MIL is too helpful!

Hi ILites,

My dearest little sister is pregnant with her first child. She has also recently (over last six months) brought a joint home with her in-laws and moved in. This decision was made by the entire family with proper considerations given to the pros and cons of a joint home. Her Hubby left this decision to her.

Anyway, when they moved in together her SaHMIL automatically started to extend the same courtesies to her as she did for her other children, i.e. cooking cleaning, washing/ironing their clothes etc. Her MIL takes her SaHM role very seriously and does a super job of it, as my sister puts it. My sister is very independent, and has enjoyed living independently for many years before her marriage and so prefers to do all of these jobs for herself, she also is particular about how things are done, as am I, and hence another reason why she would just prefer to do these herself. Initially when they moved in together and this help from MIL started she spoke with her MIL and explained that she did not want any of this support/help and that she preferred to do it all herself, and so it was sorted. Now however since she is pregnant, her MIL seems to have forgotten her preference and without any further discussions about it, started to do the laundry, tidy their bedroom etc again.

I received quite a call yesterday from a very irate sister asking for advise on how to deal with this and my initial advise to her was that clearly the MIL if taking on your extra work out of affection for her and if she was that annoyed by it, she should tell her MIL again that she prefers to do these tasks for herself still, but to explain this with care and whilst acknowledging the effort her MIL is making. I also tried to tell her, there will come a time when she may require this additional support and so long as it is given on terms that suit them both it’s a good thing, in fact that’s what families are for. I have also tried to tell her there are ladies out there who would consider themselves lucky with such support, me included so I might be a little bit biased perhaps.

I think to some degree, emotions are high perhaps due to pregnancy hormones, but also because she is thinking ahead and worrying about interference with raising her child.

Give me your take please ladies, it is important to me that I help her lay the right ground work for the future and I do not want her to make any of my mistakes. Essentially I want to guide her through this as best possible so that she can continue to enjoy the rest of her pregnancy and make the best use of her new family and support.

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MIL is too helpful!