Cultural Assumptions

In the early days of my marriage, my MIL would pronounce my name in what was supposed to be a Spanish accent.

Now my name is a good name: one that exists in both English speaking countries and Spanish speaking countries. Let’s say my name is ‘Rosalynn’. So that goes ‘ROSE-ah-linn’. Cuz I was born in the USA and I speak unaccented English. And my name is what I say it is. My DH had to *beg* and *plead* with her not to call me ‘rosss-aaaaaahhhhhh-LEEEEEEE-naaaaaaah’ in her weirdo accent. And then to stop adding the unnecessary ‘a’ to the end of my name.

Your mispronunciation of my name and addition of a Spanish-sounding syllable to the end of it makes me think that you don’t consider me to be like you: a born-and-raised Californian.* Oh and sorry that I offended you by not trying the Mexican salad you made with Fr.itos and shredded cheddar. Not only is that not really Mexican food, but also my family is not from Mexico. Not even the same continent!

*except for the pesky five years I spent in childhood in… ENGLAND.

Big Bigotry

My FIL is a bigot of massive proportion (all 300+ lbs of him). If I put a bowl of finely diced tomatoes, peppers, onions with lime juice in front of him and a bag of plain chips, he will have them inhaled within minutes. My son nearly lost an arm when he tried to get a little dip in.

However, if I was to mention that it is salsa and pull out the corn chips? He won’t touch it and claim that “it will make your eyes funny” (because anyone who is not Caucasian has “slanty” eyes).

Someday I would love tell him my granpappy was a slave in the South and that he married a the daughter of a Chinese railroad worker. It’s not true, but I would love to see the look on his face right before his brain exploded.

Taking the “Daughter” out of Daughter-In-Law

It was just a few months after I married their middle son. It was a big family get together at their house with ALL their family there (mine live in another state). We were passing around the wedding pictures, and I heard my MIL talking about how much her youngest son’s girlfriend had helped her prepare the house and food for the day (I had asked if I could help with anything, and she said no). Note: said girlfriend and youngest son treated each other horribly and had broken up and gotten back together several times already.

While I was standing there, watching everyone look at the wedding pictures, MIL said, “I always wondered what it would be like to have a daughter.” Hello? Here I am, your daughter-in-law, pregnant with your granddaughter. I had to leave the room.

We’ve been married five years now, and she and FIL are still treating me like a grandchild machine who’s going to run out on their son eventually.

Your Good News Doesn’t Make My Bad News Better

With our first d/c we learned a few things – first it wasn’t a miscarriage but an ectopic pregnancy.  We hadn’t told our parents.  We felt they deserved to know why we were avoiding family functions etc.  So DH told my mother and she gave the appropriate response of genuine concern and worry about our well being.  He then broke the news to his parents.  On my next visit with his parents my fil asked some questions like – are you doing okay, what’s the likelihood of this happening again, is there any way to prevent this, etc.

My mil asked 1 question – “are you feeling okay?”  I responded with I’m fine and she then proceeded to tell us that one of DH’s cousins was pregnant and no one in the family was happy about it.  Never digging any further emotionally and not listening to my answers to her husband.

Yes, I did need to know that eventually awful cousin would be having yet another child that they wouldn’t take care of, however not a week after having a d/c.  Wait until the second trimester for goodness sake I did not need to know.  DH didn’t even need or want to know at that point.  Needless to say this was one of the reasons why we did not fully disclose our ifertility issues and why we still keep most of our personal issues private rather than open with them.

When we finally disclosed some of our issues – never saying who had the problem we got unhelpful advice and frequent mentioning of multiples… they just didn’t get it and DH decided that they were not the people we should be discussing any of our concerns or worries with.  I didn’t even have to say a word.

Holiday TMI

Well let me just tell you how much my MIL can totally suck.  Ummmm for my in laws Christmas newsletter they give each ‘family’ a little paragraph.  When it got to us she said that we visited this summer.  We shared that I was pregnant.  But then found out at 8 weeks that they miscarried.  THEN moves onto, Sunny still teaches 2nd grade and is involved in her church.  She didn’t even skip a beat.  I was like, WHAT THE HECK!  You just told the world that I had a miscarriage.  Ummm what a killjoy!