Last week I promised a book review relating to Mother-in-Laws Day, which was yesterday… There really is a day for everything!!! When I was a newly wed and had endured, through out our engagement, all the terrible “mother-in-law” tales out there a friend gave me this book…
And what a valuable book it turned out to be! In the great scheme of women gathered around the coffee pot at work all competing to come up with the worst “mother-in-law” tale and many of them are very Tall Tales and endless urban legends!!! This book turned out to be just the wake-up call I needed!!! The focus of the book changes from how to “cope” with your mother-in-law to what sort of mother-in-law you will be. Hello! I had never thought of that but the relationship between a mother and her son is critical to the whole mother-in-law, daughter-in-law relationship and why hadn’t I ever thought of that before!!!
Now a couple of years later I am a potential mother-in-law more than a couple of times. The book lists a number of different types of mothers: the controlling mother, the dependent mother, the martyr mother… the list goes on and is quite terrifying!!! I was very quick to wake up and realize that these were the kinds of mother I really didn’t want to be and to focus my mothering attention to equipping my kids with life-skills and whatever else they will need for contributing and living in the big-wide-world.
Hopefully by thinking ahead to the kind of mother-in-law I intend to be enabled me to be a better daughter-in-law, this book certainly made me see where my mom-in-law was coming from in all sorts of areas and helped me to better understand her plight!!!
Apart from that this book does have some practical tips on how to cope with communication problems, like criticism and confrontation in general not just between in-laws.
What I really liked about this book was that the author, Norman Wright, assumes that he is writing for adults who will behave like adults and they will want to resolve any issues they do have like adults. Now that’s refreshing – most books take one side or the other and assume the resolution on the side of the apparent victim. The book provides some real applications for the reader to try and techniques to use in order to resolve issues in a practical way.
I liked this book, I found it useful and if you have the potential to be a mother-in-law one day then you may want to read it too.
The mothers-in-law (hubby has a mom and step-mom) “burdern” is not a great one for me as we are far away from them (geographically).
I suspect they could drive me batty if I were to live close, but I did realize rather quickly in our relationships that it takes two to make a relationship, and I’m one of those two!
This sounds like an amazing book!
Hi C, I discovered early on too that its all about growing up and nobody is perfect – least of all me!!! Somehow it is fine for friends to fit into the compartments of our life and yet I always expect family to agree on everything!!! I think even when we lived on the far side of the country I could drive my poor mother-in-law totally bats!!! You have a good week!
Hi L, Excellant read! Really worth seeking out! Have a good week!!!
Now I have a fab mom-in-law, but certainly need help in learning to mother better myself!
Hay J, Yeah this was a bit of an eye opener for me. Boy did I have a lot to learn and I am so glad I discovered this book now, years before I will be a mothers in law!!! Hope you guys have a good week!!!