Of daughters and sons and in-laws

The other day I read on a blog, the typical story of neglect from two sons toward a widowed mother. Both sons not willing to bring the mother to live with them from the old-age home, bowing to wives' pressure, finally daughter coming to the rescue and how it is always daughters who are better than sons. Standard narrative, we have all heard, seen, experienced these situations. But how about a twist on them?

This particular daughter who came to the rescue of the poor mom - would she do the same for a mother-in-law? In this case, has anyone even thought of thanking the accommodating son-in-law? He is a son to someone too, and assuming he is OK to let his mother in law stay with him, I am sure, he'd do the same for his parents?

What about the daughters-in-law? Would they treat their own moms the way they shunned their mother-in-law out of the house? Or would they also be daughters-to-the-rescue for their own parents? In which case isn't it really two-faced? Should we really be praising all daughters?

What about the mother-in-law? Why are we assuming that because she is helpless and old, she is the epitome of goodness? Maybe she was nasty to her daughters in law in her day and age, and so maybe they want nothing to do with her anymore?

I am only attempting to question the natural stereotyping that comes out of these stories against the son and daughter-in-law and in favour of the daughter. I have heard far too often these days about how it is better to have daughters since they are more caring towards their parents. Agreed. I come from a two-daughters-no-sons home too! But have we taught our daughters to treat their in-laws with the same care they show towards us? Sadly, no. We have re-inforced the all-mothers-in-law-are-evil-and-need-to-be-dealt-with-harshly stereotype (actually make that all in-laws, not just mother or father in law) so much, either out of our own fear of "losing" the daughters' affection to her in-laws (like a battle for who will keep her affection to themselves) or genuine concern out of our own bad experiences. I have seen this in real life with so many people in so many facets of life in such close quarters so often that contradicting me on this one is pointless.

End of the day it comes down to the people involved. Daughters can be as bad as sons in shunning parents or sons can be as warm as daughters in caring for them.

But I agree, having two sons of my own, I am actually very apprehensive about the future and how often I can see them once they are married. Gone are the good old days where having sons guaranteed you a life together with kids for eternity since they marry and continue to live with you. These days whether it is daughters or sons, all birds fly the nest typically by 22 in most urban households. Never to return. It becomes worse for parents of sons since girls are more prone to hating than guys in general. (think girl roomies vs guy roomies, I definitely find guys more accommodating since they don't care so much about trifles very often) So you can be assured to some extent that your son-in-law wont hate you in your face but you cant really be so sure with daughters-in-law.

My mom was a very accommodating daughter-in-law. She met with resentment at every step of the way (think love marriage between different language speaking families in the 1970s!) but she always endeavoured to the best of her ability to treat all her in laws (mother, sister, brothers in law) the same way that she would treat her own kin. Of course, her in laws turned around in due time and actually came to appreciate and value her, and I have to thank her for her perseverance in maintaining those relationships. If she had decided that enough was enough and cut us off from that part of the family, we wouldn't have been lucky enough to know so many cousins on my dad's end and share such lovely relationships outside of just us siblings.

Luckily for me and my sister, we did not have resenting in-laws which made the whole relationship change in dimension like not many people are lucky enough to experience.

My own mother-in-law will always be my role model for how I should treat my daughters-in-law, to keep it simple, like my own daughters. She always lives with me in my memories, just the other day, my iron-creased wedding saree, back fresh from dry cleaning, reminded me of her so many times. How she did all the wedding preparations herself right from buying the saree to stitching the fall, to buying knick-knacks to jewelery purchase and what not. To the extent of even suffering our shortcomings silently, she always dealt with it sportingly. She adjusted as much as possible to our generation's needs and demands and lifestyles and even when she had to differ, she broke it to us in a very gentle manner. There are so many small things that constantly remind me of her - not in a poignant or intense or sad way, but just remind me of her. Like she was still around somewhere in some other town. In another five days, it would already be two years since she passed away. I still cannot believe it, it seems so unreal sometimes.