by Carol-Ann Di Matteo

Created on: January 28, 2009

Ask most married women, and they'll agree that Mother-in-laws drip family conflict. Mind you, not all mother-in-laws apply here. You see the horror stories of overbearing mothers of fully-grown men trying to rule over his wife and family on talk shows. You read about them in the newspapers. Heck, there has been a movie or two that I know of depicting those negative type of mother-in-laws. Mostly, you'll overhear young wives crying to their friends about her husband's mother at the table next to you at a cafe or coffee shop.

I know this type of mother-in-law because I have one myself. If I had know what I was marrying into, things would have been so much different. I didn't see it coming because she was disguised as a best friend to me. Once I married her son, the tables turned. There was no way I could please her. I just couldn't do enough. Her idea of a wife to her son resembled a step-ford wife. She told me all the rules of being a good wife that applied to married women in the fifties, like something out of the Donna Reed Show.

According to my mother-in-law, I was supposed to make her son's coffee for him, lay out his clothes for the next day and pack his lunch. What? Like he's a little school kid? My husband isn't helpless. He can pick out his own clothes for work the next morning. He certainly didn't need me picking out his clothes like he was a toddler. The coffee gets made by whoever gets to it first the night before. Sometimes it's me, most of the time he does it. When I know he's too tired or under the weather, I always make sure the coffee is done and I'll lay out his uniform shirt and socks. I leave the jeans up to him because I hardly ever pick the right pair he wants to wear.

According to my mother-in-law, I am supposed to always have a full size meal almost done when he walks in the door. I'm supposed to start cooking at noontime to be done by the time he comes home in the evening. Hello? Anyone heard of 30 minute meals? (However, I have learned to allot an hour for those so-called 30 minute meals.) Everything is supposed to be immaculate when he comes home and the kids quiet in another room. So that means I would have to spend every minute once the kids get home shadowing them to pick up a toy or sock they left on the floor. Who has that kind of energy? And quiet kids? They're going to make noise and I love the sound of kids playing and laughing. So does my husband!

Besides the step-ford wife standards, my mother-in-law had a few ideas of her own.

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