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How to
by Jean Komaiko
Photos by Mickey Pallas
Mv friend Martha recently sur
prised me by announcing
that she was learning to be an
understudy to her mother-in-law.
"What?" I asked dubiously. "Were
n't you the girl who said you've been
doing a slow burn for eight years over
your mother-in-law's tactless be
havior? How come the new Polly
anna act?"
"Same girl," Martha laughed. "I
didn't say I loved John's mother any
better. But I took a look at myself,
and wondered how I'd behave if some
one else was playing the biblical Ruth
and I was cast in the role of her
mother-in-law Naomi. It's an inter
esting speculation. You ought to try
it. I realized that I probably wouldn't
do the job one whit better than John's
mother, because it's one of the world's
hardest relationships. I'd like to play
the part well, so I decided that right
now was the time to get some prac-'
tice, to begin learning the cues for
my lines."
"Yes, and how does one go about
studying to be more
like Naomi?"
"It's quite simple,"
Martha replied. "I keep
a little list actually it
isn't so little. I call it
'faults that irk.' Every
time Mrs. Thomas pro
vokes or hurts me, I
jot down the incident.
Then I try to figure out
the whys and where
fores. It's preventive medicine, a kind
of guidebook for my own future use
on how to avoid in-law pitfalls. Ever
since I've kept my list I've become
more sympathetic and more aware
that Ruth, too, can be in the wrong."
I
was interested, hut enm.
iviaruias tnends were downright
amused. "How ridiculous can you
get?" they asked. "After all, Martha's
children are 3, 5, and 7, better than
a decade away from weddings and in
laws. Who wants to borrow tomor
row's problems today?"
6 Family Weekly, February 23, 1951
'I ''tB'-'""-' .--v'-VEWS
Succeec
I'm not sure I agree with their
common-sense attitude. As a matter
of fact, Martha is really the practical
one, for she's trying to avoid, not
borrow, problems. She's actually buy
ing insurance for her own future
happiness and that of her children. '
Why are people so reluctant to un
derstudy their mothers-in-law? Girls
watch their mothers to learn how to
be a wife. Boys emulate their fathers
as they grow up to be husbands.
Everyone is exposed to other parents
long before they produce offspring of
their own. But when it comes to
studying an in-law, the general atti
tude is "Count me out. This is one
relationship that is much too painful
for scrutiny!"
In the Orient, this could never
happen. Whether a bride likes it or
not, she comes to live in her mother-in-law's
home. The result is that
every wife has a long period of un
derstudying her husband's mother
before she becomes "mother" to her
own son's wife. "And make no mis
take," a Chinese friend said to me,
"that's a good way to develop under
standing and tolerance."
Even in the rice vilr
i
lages of Japan, where
the O-shuto-san (mother-in-law)
often earned
a reputation for cruelty
toward her sons' wives,
a new effort is being
made to improve the re
lationship. Since 1951
Bright Heart Societies
have cropped up all
over rural Japan. Each
society has a constitution that encour
ages its mother and daughter-in-law
members to "smile and laugh the
whole day" and to "stop quarreling
over whose chicken laid the egg" (the
egg being the source of the house
wife's pin money) ..To the meetings of
the society members bring their com
plaints about each other, leaving the
home peaceful and quiet for their
husbands' pleasure.
But in this country we have neither
a training period for mothers-in-law
nor a meeting ground where the two
As a Mother - in -
generations can air their gripes. We
fret and fume over our coffee cups,
but fail to profit from Mama's errors.
We laugh at mother-in-law cartoons,
jokingly envy the girl who marries
an orphan, and' secretly admire the
Solomon Island taboo that says a
married man must never lay eyes on
his wife's mother. We al
most encourage her to
become an outlaw when
she becomes an in-law,
and we accuse her of
every, crime from "smoth
er love" to home wreck
er. When the poor woman
makes a creditable job of
her difficult task, we fail
to salute her. And when
Mil
she flops, we frown know-
ingly and feel that somehow "we'll
do it better."
Martha is one woman who isn't
leaving her future relationships to
chance. "I'm taking inventory now,"
she says, "before a daughter-in-law
accuses me of ruining my sons, or a
son-in-law chastises me for spoiling
my daughters. And believe me," she
adds, "inventory includes looking at
Ruth as well as Naomi. Annoyed as
I am when John's mother criticizes
my handling of little Johnny, I'm find
ing that sometimes she's justified,
perhaps not in the way she says it,
but in what she says. I'm finding that
my added insight is benefiting three
generations John's mother has a
more willing audience, John's wife
has a second look, and John, Jr., may
be a better man."
Martha's list of "faults that irk" is
a valuable legacy from her husband's
mother. From it she has evolved 10
pointers on how to succeed at the
delicate, difficult, but not impossible
job of being a mother-in-law. Here
they are, as Martha explains them:
1. Build lasting interests for a life of
your own.
John's mother grew up in a gener
ation when women tended the hearth
and home. She gave her children her
undivided attention, and it's painful
' to her to watch a younger woman
assume the role that once was hers.
She feels lost and unneeded. This
shouldn't happen to tomorrow's Na
omi. Ingenious labor-saving appli
ances and greater freedom have
changed women's role. Every woman
today needs what Virginia Woolf
called "a room of her own," a continu
ing interest, which is there for her
now as well as later when
her children have their
own families.
2. Develop tact in place of
the ready tongue.
John's mother feels
"benched" by a woman
who does things differently.
She annoys me when she
talks about her type of
discipline, her home-baked
pies. But wnen l slop 10
think about it, I realize that she butts
in, unasked, with suggestions and
criticisms largely because she wants
to feel needed.
If she had more interests to divert
her, she wouldn't need to cling to life
solely through her children. In that
sense, tactfulness should come easier
to our generation. When I'm honest
with myself, I must admit that my
resistance to her suggestions rises far
too fast that if I listened and learned
(I can and should be able to do both),
I might run a smoother house. .
3. Encourage your children to be in
dependent. All of us have mixed feelings about
raising children. It's sometimes hard
to watch them growing away from us
as they mature. It makes us feel
older, less needed, a little like a de
posed monarch. Actually, all of us
want to raise mature men and women,
and one of the worst crimes we com
mit is stifling the independence of our
children. The do-it-yourself age in
.which we live should apply to child
rearing as well as house-building.
4. Be a friend, not a mother, to your
children's mates.
A woman once told me that she had
had a "hey, you" relationship with her
mother-in-law for 40 years. "You
know, Martha, I've never been able
to call her Mother she simply isn't
my mother. Mrs. Riley is just too
Law
formal. I could have called her Nettie
comfortably, but she let me know
early that first names were for friends
and not for family. So I've stammered
and 'hey-you'd' through three chil
dren and six grandchildren."
John's mother has insisted on these
conventions, too. In doing so she fails
to realize that children acquired
through marriage can never be like
her own. I can't appreciate her being
maternal toward me, and I hope that
someday I will remember my dis
comfort and will try to make my in
laws comfortable friends.
5. Be glad they're happy.
John's mother feels lost and un
happy, with the result that she fails
to emphasize the positive aspects of
our relationship. It would be more
pleasing if she could rejoice' in our
happiness and take it as a compliment,
for it means she has raised her son to
be a good husband.
6. Give without strings, take without
regret.
Generous to a fault, John's mother
gives with a price filial obligation
and gratitude. This is hard to do grace
fully, but it's easier than learning to
take. Giving is associated with power;
taking with loss of power. Parents
don't enjoy accepting help from their
children, but life is a story of give
and take, and the trick is in being
able to do both with grace.
7. Comparisons are un
fair to all concerned.
John's sisters may be
better homemakers than
I am, but it doesn't help
me to be told about
their virtues. Compari
sons breed antagonism
not only between John's
mother and myself, but
between his sisters and
me. We should enjoy
people for what they
are, not tell them what
they should be.
8. Remember two's a couple.
Divisive tactics and whispered con
fidences to "your own child" don't
work. These barbed suggestions gen
erally boomerang, making the divider
family
Like any ether
difficult job,
it takes practice
plus the application
of these 10
pointers.
very much the party of the third part.
9. Privacy Is marriage's first right.
Need we say more?
10. A sense of humor helps everyone.
Perhaps this last applies more to
Ruth than Naomi. When the cutting
remark or the veiled hint is used, the
daughter-in-law has a duty to her
self and her family not to take life
too seriously. A sense of humor is
almost as important as a sense of taste
or sight or sound.
After reading Martha's list you'll
probably wonder, as I did, who on
earth could live up to these principles.
"I'm sure not I," Martha laughed.
"But they help me to check my anger
and increase my sympathy; they re
mind me that one day I will be Naomi.
When I am, and I fail, I will tell my
daughters-in-law to make a list of
my shortcomings. I may irk them in
entirely different ways, but at least
they will know I studied and I tried."
"And what is your idea of a success
ful mother-in-law?" I asked.
"I don't know," Martha answered,
"but I can tell you the nicest compli
ment I ever heard paid to a mother-in-law.
Five young housewives reg
ularly had coffee each morning, and
each day four of them would air their
complaints about their mothers-in-law.
Finally they asked the silent girl,
'And what about yours?' "
The girl smiled. "My mother-in-law
was a great friend. She
passed away recently. I
miss her very much."
(Family Weekly wel
comes your views on
what it takes to be a
good mother-in-law, in
300 words or less. Letters
must be postmarked no
later than midnight,
March 3. If we print your
letter, you will receive
$25. Letters must be
signed, but names will be
withheld on request. We
reserve the right to edit contributions.
Letters cannot be returned. Address
contributions to Mother-in-law, Fam
ily Weekly, 179 N. Michigan Ave.,
Chicago 1, 111.)
Family Weekly, February 23, 1958 7