Friday, September 08, 2006

In-laws and out-laws are not opposites

Dear In-laws,

I do not care about your family drama. Stop involving us.

Little sis-in-law, I love you, but that does not mean you are allowed to be rude to me and give me attitude in my own house. Next time, your brother won't just hold your legs to keep you from running away, he'll SIT ON YOU.

Brother-in-law, move out. You were supposed to be here a week or two, then a month or two. That was back in May. You have a job now. Why you are giving your entire paycheck to child support is beyond me; my dad had to pay child support AND get his own place to live. You can do the same. Go get your own place, move your wife down here, and get custody of your son. Go be your own family and stop mooching off mine. And while you're still here mow the damn lawn, like we agreed, instead of leaving it to my nearly-50-year-old father who works 60 hours a week on the night shift.

Older sis-in-law, I have no complaints about you. Bring the nieces over more often; I want to hear your oldest play her clarinet. She can seriously practice on my back porch, and it won't bother anybody but Brother-in-law, who I want to leave anyway.

Mother-in-law, thank you for FINALLY trying to get a job. Please stop asking everyone for money and/or expensive gifts. We all have kids, too. And for heaven's sake, next time your daughter starts mouthing off, the least you can do is GET UP OUT OF YOUR CHAIR.

Father-in-law, I know you're on your third wife and your...seventh baby, is it?...but you do have grandchildren, and it wouldn't kill you to call and ask about them now and then. That's all. We're not asking you for money or a place to stay or a car or anything like that. Just care about our kids. If you can't do that, you're not really a grandpa, are you? Then again, you weren't much of a father, so I'm not surprised. You just...you hurt my husband, and I don't know how to forgive you for that.

Bizarro Dad, get off your lazy butt and HELP ME. I keep asking you for help, and you keep ignoring me. Eventually I will reach my breaking point. You don't want that to happen.

Sincerely,
Sleepless Mama

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's an inescapable fact: Most families are this mixed up.

I read through this long list of issues, and could think of many, many more examples from both my wife's and my own family.

We've come down to two possible solutions for the crazy family sitch: Either put our collective foot down and not let our family walk all over us or take advantage of us anymore, or join the Peace Corps.

I hear Africa is rather nice this time of year...