One of my favorite new memories is the night last month when my sons all went out together leaving me home alone with my DILs. It was actually 2 nights before the wedding of son #3 and it was such fun to have his fiance show us the wedding bands and the wedding dress. I was doing some last minute sewing (I made matching vests in Shamrock green for my grandsons to wear to the wedding and had to wait until they arrived to finish them to make sure they fit.) So, after the little ones had been put down for the night (and that's one thing I love about my DILs--they have regular bedtimes for their boys so these little guys go down at a decent hour without much fussing) the 4 of us sat around the kitchen table visiting together. It was pure delight for me.
We don't get to choose our ILs. All of my sons have married very different women than I would have chosen for them (and believe me, during their teenage years I chose the perfect girls for each of them, but I don't think any of them even dated those "perfect" choices I had made for them). Not only that, but my DILs are very different from one another. It would be easy to fall into the trap of comparing them--to each other or to the girls I chose all those years ago. The problem with comparing people is that most fall short from our perception of perfection. I know people who spend so much time harping on what they don't like in their ILs that they don't have the time or mental energy to think about the goodness in them.
Years ago I read the book "Expecting Adam" by Martha Beck. During her pregnancy, she and her husband learned that their son would be born with Down Syndrome. She shared a thought in her book that touched my heart. Here is my version of that thought:
Getting an IL is a lot like getting a pet. Your friends all have wonderful Golden Retrievers. You love how they greet you at the door when you come to visit--wagging their long tails with excitement. Their expressive barking--they seem to have so much they want to say to you. They are so beautiful with their lush golden fur. And oh, the way they interact when you throw a stick--they can't run fast enough to fetch it for you and seem so pleased as they drop it at your feet and wait for you to throw it again. One day your child announces that s/he has been to the pet store and are bringing home the most wonderful pet. You can hardly wait to have a Golden Retriever in your own family. Only when your child comes to the door, you discover that s/he hasn't brought a Golden Retriever, but rather a Great Dane. The head is so big, the fur short and dark. The great dane is completely uninterested when you throw a stick. And the barks are few and far inbetween. Not only that, the Great Dane doesn't have much of a tail at all. Now you can spend your days trying to teach this dog to fetch a stick. You can sit with this dog in front of a mirror and bark your heart out in hopes of teaching him/her how to bark like a Retriever. You can even attach weights to the tail in hopes of helping it grow longer. But, if you spend all your days trying to change this Great Dane into something that it's not, you'll never be able to appreciate all the wonderful things that it is. The massive body that is so strong and the muscles that are so defined. His/her protectiveness, the bark that s/he uses to alert you, and its loyalty. You can spend your life feeling disappointed that you didn't get the Golden Retriever that you thought you wanted...or you can rejoice in the very special Great Dane that you have.
How can you better appreciate what your ILs bring to your family?
Are you a mother-in-law scratching her head over how...and why!...your most amazing child chose their spouse? Do you wonder where you went wrong in their upbringing? OR, are you a daughter/son-in-law trying to figure out how your delightful and much loved spouse could have been raised by that battle ax--er, your mother-in-law. Ask the experts how to handle the each other without tearing the family apart in the process.
No comments:
Post a Comment