ignore it and then just vent to my husband afterwards.

The annoying thing is, I ­actually like her, even though we’re different, and she’s often very nice to me, but this one thing drives me crazy because it makes me feel like I’m a bad parent. It is demeaning somehow and mean. What should I do?

Coleen says

I get it, it’s infuriating, but you’re bringing up your kids the way you want to, it’s no one else’s business, and it shouldn’t change how you do things. Maybe the next time she huffs or rolls her eyes, you could use it as an opportunity to tell her how it makes you feel.

You could say something like: “I don’t know if you realise, but when you roll your eyes like that it makes me feel like a bad parent, but I don’t think I am. I think that we have different parenting styles and attitudes, and we shouldn’t be judging each other”.

Hopefully, it’ll open up a discussion and pave the way for a more understanding and honest relationship between the two of you. You might find she’s very apologetic because she’s either not aware she’s doing it or hasn’t thought about the impact it’s having on you.

My son is about to have his first child and he’s already said things that have made me raise my eyebrows and think: “Oh, that’s so different to how I did it”. But he’s from a different generation, so he’s going to approach parenting with new attitudes.

But I’d never fall out with him over it and I respect he’s the parent. This doesn’t have to ruin your relationship with your mother-in-law and if you like each other, you’ve got a head start on working it out.

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