In response to her own problems with her mother-in-law (MIL), Sally Shields self-published The Daughter-in-Law Rules: 101 Surefire Ways to Manage (and Make Friends with) Your Mother-in-Law [Outskirts Press, 2008]. This slim guidebook contains 101 suggestions (for primarily new brides) broken down into five parts: The Newlywed, One House and Home, Her Beloved Son, Before and After the Baby, and Most of All. Although her style is tongue-in-cheek, she swears by these “rules” that helped her develop a friendly relationship with her once-overbearing mother-in-law that continues to improve over the years.
Sally Shields Promotes Self-Preservation
With an attractive cover, readable font, and plenty of white space, The Daughter-in-Law Rules makes for a quick and easy read that most people can finish in a couple of hours. The basic premise behind her suggestions is self-preservation. In many different areas, from taste in music to watching television shows to asking advice to selecting clothes for the kids, the author recommends saying whatever your mother-in-law wants to hear and then doing whatever you want behind her back. This self-preservation concept is explained in a brief worksheet toward the back of the book.
While the majority of the rules fall into this dishonest “self-preservation” category, others encourage sensitivity toward the older generation. For instance, Rule #40 “Don’t Try to be Environmentally Conscious When Visiting Your MIL” acknowledges that some habits (especially in older folks) may be hard to break.
Thoughtful Ideas for Mothers-in-Law
Two other thoughtful ideas are explained in Rules #70 and #71 where daughters-in-law should make an extra effort to include long-distance grandmothers in the child’s development. Shields suggests achieving this through frequent calls by the grandchild and photographs to the MIL either through the mail or in more creative ways, such as on customized coffee mugs, tee shirts, or calendars. Allowing the grandmother to remain an active part of the grandchild’s life displays far more compassion and respect than other rules that merely humor the MIL’s pesky interference.
In fact, long-distance daughters-in-law will benefit most from these suggestions, which are written from Shields’ personal point of view of having a mother-in-law she only has to see on rare occasions. Wives whose husbands never ventured far from home (or the in-laws followed them) will have more trouble relating to these rules. It may be easy to dress the kids in grandma’s carefully selected, but ill-fitting garments twice a year, but what about if grandma lives two blocks away? Shields also makes no allowances for wives who feel great discomfort being dishonest with other people, even if it means keeping the peace.
Shields, Sally. The Daughter-in-Law Rules: 101 Surefire Ways to Manage (and Make Friends with) Your Mother-in-Law. Outskirts Press, 2008. ISBN: 978-1-4327-1837-4, 147 pages, $14.95 U.S.
For more information about difficult in-laws and family relations, read Getting Along With In-laws.
 |
