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Dear MIL, I can never love you even if I try, but not because I was born that way. It is because I was raised this way - taught to hate and fear you!
Dear MIL, I can never love you even if I try, but not because I was born that way. It is because I was raised this way – taught to hate and fear you!
Dear Mother-in-law,
I write this letter in the pretext that you would never read this. You reading this means a significant amount of my ego getting hurt. Even though I admit some faults and lay down my concerns, I am not going to hover the fact that I still hate you, will continue to do so. Even though it’s not your fault entirely.
I hate you when I see you still pursuing your hobby, working on your career, throwing parties for friends. You walk around the house live and bright like a queen.
I never saw that in my house, my mother was always shackled inside the kitchen, never had a hobby not to mention career. Her in-laws never entertained her friends or family either.
Mother in law, I hate you when you shower love on your son and grandchildren. I feel you are planning to snatch them away from me. It may not be entirely your fault, but I grew in a house where my father was more attached to his parents than my mother.
I have seen many times her eyes yearning for some privacy, to sit a talk, go out for a walk or watch a movie on Sunday perhaps. However, my father was busy with his parents on Sundays, taking them to errands and spending time with never-ending chats. My mother battled in the kitchen to make their Sundays more special.
Mother-in-law, I hate you when you try to be nicer to me around your relatives and friends. I feel you are faking and trying to let me down in front of others. That may not be true, but I can’t help it.
I have grown up watching my mother showered with humiliation and insults particularly if people are around. My mother would sob in the kitchen silently while laughter burst out from the living room. The sound of laughter hurt me more than that silent sobs…
Mother-in-law, why does father-in-law still pamper you? Gift you clothes and jewellery on every occasion and take you out on Saturday night dinners? He never misses an annual vacation with you! My heart aches to see that, my heart feels an unknown pain.
During her entire married life my mother never really went on family vacations or on tours. I never saw her go to her own parents’ house unless it was for an emergency which was may be five or six times!
She never received any gifts on her birthday. Not that my father was poor, or he did not love her, he was negligent towards his wife. To my disappointment, he is a self-centred person, even today!
Mother-in-law, you help me in the kitchen every day. You won’t allow me to cook if there’s a party at the place. Also, you order food from the restaurant on weekends. Do you think I like it? No, I doubt your intentions there too. You definitely don’t like my cooking and my way of homemaking, that what I assume.
My mother slogged 24/7 in the kitchen to serve us a hot meal three times a day. Her mother-in-law never lent her a helping hand and neither did her sisters-in-law. During functions, my mother sweated blood till she would drop dead in bed just to get up early morning and face the horror again.
I call you mom but never feel that way. My mother was a woman who never raised her voice, and took her silence to the grave. You are nothing like her and I despise that truth. So, I eagerly try to find faults in you than appreciating the efforts you are taking to bond our relationship.
Sometimes you look bewildered why I am picking up a fight with you or sulking in my room. To tell you the truth, I do not know the reason either. I can never love you even if I try, but not because I was born that way. Mother in law, I was raised this way – fed with an unknown fear, uncertainty, and resentment towards the extended family. Hope you understand!
Yours
Daughter-in-law
Note: Every house has a different story to tell, not every Mom-in-law is a monster nor every daughter-in-law is a son-snatcher. The above mentioned is actually a 10-minute conversation with a person I know. All the reason she had to hate her Mother-in-law was the sheer happiness her mother was deprived of. It is inevitably true that mindsets are built inside four walls, of our own house.
A version of this was first published here.
Picture credits: Still from Hindi TV series Yeh Rishte Hai Pyaar Ke
Sheeba Vinay is a writer, Compiler by profession. She is criminologist and a writing therapist. Her write-ups have been published in Lokmat Times, TOI and various platforms like Women's Web, Momspresso, Storymirror, India read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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