*Gasp* There I have done the unpardonable and said it: The EVIL mothers-in-law. I repeat, and this time it is just for effect, the EVIL mothers-in-law.

Incidentally, this has been a blog-in-the-making for far too long. I knew I would write it one day, but the day never seemed to come. Fortunately, along came a total stranger (or someone from the blog-world who took advantage of the anonymity of the internet to spew some venom that was choking them, who knows?!) and gave me the necessary fillip in the form of a really nasty comment to an old post. In it I had mentioned a certain MIL I had come across in the past and in this post, when I am done with some rambling, I will mention a couple more and their evil ways.

Usually it is at this point that I put up disclaimers, which incidentally is not to save my skin, but for the sake of those among the readers who are apt to go, BUT THERE ARE GOOD MILs TOO, you know! OMG, really? You don’t say? I mean r.e.a.l.l.y?!!! Why the hell did no one tell me about it? Was it aired on TV, the newspaper? When? Is this what you expect me to say? Yawn. Come on give me a break. You don’t think I have lived fifty and odd long years and not found that out and that too all by my very own self? Yup, I am smart that way, though you may not think so looking at me. So kind readers (we will leave out the not so kind, the name calling varieties), give a wee little credence to my intelligence and please refrain from pointing out the obvious, that there is good and bad everywhere. Personally I feel that if some among the readers do not have the maturity to understand that when I say EVIL MILs, I mean EVIL MILS and not the good variety, it is ENTIRELY their problem. At best you need glasses, at worst you need rewiring for your brain.

Once I asked a friend why men get so defensive when I bring up the topic of evil MILs; after all I wasn’t talking of THEIR mother. He replied that it was because their mother comes to their mind. Okay, right. I get that.  But I have this little doubt and hence a question for the defensive types. When your own mother comes to mind, WHAT comes to mind? What is the picture YOU see? Do you see someone who is a good human being and NOT the harassing DIL type? If YES, then WHY be defensive? Silly, if you ask me. Who the hell is implying it is about YOUR mother unless you WANT to think so? If you WANT to think so, how am I responsible?! Beats me.

Of course I do understand that there are those to whose minds comes the picture of a mother that coincides with the one I am talking about, an evil one. And don’t even try telling me there aren’t evil mothers. Anyways, such as they might well feel all hot and bothered. Probably, your wife and you too, are being oppressed; you are sh*t scared to stand up against this Dominator (taking after the Terminator) Par Excellence or Manipulator Extraordinaire who is your mother. Ooh la la. Your problem again, not mine. Why blame me for what you see in the mirror? Your mirror reflects you, not me. Will breaking mirrors solve the problem? You will still see your reflection in polished car windows and even in the steel plate that has been washed with the much advertised dishwashing liquid with real lemon in it.

Now there is yet another category one can expect to be defensive, the MILs themselves. Some of them are pretty annoyed (Why? Is it because they see themselves?) when they come across stuff relating to evil MILs. A few of them instead of exercising their freedom of right to express their side of the story in their own blogs or even in the comments section of other bloggers, in a civil manner, naturally, choose to be rude and obnoxious to bloggers who are only expressing their personal views. Intimidation tactics, one calls them; perhaps these are the very same they use at home to get their own way? Your guess is as good as mine. Let us be reasonable here: If your DIL is being mean to you, what good will calling me names do? In case you did not know the answer to that one, it is, NOTHING.

Many of the MILs have a problem with the son after he gets married. They squarely blame the DIL, the new entrant, for any change for the worse they notice in the son. WTH, I say. What is this son of yours? A JELLY man with no shape of his own but who takes the shape of the mold he is poured in? If he indeed is that, who the hell, however slight, is responsible for it? Who brought him up? It is obviously, not the DIL.  He is YOUR son. So why waste your time looking daggers at the DIL whether she be good or bad, either according to you or by the standards of society?

Take some responsibility at least for the way your son has turned out, but MOSTLY give the devil his due, the devil here being your son: Your son is being bad (to you) because he is bad intrinsically, because he bloody WANTS to be bad to you. Try to digest that fact. If he is being mean to you, the mother, he has a mean streak in him. Period. No use blaming anyone else. Don’t even talk of ‘influence’ by DIL. If he wasn’t influenced by you in the first place to grow up to be a nice human being (that is assuming you are a nice person),  why blame a stranger? He has the choice not to be influenced by his wife. He has a choice to be his own person. If he does not exercise that choice, call him a fool, easily influenced or whatever, but don’t heap blame on your DIL and paint your offspring as some innocent led astray. Innocent, my foot.

Have you noticed one thing? Generally, no mother complains of the time a son spends at work. No mother ever complains too much about the time the son spends with his friends (Most of them refuse to think of homosexuality, so they aren’t “jealous” of male friends of sons), away from her. But they lose their peace of mind when a woman enters his life and he spends time with her. WHY? Is a mother a son’s romantic partner to compete with the new woman in his life?  Are mothers such babes in the wood that they aren’t aware that the sons are men now and interested in women, that eventually one particular woman would hold his attention pushing her, the mother, off centre stage?  Do they really (and fondly) believe they will forever be the focus of the son’s attention?

Grow up women. He is young and red-blooded, move aside and let the damsel hog the attention. It is the law of Nature. Your role now is to be in the sidelines. It is indeed the one who shares his bed that rules. How long is anybody’s guess, but for now it is her call. However one thing is certain, it is NOT for the mother to come between them. The son and DIL make the bed, with rose petals or thorns, feather or stones, and lie on it; their wish. If you tenaciously cling on and insist in occupying most of the space in the bed that they have made, then be prepared to hear such behavior being described in terms that you may be too shocked to hear.

Yup, all that I have written above is MY view. Nobody is obliged to follow them or even accept these views. So the childish and the churlish who are even now stamping their feet petulantly and preparing to write long essays as comments to be sent at frequent intervals to me and my blogger friends, don’t bother. Go spend your time more fruitfully. Besides, there is more to this.

Continued here