How to prepare to be a good mother-in-law
The tale of mothers in law needs to change.
Being a good person is not an overnight thing. It requires that one acknowledges their shortcomings and actively do something to make themselves a better person. And when you hear so many tales of the damages caused by mothers-in-law, do not just assume you will be a good one. Ensure you will be a good one.
If you are a bible reader, you would know how impactful the actions of just one woman can be on the human race: both for good and evil. Women may not build buildings like men would and have the physical strength of a man but they impact greatly the quality of life of their families and by extension (though their children) other families as well.
So here are the few steps I have thought of that can help you be a good mother-in-law:
- Understand the difference between your child and your husband/partner.
I do not know how true this is in other parts of the world, but over here women refer to their sons as their husbands and in some cases daughters that are rich are considered family properties.
Your child is not your husband. They are just that your child. This may seem trivial but understanding that your child is just a child not a life partner makes you understand that they will grow to build a life separate from yours and hence when you are making plans, you must understand that someday that child will have to go build a life without you in the center though of course, they will always have you as their mother and treat you as such.
Only your spouse takes a vow to stay by you, live with you in sickness and health… forsaking all others as long you both shall live until death do you part. Your children will take the vow with someone else.
2. Build a life of your own
Imagine that someday your children are grown and have gone on to marry and have their own lives, and assume your spouse is also busy somewhere with their own aspirations, what becomes of you then? What will your day be like when there is no one else needing your care 24/7? Prepare for such a time like you prepare for financial retirement. I think women must begin to prepare for emotional retirement like they prepare for financial retirement. How will you fill your life if you never have to show up at your son’s or daughter’s house to be a grandmother and you have a lot of energy, what then? Have a career for your youth days and one for when you have plenty of time on your hands so that you only show up when you are needed.
It is said that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop.
3. Understand the difference between investments in banks and what you do for your children.
When you put money in a bank or invest in an investment product or business, you do it with the expectations of profit in the future and rightly so. This is not so with children. Whatever you do for your children is out of the love you have for your children. It is your gift to them. It is you setting them up to live a better life than what you had. This is not for you to begin to remind them tomorrow that you sold your house to send them to school. If you are a parent in the right sense of the word, you derive joy in sacrificing for your children.
No one has asked any parent to have children. If you choose to have children, it is your choice, and they did not choose to be born. We parents actively get in a position to procreate. And then once we bring children to the world, it is our responsibility hence to look after them. I understand that there are people who do not plan as in rape cases. I am talking of those of us who consciously have children. Do it for your children. Our children are not investment vehicles. Let them take all you offer, become great and expect nothing in return as you would out of other forms of investments.
“You have to love your children unselfishly. That is hard. But it is the only way.” — Barbara Bush
4. Your Children are not to pay for your life choices.
My husband left me and married someone else and thereby making me a single mother. I have to raise my son alone. I have had to make sacrifices I would never had made had I been with his father. As much as this is a sad short bio of myself, it is not my son’s fault and problem.
His father approached me and I agreed to marry him. It was my poor judgement that I could get married to someone who had the character to not respect marriage as I would have loved. I must accept that and learn from my mistake.
My son should not have to choose tomorrow between I and his wife because I raised him as a single mother. He was not part of my decision making. He has no business with what happened to me in the hands of his father.
No one must hear tomorrow how I had to do this and that for my son and hence I must make decisions for him, and his wife and I must be above his wife because it was hard raising him.
The truth is it is hard raising every child including us who were all children once. Someone also sacrificed for us, and we have not made of them the center of our lives.
5. Learn a skill
Learn something now that you will be spending time on when you can no more work or have to look after children if you were a stay-at-home mom. Start writing or learn how to sow, get a certificate in teaching, learn how to cook, become a marriage coach or life coach and use your life experiences to give back …Something that is not heavy that you can be doing that will allow you to give back and make a better use of your time as you age and can no more work in corporate and be stressed with its demands. Something that will help you be less of a problem to your married children.
Proverbs 31:25–29
25 She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. 26 She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. 27 She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. 28 Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 29 “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.”
6. Write out how you want to be taken care of in your old age
Now that you can still think straight, it is time you relieve your children of the emotional burden of worrying about you. Write a will of your old age care and give it forward for when you may start blabing due to old age. Let them know that you want them to live and enjoy their lives and not be burdened with all that you will become as a result of old age.
Acept to be put in a old age home or make some arrangement. Buy your 2 bedrooms somewhere in a good estate and let any of the extended family that chooses to stay there with you do it if you can. or hire a nurse. Save for it.
You have lived your life, let your children live theirs. Do not make everything about you. Love your children enough to let them enjoy life to the full. They will appreciate and love you more for it.
Please add more that you can think of and let’s change this narrative and reduce the pains women go through because of their mothers in law.
