The Fragile Mother/Daughter-in-Law Relationship

This transcript has been adapted from the attached audio. It may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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HAROLD HARPER: Annie, it’s great to have you back with us and in the studio today. Welcome back to For Faith & Family.

ANNIE CHAPMAN: Thank you, it’s great to be here.

HARPER: Why do you think the subject of mother-in-law is the subject of jokes? There’s a lot of apprehension when a couple gets married about just in-laws in general, and you refer to in your book, the relationship between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law as the most fragile of human connections. Why do you think this is the area of so many potential problems.

CHAPMAN: Well, I do sincerely believe that, that it is very, very fragile. That’s why I call the book, The Mother-in-Law Dance, because, you know, when you first learn to dance, sometimes you spend a lot of time looking at your own feet, you step on toes unintentionally, it doesn’t look very pretty, you know, it’s kind of awkward. But when you learn to dance, at least in the literal realm of that, you get to choose your own partner. But in the mother-in-law dance, someone else chooses the partner. In the beginning of the book, I sat the scenario of the wedding scene and the bride is at the back of the church and the music starts, and on that cue the bride starts to walk down the isle. But in all reality, that music cues another woman in the room. The mother-in-law, and her job is not to step forward as the bride does, it is to step back. And I believe it is such a hard job as a mother to be a mother-in-law because that is our place; we have to step back. The subtitle of the book may say it, Can Two Women Love the Same Man and Still Get Along. You know, what’s the problem between a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law; it’s that feller. That guy in-between and he’s the prize, and everybody wants him. Everybody wants his attention. And there are these two women who are vying for this position of prominence in his life and biblically, as I said to the mother-in-laws, wife trumps mom every time. Biblically, the mother has to step back and the wife take that place of prominence. But that’s not so easy when you’ve spent your entire life nurturing and loving and taking care of that boy. There is one thing to kind of capsulate this whole idea, the same characteristics that make you an incredible mother to small children can make you a horrible mother to adult children, and you’ve got to know when to turn the mommy faucet off.

HARPER: So what was the motivation of writing this book? Was it hard to let go, or what brought you to this point?

CHAPMAN: Well, it’s talking to my friends, talking to women. One of the stories in the book that really was the catalyst for this, I was talking to a friend, a friend of years. Her son had gotten married and his wife had had their baby, a new baby, so they had traveled across many states to go see them. Well, they got there and the mother-in-law then found out that the daughter-in-law’s church was having a mother-daughter banquet like the next evening. Well, she was kind of excited because she knew the young lady, the daughter-in-law’s mom lived a thousand miles away, she knew she wasn’t coming. Well, she thought, well here I am, I can go to the mother-daughter banquet with my daughter-in-law and she was thrilled at that prospect. She waited for the invitation. The next day she waited. The girl is getting ready for the evening and never asked the mother-in-law to go with her. Well, the mother-in-law ends up in the bedroom squalling, you know, that’s what every son wants to hear is his mother whaling in the other room. The husband is standing outside the door, you know, the father-in-law is just kind of in a quandary here. The father tried to explain to the son, okay, this is the problem. Your mother’s feelings are hurt, your wife was rude, she should have invited her, and the son is like, “Mom needs to grow up.” Well, the result is, I was talking to the offended one, she said, “I’ll never go back to that house,” and I thought, oh, my word, one thoughtless act, one inconsiderate thing and this relationship is blown to smithereens. And when that woman said, “I won’t go back,” she meant it. And I thought, how fragile. You know, if this was men, you know, they’d talk it out or they’d go out in the backyard and duke it out, they’d go play golf, they’d do something. Women, oooh, women are going to hold this for the next thirty years. That girl is going to pay for what she did to her mother-in-law.

HARPER: You’ve also been a daughter-in-law for thirty years or so and a mother-in-law for four years, so, in addition to the wealth of information from your own experience, what other sources did you use, and you’ve got some great stories. You meet people all across the country.

CHAPMAN: Well, to be honest with you, I didn’t use a lot of my own experiences because this speaks to how fragile this really is. Again, I told my mother-in-law and my daughter-in-law as I was working on this book, I would not use examples of them and they visually and audibly, they did the “sigh.” I can hear the sighs of relief, and look how fragile. This is one relationship you cannot exploit for financial or antidotal gain so, as a result, I needed other people’s stories and for two and a half years, I did surveys and questionnaires with women from all across the country. They graciously and anonymously shared with me their stories, some incredible stories of real beauty, of the story of a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, you know, when you think about how fragile it is and how easily damaged, but you look in the Scriptures and you see the most beautiful declaration of love in all of antiquity was made between Ruth and Naomi, a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. So, as fragile as it is, it can also be that beautiful and that binding of two women who are willing to cooperate and to love each other. But I used examples of women from all across the country.

HARPER: What was the most surprising thing out of all of the surveys?

CHAPMAN: Well, there is the story I have about a daughter-in-law who had a really mean mother-in-law, mean, mean. When she referred to this daughter-in-law to her friends she would say, “This is my fat daughter-in-law.” You know, that’s not how you win friends and influence people. But she said that her mother-in-law would say so many horrible, horrible things to her. She didn’t want her to bring the kids there because she didn’t want the little whatnots and the dog’s tail pulled and things like that, so there was always this conflict. So I gleaned a lot of really good wisdom from that woman because she really learned how to deal with this mother-in-law. But this is one thing. She said so many times she bit her tongue, she wouldn’t retaliate back, she would be nice to this woman who was just so hateful. The mother-in-law went out to the mailbox one day to get the mail and dropped dead just there on the spot. So when the family went into the house; they obviously went into a house where the mother-in-law had expected to return. She lived alone. They went in and on the mirror beside the bathroom was a post-it note and it said, “pray for” and then it was one of her grandchildren. At the kitchen sink, “pray for” a daughter-in-law, all through the house there were post-it notes reminding her to pray for different family members. The daughter-in-law said never in a million years would she have guessed that her mother-in-law really cared about them. But the truth was, the mother-in-law had been widowed twice, she had been raised by an abusive father, she had built walls around her to keep hurt out and she had kept love out. So the daughter-in-law said you won’t know how many times I am so glad that I bit my tongue, that I did not retaliate, that I did not strike out at her, but I loved her anyway because now I see she loved us, she just couldn’t show us. I think that was one of the sweetest stories, and it reminded me, you know, just put a lock on it; don’t get revengeful. In the Bible it tells us, as much as it up to you, live at peace with all men. Even God knows there are some people you can’t be at peace with, but as much as it is up to you, do that.

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