The "M" Word aka "mother-in-law"

by Judy Merrill Larsen

I don't know about you, but I certainly grew up hearing mother-in-law jokes (not in my own family of course. Never. Ever.)

There was even a really stupid late-1960's sit com (I guess that's redundant, huh?) called, you guessed it, "The Mothers-in-Law". Starring Kaye Ballard and Eve Arden, the story line had these two women as neighbors who, while diametrically different (one liked to clean house and cook; the other didn't), were best friends and when their kooky kids were in college they fell in love and got married (natch) and since both moms wanted to be underfoot the kids lived in a renovated garage apartment between the two houses.

Hilarity ensued.



It seems as though M-in-L jokes have been a staple of comedy forever.

I remember one of the first times I realized I might be on the butt end of one of those jokes: I was pregnant with my younger son and frantically trying to finish a darling cross-stitch pattern to go over his crib. (Okay, real quick, did any of the rest of you cross-stitch? Do any of you still do it? Cause if so, I've got scads of floss and patterns and unfinished projects I can send your way.)

Anyway, I was showing the finished, framed product to a friend who was oohing and aahing appropriately when I blurted out, without even thinking, "Yeah, and when he grows up I can give it to his wife when they're about to have a baby and she 'll show it to a friend and say, 'I have to put this in the nursery because Eric's mom made it.' And then they'll both groan."

My friend, who was also a mom of a boy, looked at me and we knew. If we weren't careful, we were someday going to be the butt of jokes and snide comments from the women who'd married our sons. (Little did we know how much practice we'd have as the mothers of teens.)

ACK!!!!

Now, let me be clear. I'm not yet a mother-in-law. And I'm not in any real rush. I'm even in less of a rush to be a grandma just in case anyone's wondering. For one thing, I'd have to find that silly cross-stitch picture. It's, um, somewhere in the house. I'm almost positive. (Yeah, I'll be more the Kaye Ballard role, I'm afraid.) But I seriously used to worry about being pushed aside. You know there's that stupid saying "a daughter's a daughter all her life but a son's a son 'til he takes a wife." I mean who the flip coughed that one up? And I also know that a wife's mom has her own bad rap from son-in-laws.

I'm here to call a moratorium on all M-in-L humor.

Because I'm also here to say that I just spent a weekend with the queen of mothers-in-law. She has it down to an art. And a science. She embraces everyone. She makes cookies and fluffs pillows and smiles. She's interested in everything her family does and is the biggest cheerleader for all of us. She encourages us all to be who we want to be and if she flinches at a grandchild's piercing it's always done in private.

Almost her entire extended family (kids, in-laws, grandkids, great-grandkids, nieces, etc.) gathered this past weekend to celebrate her 90th birthday at a Cubs game. She had a blast. (We'd also gathered last spring on the actual day, but she's so cool we wanted to celebrate again!). She's funny and smart. And she rolls with life.

So, Kaye Ballard and Eve Arden, you need to step back and learn from the master.

And so do I. Thank goodness I've got time.

Take Your Daughter to Work Year

By Margy McCarthy

There are many facets of my persona that are unusual, but the top of them all has to be my choice of occupation.

I teach.

Okay- that doesn’t seem weird. Lots of people teach. But I teach middle school.

It is the rare adult who voluntarily signs up to spend seven hours a day in a room with a group of twenty-eight hormonal adolescents. When you multiply that by six classes and a homeroom, you might think you have a sure-fire recipe for insanity. Maybe you do. Some days I would swear to it. But for some reason or other, I keep going back. I love it.

So call me crazy.

For the past three years I have taught the accelerated level of eighth grade language arts, which means that every summer the registrar scrapes off the top layer of test scores and sends them to me. This year that top-floating layer includes my daughter, Shriek.

When people learn that my daughter is my student, I get mixed response. Some think it’s fine, but more often they think there might be a conflict of interest or some sort of subtle favoritism. These are obviously the people who don’t know me very well. When Shriek comes into my classroom, she does what every other kid does. She acts like every other kid, and I think the odds are pretty good that there are a fair percentage of students in her class that don‘t know we are related at all. If it’s awkward for her when I give a well-deserved lecture (her only comment about it so far is that it’s “a mixed blessing”) it doesn’t show. I don’t call on her any more than the others or any less. If anything, she’s at a slight disadvantage, because I won’t look over her language arts homework before she turns it in.

But I have to admit, I like seeing her in my classroom.

I was, after all. her first teacher. We’ve read together for thirteen years- it’s just that now she gets graded for it. Six years ago, her brother, Snooze, was in my class-- and it was probably the best thing that ever happened to us.

You see- the classroom puts me in a different light. I play a different role. At home, it’s just Mom saying “put the dishes away” or “pick up the dog poo in the back yard,” and you know if you put it off for another hour nothing terrible will happen. But at school, everybody does what Mom says the second she says it- they take out their journals and follow the prompt. They write copious notes on capitalization. They read stories and do vocabulary flashcards- and if you’re lucky, she’ll get out the slates and let you show that you know your definitions by drawing pictures. They love to listen to her read- something you’ve been doing so long you take it for granted- and they laugh when she says something funny. Which she actually does quite a bit.

At school- you figure out that although Mom is kind of weird-- it’s the cool kind of weird. She knows what she’s talking about up there. And wow. The kids like her.

Vacation? What Vacation? by Barb McKone

Vacation?  What Vacation?  by Barb McKone

My family has a split personality.  I realized it a week ago, the moment we pulled into our driveway and tumbled, tanned and happy, out of the car and back into our Real World. Vacation was over, and, within moments, so was Vacation Personality.

Vacation Personality is the reason we must, absolutely MUST, for as long as we're living together, go on a family vacation every summer.  No question, no exceptions.  

No one ever has time for vacation.  My entire family, as I make the calls and plans and reservations and buy tickets, looks as if they might die.  Really.  I'm the worst person in the world, expecting them to leave their friends and lives for a week or two.  But, lo and behold, after we've made the back seat cozy with pillows and a favorite blanket and we get into the car and turn to the first page of the AAA map, Vacation Personality sets in.  

Vacation Personality is:

Relaxed.  No phones, unless we want to risk them getting wet or sandy.  Believe me, I'm not saying my daughter isn't texting away in the back seat en route, but, on vacation the kids don't seem to be adhered to their phones as if they are pacifiers.  It's amazing how fast those fingers can click!  On vacation there are no schedules except for the ones we set for ourselves. If we want to lie around on the beach until the dolphins show up at dusk, we can do that.  A few more rounds of beach paddle ball before the sun goes down?  No problem.  We've got no place to we have to be.  How wonderful is having no place to be?! 

Adventurous.  Sea kayaking, anyone?  Sure!  How about a little crabbing off the dock in the moonlight?  Sounds good!  Stop off at the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame?  Why not?  No "I'm supposed to meet Mary at the mall," or, "I have band practice all afternoon."  It's all "sure!" or "let's go." Really, what else can they say?  We're a thousand miles from home, we've got the time blocked off, and we have the keys.  For all intents and purposes, the kids are being held hostage in the back seat, and they don't even seem to mind.

Adaptable.  Our vacations schedule is as follows: Three days here.  Half-day of transit, two days there.  Moving on.  Overnight somewhere else, three days in a new place.  And on.  This is what comes of having a husband with seven siblings who all live half a country away.  Visit one, you'd better visit them all, or at least see them.  It's fun.  It's important.  It's tiring, and since we're the only ones in the Midwest, the road only seems to go one way.  To their credit, probably because they know the routine so well by now, our kids have learned how to to travel light and gather belongings fast.  I didn't realize until this summer that our nomadic vacation wanderings have taught a life skill that will serve them well in their college years of couch-surfing.  Well done, us! 

Unified.  My kids like each other.  Sometimes, they even like their parents.  I know I'm blessed in this.  I've known families for which vacations are tenuous at best.  There is almost nothing that satisfies me more than turning around in the car and seeing my children laughing together. Yes, half the time they're laughing AT my husband or myself, and the other half of the time they're laughing at a movie they're watching, but they're together, and they're laughing.  For at least one week per year, our children WILL pay more attention to each other than to their friends.  Some day they'll thank us. 

So, after nine days of the Vacation Personality we ALL (and I mean it- I think the kids like the Vacation Personality even more than we do) so enjoy, it is always surprising to me how very fleeting it is.  

Home Personality hits at the front door.  Dogs barking and leaping at our knees, we enter the world of How We Left It.  No matter how we left our lives, they always seems to need days of restoration when we return from a trip.  Appointments that need to be made.  Laundry piles I guess I missed.  Weeds that seem to have grown much more than a weed should in under two weeks and are now sharing their seed with the rest of the neighborhood. 

Home Personality, especially upon return, is rarely relaxed.  Scheduled to the gills.  Home Personality is super social, just not necessarily with family.  It's still unified, but more in passing than in hugging and laughing.  Home Personality has an agenda.  Commitments to be met.  It gets things done.

Home Personality's motto: Get busy or get out of the way. 

This all reminds me a little of church day care on Sunday mornings, back when the kids were little.  We all volunteered to help in the Nursery from time to time, and it was fascinating to see the family dynamics displayed on these occasions.  Many of the children, upon drop off, were crying.  Screaming.  Literally peeled from their dad's pressed pant legs and deposited on the ABC rug on the floor.  But, after some Teddy Grahams and a story or two, they wanted to play. Blocks.  Dolls.  Soon they'd start to cruise the room for games they didn't have at home. By the time their parents came to pick them up, they would barely look up.   When they notice their parents, of course, they're immediately clingy again.  Teary again.  Back to normal.  

How great it would be for our Normal to be Vacation Normal!

It's not that our Vacation Personalities are gone.  They are always there.  I like knowing that they're simmering underneath our daily routines, deep down and dormant.  Thankfully, sometimes they pop up and give us a hint of what the next summer will hold-- fun, delightful, adventurous spirits, just waiting!  It's nice to know that all that they need to wake up is a road atlas and a full tank of gas.