MIL's Arrrggggg! Sorry so Long

[Guest guest]

Ok all you mommies, here's a question for you.

How do you personally, diplomatically deal with a mother-in-law (or

mother if you chose) who feels that because " I raised 2-3-6-22 kids

and they all turned out just fine, " should tell you what to do with

your own children and that you should just follow?

Did that question come out right, lol??? Hope so.

Anyway, my deal is that my MIL, who wasn't much of a mother to her

kids when they were young as far as I'm concerned, likes to tell us

how we should be taking care of our twins. At only 3 weeks old, she

was insisting that we start giving them cereal in their bottles.

After all, she did this with her kids and they were just fine...

yeah right. Now, I have no doubt that the main reason MIL gave her

children cereal so young was so that they would sleep longer and she

wouldn't have to deal with them as much.

This woman readily and unashamedly admits that she smoked cigarettes

and pot throughout her pregnancies so that she could keep her babies

small. She smoked continuously around them as they were growing up

and says that she doesn't think it really affects our kids, but

thankfully respects our " no smoking around our children " rule,

regardless. Now each of her children suffered from chronic ear

infections as children and my hub and one sis had ear surgery by the

time they were 3 & 4 years old. All of her kids have addictions to

tobacco (hub is a chewer, UGH), and 2 have had substance and drug

addictions. Hmmmm... funny that she wouldn't think that being

addicted to TCH at birth couldn't possibly affect them later in

life. I'm fairly certain that many of their childhood illnesses

could have been either avoided or lessened had she not smoked 2

packs a day around them.

Hub and his siblings pretty much took care of themselves and each

other when they were young and survived on canned and frozen food

and money left on the table with a note saying " gone out, order

yourselves something... " She never cooked for her family, insisting

that anything that took longer to make than it took to eat was not

worth her time. Now, I'm not knocking quick and dirty meals. Heaven

knows that since the advent of our twins, and with a very

athletically and scholastically active 13 yr old, jobs, day-to-day,

etc, quite often we have to make quick meals from kits and, on

occasion, do take out. I know this is just the way of life for many

families these days but I personally choose to make healthy meals

for my fam as often as I can and feel it is best for all of us.

Sheesh... what am I trying to say here?

What this all leads to is that so far hub and I have let MIL have

her say just to humor her and then continue to do what we and the

babies doc feel is best for them. Now, however, she flat out told

hub (she wouldn't dare be so bold with me) that we need to start

feeding our 3 mo olds baby food and that when she takes care of them

from now on she will be making sure they get it. AHEM!!! I THINK

NOT!!! Up 'til now she has made " strong " suggestions as to what she

thinks we should be doing with our babies, but had yet to blatently

tell us she was going to go against our wishes as their parents.

My MIL is a much better and more supportive mother to her children

now that they are older and she has done so much to help us out with

our kids. I know she loves her grand kids and in her own deluded

way, feels that she knows whats good for the twins, but hub and I

both feel she is wrong and uninformed. My desire here is to try and

keep peace amongst all of us while letting her know that under no

circumstances is she to do something we have specifically told her

not to do.

I should add that one of her issues with our babies is that she

feels that Aubree needs to lose weight already (she's 3 mo old for

heaven's sake). Aubree is a beautifully chubby girl while her twin

brother is longer and leaner. Our twins are very much polar

opposites in personality, looks, shapes, eating habits, etc. and

because of this, we can't compare their growth rates to each other.

Aubree has had a problem with reflux and instead of putting her on

medications, we have opted to use the " thickening cure, " whereby we

add cereal to each of her bottles to stop the reflux. Thickening has

worked wonders, but the extra calories have added to her weight (MIL

feels that regular baby food throughout the day would lessen her

caloric intake. Hub and I are not a bit worried about her weight as

she is in a very healthy percentage bracket for her age and their

doc assures us that both are wonderfully healthy and happy babies.

My big mouth has gotten me into trouble before, but when someone

tries to horn in on this mother hen's nest, I'll peck back pretty

darn hard. I'd like to avoid any hurt feelings and arguments so what

I need is some advice on gentle but firm ways of getting our

parental points across to MIL.

Blah, blah, blah... This topic just bothers the heck out of me and

I'd love to hear any and all advice.

Thanks,

Toi