Confessions of a mother-in-law: I don’t want to be complained about by my daughter-in-law…

Looking back on the conflicts between myself and my daughter-in-law, I would like to say… The relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is an eternal problem. Women from two eras, from being strangers to each other to living together, will have various conflicts due to different living habits, ways of speaking, and behaviors. I was born in the 1950s and am one of thousands of mothers-in-law. Background: Before my grandson was born, my daughter-in-law and I lived in two cities. We were far apart and had little contact with each other, so we were very polite and harmonious. When my grandson was born, I hired a confinement nanny during the confinement period. After the confinement period, I originally wanted to hire a nanny, but due to various reasons, the one I found was not ideal. In addition, I often saw news about nannies abusing children, which made me scared. Finally, give up. I had retired at that time, but I was still employed and still working. Since I couldn\’t find anyone, I had no choice but to quit my job and take on the task of taking care of my grandson. I have been engaged in professional work for more than 30 years. I suddenly have to leave my job, lose my income, leave my husband, and leave the home where I have been the hostess for more than 30 years to go to my son\’s home in another city to take care of my grandson. Taking care of the housework… I experienced a psychological change: from being extremely happy after having a grandson to beginning to feel depressed. I\’m not very good at housework. My son was raised by my mother-in-law, so when I first took care of my grandson, I had to cook and take care of the children. Sometimes I was so tired that I shed tears secretly at night. I have also worked hard to learn some parenting knowledge, but there are still big differences in the parenting concepts between the two generations, and the conflicts are gradually increasing. The first point of conflict is the different concepts of dressing children. The baby has been wearing very little since birth and has always been barefoot. The indoor temperature in Shanghai is low in winter. I always bring an extra piece of clothing when I go out. I am always afraid. The baby will freeze. Sometimes when I take my baby to the community park, I don’t wear enough clothes and my feet are bare, and I will be advised by the older and enthusiastic grandmothers: \”The child is wearing too little, no socks, and he needs to eat cold!\” I don’t care at first, But it’s still stressful to listen to it too much. In fact, I have read a lot of books. Children\’s body temperature is higher than that of adults. It is not good to be overheated, but I am still afraid that catching a cold will cause a cold and a runny nose. I always feel that wearing more clothes is better than catching a cold. My daughter-in-law has also talked about this several times. Second, the concepts of medication and treatment for children are different. When the baby is about 3 months old, he has eczema on his neck. My mother-in-law in the Northeast told me a folk remedy: boil dry mugwort in water and take a bath. It is said that it will be fine just after washing. Because my mother-in-law raised my son when he was a child, I believed in her advice and brought a large bag of high-quality mugwort leaves from Northeast China to Shanghai to give the baby a bath. At that time, the family hired an aunt who worked part-time to help. She was also in her 50s. We had a common language in this regard, and we worked together to boil water to bathe the baby. This aunt\’s own two children were washed with mugwort boiled in water, so she even made a sincere guarantee. But when it came time to wash the baby, my daughter-in-law refused. I was quite disappointed and felt that she didn\’t trust me. People of our generation believe in Chinese herbal medicines, but young people in the 1980s and 1990s are unsure about the side effects of Chinese herbal medicines and do not recognize them very much. Differences in concepts between the two generationsVery big. Third, children have different concepts on eating. Since the baby started to eat complementary foods, my daughter-in-law asked the baby to eat by himself with a small spoon. Sometimes the food in his mouth was too little, and a lot of it fell on his body and on the ground, causing it to be all over the body and on the ground. There were grains of rice all over his face and floor, which made him look dirty and uncomfortable. I felt unsafe, and I also felt that I could eat more if I fed her. Cooking was already hard work, and it was hard to clean up the food that was spilled all over the place. In our era, we didn’t even have enough to eat when we were young. Looking at the food all over the place made me feel really uncomfortable. So when my daughter-in-law is not at home, I feed him food and don’t let him take a spoon to eat by himself. So until now, whenever I eat with my baby, I always want to feed him so that he can eat more. This is also a source of contradiction. Fourth, the concept of coaxing the baby to sleep is different. The baby is about four months old. He can sleep longer if he is held, and wakes up as soon as he is put on the bed. To let the baby sleep longer, I hugged him and sat on the sofa in the middle hall, putting a cushion on my back and holding him to sleep without even daring to move. My daughter-in-law\’s maternity leave is about to end and she has to go to work in the company. At that time, in order to alleviate my difficulty in coaxing the baby to sleep, she wanted the baby to fall asleep on his own. In view of these situations, my daughter-in-law read a lot of books and posts to study the baby\’s sleep problems. At that time, I was very disgusted and thought that when children sleep, they will naturally fall asleep when they grow up. Is it still so troublesome to sleep? Your generation really adores foreign things and reads too many books. Moreover, after my daughter-in-law went to work, she asked me not to hold her to sleep during the day, not to put her on the bed after she fell asleep, but to pat her to sleep directly on the bed, or fall asleep by myself. I was very resistant at the time, thinking that it would be a good idea to put him to sleep on his shoulders and then put him on the bed. I was used to coaxing him to sleep this way, but the baby would cry when he was placed on the bed. I couldn\’t bear it. In addition, I am afraid that the baby will cry. The baby will not be kissed by me and I will not be able to take care of him during the day. Everyone has their own method. I felt aggrieved and made various demands. This was disrespectful to me. I was unhappy and didn\’t do it her way. I\’ll coax you during the day, and you can use your own method at night. At that stage, the baby would wake up crying like an alarm clock after 40 minutes of sleep. Sometimes he would cry loudly in the middle of the night, and would have to walk out of the room to the hall when he cried, because I would coax him to sleep in the hall during the day. of. At this time, my daughter-in-law said that she did not fall asleep on her own during the day. At night, the baby was not willing to fall asleep on her own. The day and night were the same for several days in a row. I tried it with a skeptical attitude and patted herself to sleep on the bed during the day. It was slow. Slowly, the baby learned to fall asleep on his own, and found that he rarely cried loudly at night. Since then, the baby has become more and more worry-free during the day, and I have become more relaxed, taking more time to fall asleep throughout the day. After that I did some deep introspection. I should not stubbornly stand on my own position and insist on some old concepts, but should accept some advanced concepts. It is not only young people who benefit, but also themselves. I want to tell mothers-in-law of the same age to keep up with the times, learn advanced parenting concepts and methods from young people, and constantly change your own old traditional concepts, so as not to fall behind. Don’t interfere too much in the lives of young people. We don’t need to worry too much about what they should and shouldn’t do. Times are different, and growth backgrounds are different. You cannot rely on your own lifestyle toAsking for a daughter-in-law. Respect young people\’s ideas, and young people will respect you in the same way. When getting along with your daughter-in-law, you should be a kind-hearted mother-in-law who understands young people. In fact, the lives of today\’s young people are not easy. They are materially richer than our generation, but they are under great mental pressure and the competition is fierce. For the happiness of your children and grandchildren, you must love your daughter-in-law even more. Those who will benefit will be your sons and grandchildren, including yourself. What I want to tell my daughters-in-law: When I was in Shanghai, I took my baby to the community park and met a haggard mother-in-law. She confided in me: Her family lived in rural Jiangxi and trained a college student majoring in computer software at Tsinghua University. It is not easy to train a college student in rural areas. It takes a lot of effort to make money. In my hometown, I am a very respected and admired mother, and I feel very proud of myself. After my son graduated, he went to Shanghai, married a Shanghai girl, and gave birth to a grandson. He thought he would be able to get ahead and enjoy happiness. But when I went to Shanghai to see my grandson, my health was not good, my ideas were outdated, and there was a huge difference between urban and rural life, so I was always scolded by my daughter-in-law. Very painful and helpless. After hearing this, I felt unable to comfort her. I could only silently sympathize with her and pity the hearts of parents in the world. I would like to say that we should also understand more about the mothers-in-law in the 1950s and 1960s. Their habits and concepts are deeply ingrained in their minds and are not easy to change at once. You need to understand and care about your mother-in-law, especially when your mother-in-law comes from the countryside (or other cities) to your son and daughter-in-law’s house to help take care of your grandchildren. Leaving home and going to a strange place, changing from the hostess of the family to the supporting role of the son and daughter-in-law, there will be a big psychological gap. Not only is it physically exhausted, but it is also very tiring mentally. The husband is not around, and there are unhappy things. , there’s not even anyone to talk to, so it’s very lonely. In short, whether it is mother-in-law or daughter-in-law, we must treat each other sincerely and be more understanding. The daughter-in-law must understand that women of her mother-in-law\’s age are in the menopausal stage, when they are most vulnerable physically and mentally, and are most likely to be sensitive, suspicious, and worried. Mother-in-laws also need to understand that their daughter-in-law has just become a new mother, and her postpartum hormones will change drastically, making her prone to anxiety and depression. Rely on each other, respect each other, be more tolerant, and work together for the happiness of the whole family, so that the world is filled with the sunshine of love, and children and grandchildren can thrive in a harmonious family.