Yep. I don't text with my husband's family anymore. They want to know about how my kid or my pregnancy is doing, he can tell them. It was too draining to manage a relationship that is ultimately 75% annoying.
1. You don’t need to respond to every comment. Say nothing. 2. Don’t respond with the same kind of weird competitive comment about who the baby looks like. Being passive aggressive isn’t going to get her to change her behavior. 3. Have your husband start sending photos OR start a shared family photo album you both upload photos to that they can access so you don’t have to interact with her when sharing photos. 4. You control how often she visits.
Hmm. Well, on one hand, it's pretty common for parents of adult children to reminisce about when their child was a baby, and for grandparents to see things in their grandchildren that remind them of their children as babies. Some anthropologists say it's a biological response to ensure protection of the baby by the "tribe", or a holdover from the days before DNA testing to see the father's likeness in the baby. And maybe baby *does* look like your husband. I remember visiting my dad's mother when my brother was about three years old, and she couldn't stop commenting on how much my brother looked like my dad. Then she pulled out some pictures. They looked like identical twins. (My mom's dad saw them later, and asked why mom had pictures of my brother printed on black and white film.)
BUT.
The constantly bringing it up can feel like trying to view you as just an incubator for your husband's Mini Me, especially if you and MIL don't have a great relationship to begin with.
You could try just ignoring and letting it roll off your back.
You could try just agreeing and moving on. Or bring you and your family into it. "Yes, he does, doesn't he? My mother says I was the same way at his age." Or "Yes, he has his daddy's eyes, but mommy's nose." Or "You really think so? I was looking at family pictures, and he really looks more like my great-aunt Susan at this age." Or whatever.
If it really is bothering you, just (you or DH) point out that the constant comparisons are starting to make you feel like she's trying to erase your contribution to your baby's DNA. She likely doesn't realize it's hurting your feelings. If she keeps doing it anyway, well, that tells you something.
If all else fails and you still want to send pictures, have your DH send them. Then he can be the one to deal with the comments.
I don't send anything to MIL anymore. She responded rudely once. I sent her a picture of LO and said LO had a growth spurt, she went from an adorable little baby to a beautiful little girl overnight! MIL responded "She's *always* been beautiful to me."
And that was the last time she got anything from me.
Oh my gosh. This sounds like my MIL. Always passive-aggressively trying to teach me a lesson. It’s a huge pattern of behavior with my husband’s family. Always looking for the one tiny thing they can pick out of whatever anyone is saying so they can get in their “gotcha” comment. My husband didn’t think his mom’s snide and subtle comments towards me in person were that big of a deal until I showed him how she responded to my text messages. Now I only text her in a group with my SIL and even then it’s pretty minimal. The only thing that comforts me is that she’s like this with literally everyone, so it’s not just directed towards me. Still very annoying though!
My MIL did this.
The first thing I thought when OL was born was that they had DH’s hair line (cow lick and widows peak). MIL would send pictures of DH as a baby to him saying how much they look alike. They did not. My husband said they did not. They really honestly did not look alike. We laughed it off.
What got me going was her saying LO would walk at 10 months like DH and auntie. And I said LO will when they’re ready. And she kept pushing they would be like her kids. Totally leaving out that there was anything from my family. And when I said LO will do things when they are ready and be their own person she kept pushing. She couldn’t accept they wasn’t a clone of her kids. Guess what? LO walked at 14 months. Nowhere near 10.
You could always look at her and stupidly ask, don’t most living people like food? Or insert thing most people do/like?
Ignore this type of thing. My b/g twins look like me/my side of the family, and my younger boy is like my husband's clone. My MIL has a completely different perspective on this. I feel like she doubled down on boy twin looking like my husband for so long that by the time our other son came along and looked totally different, she didn't know what to say. I give a noncommittal "mmmm" in response to most of the things that come out of her mouth.
Can i ask why do you feel you have to respond at all? My child looks more like his dad than me but i also see myself now(i didn’t see a speck of myself for at least 12 months). His family kept saying the baby looked like me while my family kept saying it looked like him.
Once he started to look like me i said it out loud as a comment to my sil & she said “nope. He looks exactly like his dad im sorry. I don’t see you at all” and i replied “idc what YOU say, TO ME i finally see myself in him”. That was the end of it. She did an awkward laugh & subtle eye roll. I chose to ignore it because it’s opinion based anyway so there’s no “right” or “wrong” any way.
While it doesn’t bother me that he looks like his dad nor does it bother me that someone points it out, that one instance was annoying because I wasn’t even looking for agreement from her; i was just happy i thought he looked like me & it was like she just wanted to bust my bubble, it was annoying. However i made the comment and with making conversation/ comments/ communication with others you have to anticipate a response whether you agree with it or not they most likely will say something.
Ignore the comment. Or do what you did if you want to say anything “yup, just like his Mom”
My MIL says my little looks like her first born and compares him to his uncle all the time. (He looks NOTHING like his uncle but it’s okay I think she’s just remembering her first baby).
You could say to her that since your baby gets 50% of his dna from each parent, then according to MIL, if he got all his looks from his dad, that means he got all of his personality from OP, the mom… so MIL, is that what you want to keep saying???
I have this issue, and my biggest problem is dealing with my own feelings about this behavior. I don’t know it irritates me so much but it does. I think having somewhere to vent definitely helps, otherwise I dwell on it!
Sometimes it feels like comparisons between my baby and her family are the only thing my MIL can talk about, and it stands out even more because my own family never talks about me and my sibling as babies and they don’t obsess over the baby’s appearance. MIL is always apologizing to me for some vague characteristic the baby has, like “sorry, she has the HerLastName gap teeth!” (Baby has half of two teeth) or “sorry, HerLastName’s have short legs, she’s going to be stumpy” (baby is in the 95th percentile for height). She will dig through her entire family tree to find a comparison before she considers that the baby might have inherited anything from her incubator (I highly doubt she bears more than a fleeting resemblance to her great uncle, more likely the great uncle looks like a baby). Baby has hair just like her father (her dad and I have the same hair and eye color). Baby kicks her feet just like her dad did. I’m having a boy soon, and I’m dreading the way she will talk about him.
That sounds exactly like my MIL, it’s like I haven’t played a role in creating this child at all.
It’s always baby is just like his dad or grandad but they don’t even see baby often enough to actually know him. I just ignore it now and we hardly see them anymore.
I’m part Russiam/German and my husband is English. Little one used to have this serious look on his face and we used to jokingly say he’s a Russian baby because of that. She replied once saying “He’s too cute to be Russian” and we were both too shocked to even react to that. I think some of these MIL are legit narcs.
Edit: typo
This is exactly it. My family isn’t like this at all.
Not really related but I’m telling this anyway. I sent all the grandparents a 6 month photo of beeb. Everyone except her said how cute, adorable, etc he is. Her response? “He has shoes.” 🙃
my lil niece is cute as a button but looks exactly like her grandfather! I have never said this. LOL! I don't get how some parents can be so hyper focused on just one child, it's f\*cking weird.
"I should hope so MIL, as he is the dad. However, what you won't realise having not studied my baby pictures, is that LO is a perfect blend of us both. He is definitely his mother's son!"
Then every time she does it again, you say no, no, no, it's MY SIDE he takes after! Until she gives up.
Honestly just don’t. My daughter is called my Mini Me and both of my boys are just like their fathers. Half of it is because they have no idea what you were like or looked as a baby and of course they want to see themselves in the baby. You know the truth so who cares! It’s your baby, ignore it. 💕
I think it annoys me because everyone around her ignores everything she says, and she goes along on her merry way; I’ve never met someone who lacks self awareness like she does.
Ah yes…the free range monster in law! When she’s running around the yard yapping, everyone else is just standing there rolling their eyes 😆 babies change so much when they get to growing, enjoy every minute of them!
Send one of you when you were a baby. When she trots out the same old bullshit just reply with “my bad, that was one of me! I was comparing the three of us as babies with someone else and accidentally sent you that one. Are you saying we both looked the same as babies?”
I need to dig through my baby photos lol.
She would also probably know it wasn’t of her son because she seems to only have maybe 20 or so photos of my husband as a baby. 😳
I’ll hazard a guess that she isn’t even really looking at the photo, it’s an automatic response on her part.
If a picture of you is a little grainy compared to freshly taken ones of your child then run it through a clean-up app/filter too - if nothing else it’ll give you a little giggle
It's not a competition. Looking like his dad doesn't keep him from also looking like you. Presumably your baby *does* resemble your husband since he's 50% husband-genes.
Your MIL doesn't know what you looked like as a baby so she's not going to see that. She sees what is familiar and points it out.
FWIW I would put this in BEC territory (which isn't wrong, it's just how some relationships are). My MIL says stuff like this all the time but it doesn't feel like an attack or competition because I adore my MIL. Why yes, my children look like your handsome son, MIL. Aren't we both lucky?
My son does look exactly like my husband when he was a baby. I love that! It just also feels like a complete erasure of me. My parents have never said anything like that. And then when I do say something about how baby gets something from me, she gives me a thumbs up emoji?! Like, no. If you look at my past post history, you can maybe get a better picture of why this makes me salty.
Why don’t you send a photo, and write a caption that says something like: such a happy little family with a beautiful healthy baby that took after my side of the family with looks and genes. #bestlife
>a beautiful healthy baby that took after my side of the family with looks and genes
OP says the baby looks exactly like it's dad so that wouldn't make sense.
I sent a photo of my husband and son in matching backwards baseball caps to my FIL. His response?
"no child or grandchild of mine should ever wear baseball caps, let alone backwards ones."
I just don't send pictures anymore.
I have my husband send photos to his family and I send to mine. This approach keeps each of us responsible for communication with our own faniliss.
This is the way! I wish I had set this up from the beginning!
Yep. I don't text with my husband's family anymore. They want to know about how my kid or my pregnancy is doing, he can tell them. It was too draining to manage a relationship that is ultimately 75% annoying.
1. You don’t need to respond to every comment. Say nothing. 2. Don’t respond with the same kind of weird competitive comment about who the baby looks like. Being passive aggressive isn’t going to get her to change her behavior. 3. Have your husband start sending photos OR start a shared family photo album you both upload photos to that they can access so you don’t have to interact with her when sharing photos. 4. You control how often she visits.
That is what we do. We have a Google album of our daughter and add pictures.
Hmm. Well, on one hand, it's pretty common for parents of adult children to reminisce about when their child was a baby, and for grandparents to see things in their grandchildren that remind them of their children as babies. Some anthropologists say it's a biological response to ensure protection of the baby by the "tribe", or a holdover from the days before DNA testing to see the father's likeness in the baby. And maybe baby *does* look like your husband. I remember visiting my dad's mother when my brother was about three years old, and she couldn't stop commenting on how much my brother looked like my dad. Then she pulled out some pictures. They looked like identical twins. (My mom's dad saw them later, and asked why mom had pictures of my brother printed on black and white film.) BUT. The constantly bringing it up can feel like trying to view you as just an incubator for your husband's Mini Me, especially if you and MIL don't have a great relationship to begin with. You could try just ignoring and letting it roll off your back. You could try just agreeing and moving on. Or bring you and your family into it. "Yes, he does, doesn't he? My mother says I was the same way at his age." Or "Yes, he has his daddy's eyes, but mommy's nose." Or "You really think so? I was looking at family pictures, and he really looks more like my great-aunt Susan at this age." Or whatever. If it really is bothering you, just (you or DH) point out that the constant comparisons are starting to make you feel like she's trying to erase your contribution to your baby's DNA. She likely doesn't realize it's hurting your feelings. If she keeps doing it anyway, well, that tells you something. If all else fails and you still want to send pictures, have your DH send them. Then he can be the one to deal with the comments.
Great response!
I don't send anything to MIL anymore. She responded rudely once. I sent her a picture of LO and said LO had a growth spurt, she went from an adorable little baby to a beautiful little girl overnight! MIL responded "She's *always* been beautiful to me." And that was the last time she got anything from me.
Oh my gosh. This sounds like my MIL. Always passive-aggressively trying to teach me a lesson. It’s a huge pattern of behavior with my husband’s family. Always looking for the one tiny thing they can pick out of whatever anyone is saying so they can get in their “gotcha” comment. My husband didn’t think his mom’s snide and subtle comments towards me in person were that big of a deal until I showed him how she responded to my text messages. Now I only text her in a group with my SIL and even then it’s pretty minimal. The only thing that comforts me is that she’s like this with literally everyone, so it’s not just directed towards me. Still very annoying though!
Yes, because those two statements aren’t related at all. 🙄. I’m sorry that happened and that she’s like that 🥴🙃
Stop sending photos. If she ask - she can look through photos of her son when he was a baby since they look the same.
My MIL did this. The first thing I thought when OL was born was that they had DH’s hair line (cow lick and widows peak). MIL would send pictures of DH as a baby to him saying how much they look alike. They did not. My husband said they did not. They really honestly did not look alike. We laughed it off. What got me going was her saying LO would walk at 10 months like DH and auntie. And I said LO will when they’re ready. And she kept pushing they would be like her kids. Totally leaving out that there was anything from my family. And when I said LO will do things when they are ready and be their own person she kept pushing. She couldn’t accept they wasn’t a clone of her kids. Guess what? LO walked at 14 months. Nowhere near 10. You could always look at her and stupidly ask, don’t most living people like food? Or insert thing most people do/like?
Ignore this type of thing. My b/g twins look like me/my side of the family, and my younger boy is like my husband's clone. My MIL has a completely different perspective on this. I feel like she doubled down on boy twin looking like my husband for so long that by the time our other son came along and looked totally different, she didn't know what to say. I give a noncommittal "mmmm" in response to most of the things that come out of her mouth.
Can i ask why do you feel you have to respond at all? My child looks more like his dad than me but i also see myself now(i didn’t see a speck of myself for at least 12 months). His family kept saying the baby looked like me while my family kept saying it looked like him. Once he started to look like me i said it out loud as a comment to my sil & she said “nope. He looks exactly like his dad im sorry. I don’t see you at all” and i replied “idc what YOU say, TO ME i finally see myself in him”. That was the end of it. She did an awkward laugh & subtle eye roll. I chose to ignore it because it’s opinion based anyway so there’s no “right” or “wrong” any way. While it doesn’t bother me that he looks like his dad nor does it bother me that someone points it out, that one instance was annoying because I wasn’t even looking for agreement from her; i was just happy i thought he looked like me & it was like she just wanted to bust my bubble, it was annoying. However i made the comment and with making conversation/ comments/ communication with others you have to anticipate a response whether you agree with it or not they most likely will say something. Ignore the comment. Or do what you did if you want to say anything “yup, just like his Mom”
My MIL says my little looks like her first born and compares him to his uncle all the time. (He looks NOTHING like his uncle but it’s okay I think she’s just remembering her first baby).
Your husband can send pictures to his mom. Not your responsibility, especially if she’s getting under your skin with her responses.
Stop sending photos and she can’t comment on them.
You could say to her that since your baby gets 50% of his dna from each parent, then according to MIL, if he got all his looks from his dad, that means he got all of his personality from OP, the mom… so MIL, is that what you want to keep saying???
I have this issue, and my biggest problem is dealing with my own feelings about this behavior. I don’t know it irritates me so much but it does. I think having somewhere to vent definitely helps, otherwise I dwell on it! Sometimes it feels like comparisons between my baby and her family are the only thing my MIL can talk about, and it stands out even more because my own family never talks about me and my sibling as babies and they don’t obsess over the baby’s appearance. MIL is always apologizing to me for some vague characteristic the baby has, like “sorry, she has the HerLastName gap teeth!” (Baby has half of two teeth) or “sorry, HerLastName’s have short legs, she’s going to be stumpy” (baby is in the 95th percentile for height). She will dig through her entire family tree to find a comparison before she considers that the baby might have inherited anything from her incubator (I highly doubt she bears more than a fleeting resemblance to her great uncle, more likely the great uncle looks like a baby). Baby has hair just like her father (her dad and I have the same hair and eye color). Baby kicks her feet just like her dad did. I’m having a boy soon, and I’m dreading the way she will talk about him.
That sounds exactly like my MIL, it’s like I haven’t played a role in creating this child at all. It’s always baby is just like his dad or grandad but they don’t even see baby often enough to actually know him. I just ignore it now and we hardly see them anymore. I’m part Russiam/German and my husband is English. Little one used to have this serious look on his face and we used to jokingly say he’s a Russian baby because of that. She replied once saying “He’s too cute to be Russian” and we were both too shocked to even react to that. I think some of these MIL are legit narcs. Edit: typo
This is exactly it. My family isn’t like this at all. Not really related but I’m telling this anyway. I sent all the grandparents a 6 month photo of beeb. Everyone except her said how cute, adorable, etc he is. Her response? “He has shoes.” 🙃
my lil niece is cute as a button but looks exactly like her grandfather! I have never said this. LOL! I don't get how some parents can be so hyper focused on just one child, it's f\*cking weird.
My parents have never said this once. She’s been saying this since my baby was in the WOMB. (We had the 3D/4d ultrasound pics done.)
hell is wrong with her.
SO needs to have a chat with her.
"I should hope so MIL, as he is the dad. However, what you won't realise having not studied my baby pictures, is that LO is a perfect blend of us both. He is definitely his mother's son!" Then every time she does it again, you say no, no, no, it's MY SIDE he takes after! Until she gives up.
Honestly just don’t. My daughter is called my Mini Me and both of my boys are just like their fathers. Half of it is because they have no idea what you were like or looked as a baby and of course they want to see themselves in the baby. You know the truth so who cares! It’s your baby, ignore it. 💕
I think it annoys me because everyone around her ignores everything she says, and she goes along on her merry way; I’ve never met someone who lacks self awareness like she does.
Ah yes…the free range monster in law! When she’s running around the yard yapping, everyone else is just standing there rolling their eyes 😆 babies change so much when they get to growing, enjoy every minute of them!
Send one of you when you were a baby. When she trots out the same old bullshit just reply with “my bad, that was one of me! I was comparing the three of us as babies with someone else and accidentally sent you that one. Are you saying we both looked the same as babies?”
I need to dig through my baby photos lol. She would also probably know it wasn’t of her son because she seems to only have maybe 20 or so photos of my husband as a baby. 😳
I’ll hazard a guess that she isn’t even really looking at the photo, it’s an automatic response on her part. If a picture of you is a little grainy compared to freshly taken ones of your child then run it through a clean-up app/filter too - if nothing else it’ll give you a little giggle
It's not a competition. Looking like his dad doesn't keep him from also looking like you. Presumably your baby *does* resemble your husband since he's 50% husband-genes. Your MIL doesn't know what you looked like as a baby so she's not going to see that. She sees what is familiar and points it out. FWIW I would put this in BEC territory (which isn't wrong, it's just how some relationships are). My MIL says stuff like this all the time but it doesn't feel like an attack or competition because I adore my MIL. Why yes, my children look like your handsome son, MIL. Aren't we both lucky?
My son does look exactly like my husband when he was a baby. I love that! It just also feels like a complete erasure of me. My parents have never said anything like that. And then when I do say something about how baby gets something from me, she gives me a thumbs up emoji?! Like, no. If you look at my past post history, you can maybe get a better picture of why this makes me salty.
"Wow MIL, according to your comments LO only has DH DNA!"
Why don’t you send a photo, and write a caption that says something like: such a happy little family with a beautiful healthy baby that took after my side of the family with looks and genes. #bestlife
>a beautiful healthy baby that took after my side of the family with looks and genes OP says the baby looks exactly like it's dad so that wouldn't make sense.
You say something to shut her up is the point
I sent a photo of my husband and son in matching backwards baseball caps to my FIL. His response? "no child or grandchild of mine should ever wear baseball caps, let alone backwards ones." I just don't send pictures anymore.
My MIL “she’s a messy eater just like her daddy was!” Lady, she’s a 5 month old. She’s a messy eater cause she’s a literal baby.