Ladies I have been wracking my brains lately trying to find out why I feel so annoyed at my MIL since I had my daughter (it’s been a year now, I don’t think I can blame it on the hormones any longer lol) and I think I have come up with a (mediocre) answer. My MIL and I have totally different parenting styles and her style has been bothering me because it differs so greatly from my own. Since I discovered this to be the cause of my repulsion for her within the last year.

My MIL has 7 kids (4 bio, 3 adopted). She is also a registered nurse. She has also been a foster parent for 15 years. Ok who are you guys picturing right now? Someone who is very kind, patient? Someone who loves children? Yeah you would think. But she is none of those things. Upon spending time with her you would think she had zero experience with children. She is cold. She is intelligent but she is not “fun”. She doesn’t talk to babies in silly voices. She does not play. She is strict and she has no sense of humor.

All of her bio children do not like her (they are adults now). One of her sons claims to have PTSD from his childhood. Imagine growing up with a mom who made sure you were well fed, healthy, clean but never just cuddled you or kissed you or sang to you. That would mess anyone up.

I never really noticed her quirks until she came into my hospital room after giving birth a year ago. My daughter was hours old at this point. The nurse comes in to remove my catheter and my MIL is holding my baby. My husband (exhausted) is sitting next to her just staring at his daughter so in love. My MIL is not even looking at our daughter while holding her. She’s talking (to who? Idk) about her drive to the hospital, the parking garage, etc. she watches the nurse take out my catheter and starts talking to her about a type of medication she recently got at the pharmacy (like wtf?) after about an hour my husband asks her if she’s even going to look at the baby in her face or is she going to just keep talking about stupid shit she can say anytime. My MIL gets mad and leaves shortly after.

She comes over to visit our daughter every couple of weeks. Stays for a few hours talking about random stuff (like usual) while holding our daughter, not interacting with her whatsoever. The older my daughter got the less she wanted to do with my MIL because she didn’t play with her or love on her when she visited.

Recently she was over and holding our daughter and my daughter starts crying and throwing a fit. My MIL looks at my husband and says “what should I do?”

I’m like blown away.

This woman raised 7 kids, has 6 grandchildren and is a nurse. She has zero people skills and zero knowledge and how to love others (she’s also been married 5 times but that’s another issue).

My husband just says “talk to her mom, play with her.”

Now if you’ve read the 5 love languages you will understand that everyone has their own way of expressing and feeling love. My SO’s has always been physical touch. He is always holding my hand, asking me to hug him, asking me to rub his back, hold him, etc. it doesn’t even have to be sexual, he just craves physical acts of affection. I feel like his intense need for this has resulted from a childhood lack of this. It breaks my heart that this woman raised all these kids and never gave them the love they needed. She was probably a really good nurse but very unfriendly....

So sad that this woman essentially devoted her life to have others (those in need) depend on her for something she could no fulfill.

I try to remember every time I get upset with her that she has a different parenting style than me and I cannot fault her for not being the “silly” fun, lovey grandma like my mother is. I’m sure she just expresses love in her way.

Do y’all know any women like this? How did you deal with the frustration?

Thanks