Care & Feeding, January 18 2024: I’m Full of Great Parenting Ideas for My Grieving Daughter-in-Law. But She Won’t Listen."

Knave or fool? Is this mother-in-law intentionally horrid, or just too blind to see?

Link to the original letter here.

My take: To recap, the LW’s son died eight months ago, leaving her daughter-in-law with three-year-old twins. The LW worries that her daughter-in-law is overwhelmed—she worries principally, as far as I can tell, because the daughter-in-law resists her very bossy suggestions, and doesn’t want to “socialize” with her.

So we’re in that big and endlessly fascinating category, Appalling In-Laws.

I thought about itemizing all the outrages this LW perpetrated on her grieving daughter-in-law, and her crazy inability to see what she’s doing, but it was too much; I lost count.

To cite only one example, the LW writes that “things have been frosty ever since [daughter-in-law] refused to let my grandsons be baptized.”

Now she wonders how she can help! Well, never fear: Care & Feeding told her what she needs to hear. I refer you to its excellent response.

But this letter does invoke the classic “fool-or-knave” question. Does she mean well, or is she just selfish?

Chance this letter is fake: Possibly fake. She’s so extreme, and so strangely silent about her bereavement. She says nothing about her grieving, in fact. But if it’s a fake, it’s a good one. I read this as authentic.