What are we fighting for here? Feminism or Morality?
I believe in the equality of genders and I constantly strive to stand up for women rights. Yet often times I find myself at odds with these two women in my life- my mother and my mother in law. For them, leaving my baby at day care while I go to office makes me less of a mother. For them my husband sharing household responsibilities makes me less of a good wife. After every such disagreement on my life choices, I wonder what I am standing for- my rights or my moral values.
Seems like I am one among many. As it turns out, In-law hood overpowers sisterhood in families. Research reveals nearly 60% women feel stressed and depressed in their relationship with mother in laws. According to this news here, almost 25000 dowry deaths happened from 2012–2015 in India and divorces are on rise due to intolerance towards parents. A strained relationship with in-laws has increased the divorce rates globally. 1 out of 10 divorces in Britain happen due to in-laws. These are statistics which could be measured, the emotional and mental discord it causes can’t be.
Along with various pro-life and pro-choice issues that plague women, dealing with a mother in law is another unique yet commonplace enough struggle for majority of married women. In Indian culture specifically, wedding is a package deal. It is not considered merely a holy union of bride and groom, it is the union of families. And if you fail to get along with your mother in law, life ain’t easy anymore.
While this issue may seem trivial to many, time and again I am made witness to the anxiety and suffering it causes in the daily lives of women.I am in a secret mommies group on facebook and often we get anonymous posts where the lady is depressed due to her conflicts with mother in law or seeks advice on how to handle her in various situations. I mean, come on,this is 21st century , women worldwide are rising up for feminism and yet here we are in our own homes, waging a struggle against our mother in laws! Something is really wrong here, because it turns out my fight for feminism is against women first and men later. For me, the gender problem starts later at work place, it punches me right in my face when I am home!
To present a balanced argument, let’s look at the perspective from mother in laws side. I am sure they also have their own learning curve while accepting a new member and they genuinely want you to look after the family first so any judgement or hurt caused is unintentional. If she follows a traditional school of thought, disagreements are a given.
Let us recognize the fact that she was managing home almost single handedly for nearly 3 decades , she also had to compromise on her ambitions ,identity and the societal regression was more predominant in those times. Over time she found solace in a pattern of doing things within the restrictions presented to her. Routine and pattern gives her peace of mind, and doing the same things over and over for almost 3 decades now gives her a sense of wisdom, perfection, achievement and respect.
Non conformity with their way of doing things and their views is seen as disrespect and disobedience. They tend to feel that the new member has scant regard of their values,practices and experience. Also at their age, rigidness of thought comes naturally, it is not easy to change habits or views as we grow older. Add to it the complexity of female emotions and their tendency to over think, over analyze and over worry. Mother in laws are often more eloquent with their expression while the daughter in laws are taught to take everything with a grain of salt and stay shut.
Ok understood , this background perspective helps a bit. But is it right to expect that daughter in laws should still sacrifice their sense of freedom and ambition in toe of their mother in laws? Is it right to expect that our sense of morality will converge?
Being married at close to 25, I was a pretty naive daughter in law myself! Past 6 years have been a huge learning curve and understanding the above mentioned perspective is helpful to a bit. Nonetheless it is human to feel angry, violated and frustrated at times while disagreeing with each other, but i now know that i need to pick my battles wisely. At the same time I won’t shy from giving her the due credit of making me more responsible , as a homemaker I have learned a lot from her, more than I could learn from my own mother.
This Mother in law-daughter in law dynamic is complex , on the obvious grounds that both come from different generations, value systems and family backgrounds. While their overall objective is common to achieving balance and happiness at home, the means and manner of achieving the goal will invariably vary. Some adapt to these variations soon and find the overall equation adding, others keep struggling to maintain harmony and oftentimes their own peace of mind gets subtracted. Very rarely the equation gets equal!
A simple search on Google will turn up numerous pages on how to deal with this convoluted relationship, but i have found one advice to be useful in particular. Along with patience, persistence, listening and other such well meaning good sounding words, this 5 minute rule seems plausible and practical. So in the scenario of an argument or disagreement,take 5 mins to think about it. This way you will respond to the trigger and not react. Reaction leads to overreaction whereas response leads to discussion. I am myself trying to imbibe this rule because in retrospect there are times when I reacted while a simpler response could have sufficed and put the matter to rest.
Becoming a parent ourselves also adds a new dimension to this already complicated equation. It is only when we ourselves do parenting we realize the hard job done by our parents and we feel a heightened sense of gratitude and understanding towards them. We start getting it that their advice, wanted or unwanted, is for our good only. We still have the discretion to follow what we think is good and filter out the rest.
A lot many issues come up which can become bone of contention between the two, decision to have kids, when to have and how many to have,ways of parenting,to be a working mom or stay at home are few such examples. These are life defining decisions and it is not fair to expect daughter in laws to concede to demands which does not deem right to them or are forced upon them. No extent of understanding has the ability to span such vast gaps in life beliefs and choices. As a daughter in law, no matter you stay together or miles apart, you will feel torn in your desire to love her or hate her, but you definitely cannot ignore her.
It is a critical play of unexplained assumptions and over expectations from both the sides on account of creating a mother-daughter like relationship. In reality, it strays far. Mothers expect their wisdom to be sought, opinion to be asked, expectation to be fulfilled as a sign of respect. Daughters expect to be accepted as they are, to not be judged, criticized, offered undue help or taken for granted.
With time you will learn to submit, ignore, agree, disagree, consider or reject whatever idea or advice she exposes you to. Avoid taking every interjection personally, chose your words and actions wisely, try conviction, discussion, stating authorities on the matter(for eg. the pediatrician said so and so)or if nothing works, may be this-
Truth is harboring the expectation that you two will go along like a biological mother-daughter duo might not be very fruitful. Heck half of us don’t get along with our own mothers as well. Remember that she is the mother of the son you live with now and she deserves all the credit for him landing with you.
Not all mother in laws are such, some are kinder, accommodating and share a good rapport with their daughter in laws. Not all daughter in laws are pleasing, some can be vile. It is a conflict of personalities separated by age and beliefs, yet if these two women decide to bridge this gap and get along, they can truly become the women who lift each other. For sure, it will make the fight for feminism more evolved, involved and less tiresome.
Acceptance, without judgement and pretentions is the key here!
P.S — I have intentionally kept the article restricted to just one relationship between women fully knowing that other women also often deride us. Also there is key difference in characteristics among rural and urban mother in laws on account of several factors which I have not mentioned.
If you are reading this and would like to say something to your mother in law, you can write it here. Writing helps.
