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Born in southern Fujian, my original family was deeply troubled by the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Later, I had an English mother-in-law.
In early 2008, I met David, a British engineer, on Facebook. A few months after the online relationship, he went to China to live with me for half a year, and the relationship was even sweeter than expected. Naturally, David proposed to me and invited me to England to start a new life together.
A few days before Christmas, we set off. It was early in the morning when I arrived in England, and in the direction of his finger, I saw two blurry figures outside the thick glass door, a petite lady snuggled up to a tall man, waving at us.
I thought this might be my future in-laws.
When we first met, my mother-in-law took the initiative to come forward and gave me a big hug, and my whole body stiffened, and I didn't even hug her back. First, because of the fatigue of the 24-hour journey, I was too sleepy to open my eyes, and secondly, I grew up in a small city in Fujian Province, and I was taught to be respectful and steady in words and deeds in front of my elders. As an adult, I rarely had intimate physical contact with my mother.
Seeing that I was not very natural, my mother-in-law did not say anything, smiled and played a round field, beckoning us to get in the car and go home.
Before we met, David kept telling me that his mom had a fairly amiable personality. But I am still nervous, and my expectation for the future relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is: proper distance.
My earliest understanding of the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law originated from my mother and grandmother.
It was a shadow of my childhood. The two of them used to complain to each other in front of me. The most impressive thing is that when I was 12 years old, for unknown reasons, my body was covered with rashes and high fevers, and I once reached the point of being hospitalized for observation. I was lying in my hospital bed with fluids, half asleep and half awake, when I heard my grandmother accuse my mother of not taking good care of me, and my mother angrily retorted that she was unreasonable and did not care about the other patients in the ward.
Looking back, I still feel embarrassed. I knew that it was no one's responsibility to be sick, but to vent their long-standing dissatisfaction with each other.
The contradiction between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law of the two of them may have to be traced back to my grandmother. I know very little about this, but I have only heard my relatives in the family say that as the eldest of the large rural families, my grandmother is extremely strict with my grandmother, so meticulous that she has requirements for getting up, sleeping, and cleaning at what time. In order to check whether Grandma was cleaning due diligence, sometimes she would go to the table coldly and touch it to see if there was any dust.
Grandma walked on thin ice as a daughter-in-law for half a lifetime, and after becoming a mother-in-law, she copied and pasted the mode of getting along with her grandmother and her to my mother.
Mom is an intellectual woman, naturally unbearable. Soon she persuaded her father to move out together. This is simply unforgivable to Grandma. In the concept of our local elders, the son should live with his parents after marriage, and the son will move out to live, which will be considered a family disharmony, a filial piety for children and grandchildren, and will be looked down upon. Even if my father often carried things to see grandma, he could not calm her resentment.
Grandma decided that her daughter-in-law had robbed his son. Like, in order to claim sovereignty, she mentioned my father in front of my mother, never saying the name, only "my son".
I feel sorry for my mother, but I also understand my grandmother, who was strictly and unequally regulated when she was a daughter-in-law. I was embarrassed, and later, when the two were together, I sensed the smell of gunpowder and quietly walked away.
Not only them, but also my grandmother and aunt have been mother-in-law and daughter-in-law for more than thirty years, and they are full of complaints about each other. Witnessing the relationship between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in the family, and considering that my future mother-in-law and her future mother-in-law have different cultural backgrounds and living habits, it is very likely that friction will occur, and at first, I only hoped that we could maintain a superficial peace.
We went back to my in-laws' house together. Before I met me, David lived with his parents. After a night's rest, when I saw my mother-in-law the next day, I (pretended) to call her "Mrs." in a gracious manner, and she said, "Just call me Emma." She pointed at her father-in-law and said, "Just call him by his name." ”
Later, I learned that this is the habit of the British, no matter how old or young, the status, most of the titles can be directly called by their first name.
But at that time, my mother-in-law's words somewhat eased my uneasiness about the future: such a good talk, it should not be difficult to get along with, right?
When I first arrived in England, I was so delirious that I was jet lagging. My mother-in-law was worried about my diet and bombarded me with a question in my ear: "Thirsty?" Tea or coffee? Hungry? Eat bread? Flakes or thick slices, whole wheat or white bread..."
The next scene I will never forget.
She pulled me to the refrigerator, and with a whoosh, she pulled open the cooler: it was full of jams of all sizes and colors: strawberries, citrus, grapefruit, sweet oranges, blueberries... There was a locker standing next to the refrigerator, and she pulled open another drawer, full of jam, and she introduced: "Here are other flavors, unopened." ”
Before I could react to the stacked jam bottles, she opened the next drawer: "Here are mayonnaise, pure chocolate sauce, peanut butter, chocolate hazelnut sauce, almond chocolate sauce..."
It turned out that knowing that I had worked in a big city in China before I came, she was worried that I would not adapt to rural life, and she stockpiled more than twenty types of jam in advance, which was not enough, and she also bought 16 flavors of cereal, 3 different ingredients and thicknesses of bread.
My mother-in-law looked at me with a smile on her face. I also looked at her up close for the first time: she had a typical Western European face, deep eyes, a high nose bridge, a curved nose tip, and a thin lip coated with brilliant fuchsia lipstick. She was over fifty years old, well-maintained, with almost no wrinkles on her face, stockings wrapped around her slender calves under a floral skirt, and her back was always straight when she stood, looking like the elegant old lady in old British movies.
Touched by her intimacy, I picked out a bottle of strawberry jam and couldn't help but tell her: My Chinese stomach craves rice the most.
However, this batch of jam soon became my sweet annoyance.
A few days before the mother-in-law's house, every time I ate, the table was prepared by the mother-in-law, dipped in bread with different flavors of jam, different thicknesses and textures. Later, at one point, I thought my hiccups were all bread.comfy.
A few days later, my mother-in-law finally invited me to taste an English "hard dish" she cooked: potato nugget chicken chowder. Cut potato skins, onions, carrots, broccoli, chicken breast and other ingredients into pieces, and simmer them in a pressure cooker with sauce until thick. But after tasting it, I felt that the chicken nuggets in my mouth were hard, the vegetables were slightly raw, the potatoes were too soft and rotten, because the sauce was unevenly mixed, and the soup was salty and light... I kind of miss the bread brush jam a bit.
I could tell that my mother-in-law was keen to cook, but her cooking skills were so difficult to compliment, and there was even an occasional risk of causing a fire. Once she boiled carrots without putting water, the smell of burnt spread throughout the house, and a smoke alarm was triggered, and everyone was busy dealing with it for a while. Afterwards, she apologized profusely and concluded to us: "The next time you cook vegetables, remember to put water." ”
But her husband and father-in-law were very popular with her. Occasionally she made a delicious dish, and the two of them cheered and applauded, so grand that they almost pulled a cannon and hit a banner.
I echoed the praise. I quietly observed the family's slightly unfamiliar mode of getting along with me: they often joked with each other without any cover, and the husband and father-in-law patted each other on the shoulder and gave each other funny nicknames... They are more like friends of the same generation than parents and sons.
In fact, I am also a fast-talking and joking personality. But I still secretly remind myself: to be well-behaved, soft-spoken, and cater to the in-laws, this is the girl that most elders like.
When I speak, I will first think about the words in advance, which is a habit I have developed since childhood. In the past, at the party, my mother heard me say something inappropriate, and when she came home, she would correct me: You shouldn't have said that at that time.
If you can pretend to be one life, you can't fit a lifetime. In the second month of the UK, in time for the Pancake Day festival, pancakes are prepared at home. The mother-in-law felt an electric stirrer from the corner, stirred the eggs and flour, and sighed: "The quality of the previous things was good, this blender, I have bought for more than ten years, it is not bad at all." Now you can still buy a product with such a long service life. ”
I didn't hold back, and I put my tongue in my tongue: "You only use this thing once a year, how can it be bad!" ”
As soon as the words came out, I was surprised myself, and I was worried that my mother-in-law would not be happy. The three of them had already laughed together, and the mother-in-law blushed, but there was still a smile on her face, and she grabbed a rag and gestured to throw it at me. My father-in-law came over and shook my hand: "Welcome to be one of us, you have fully grasped the essentials of integration into our family." ”
Figure | Pancake Festival
At that time, I was very puzzled, or later my mother-in-law told me: "Your expression and tone made me understand why my son would want to marry you." You are indeed destined to be a part of us. ”
It turned out that my husband had already shared my true side with them. While I was pretending to be gentle and considerate, they were also waiting for me to reveal my true self.
In this way, I began to live with my future in-laws. The in-laws' home is located in the countryside of the Lake District of Cumbira, a large agricultural and pastoral county in northwest England, which is densely packed with lakes and forests. During World War II, the mother-in-law's previous generation moved here from the city to avoid war, and later settled down from generation to generation because they loved quiet rural life.
The house is a small two-storey building, not luxurious but very spacious. The kitchen, dining room, living room, and sun room are on the first floor, and there are bedrooms, washrooms, and cloakrooms on both floors. There are also two courtyards in front of the house and behind the house, and a double-storey garden of about 500 square meters is built between the two courtyards against the terrain.
The in-laws live on the first floor, we live on the second floor, and most of the time, we don't bother each other. During the day, my in-laws and husbands went to work, and I started a freelancing career at home, and my old business was finance. At that time, the market momentum was good, and I made a small investment with the savings from my previous job, and it was no problem to bear my own expenses.
After half a year of getting along and "examining each other", David and I felt that we could get along with each other, so David and I officially got married.
After the marriage, I noticed that when David and I were in the same situation, my mother-in-law would use "your husband" to refer to David, which was very different from my grandmother. In the early days of marriage, when my husband and I did not give in to each other because of trivial matters, my mother-in-law always took precedence over my side and told my husband: "You have to cherish her, she has crossed half the world for you, someone loves you so much, you are very lucky." ”
According to the local British tradition, after getting married, I need to change the original family name to my husband's family name, I was reluctant, and after obtaining my husband's consent, I also told my mother-in-law.
"That's it!" She was surprised and told me a few seconds later that although it was not in line with traditional customs not to follow her husband's surname after marriage, if I did not want to, she would not force it. She asked, "But then, how are you going to open a joint account with my son and spend it directly from his bank account?" ”
I couldn't help it: she was the first to worry about my identity, and justifiably put her hand into her son's bank account. However, she did not know that in recent years, in the United Kingdom, two people with different surnames who are not in marital relationships can also open joint accounts.
My mother-in-law accepted and loved me completely, which was beyond expectation, and I felt like I had won the lottery. Two generations of tense mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relations in the family ended with me. She was also happy to talk about this on the phone with her mother, "Otherwise, I would have to go so far to help you fight." ”
After living together for the second year, my mother-in-law and I were able to talk like friends.
One dessert time after dinner, she said to me very seriously, "I only have 3 sons and no daughters." I think you're here, and I've got one more daughter. Before the tears fell, I stepped forward and hugged her greatly.
After living together for three years, my husband and I bought our own house and moved out to live alone. The new home is only a six or seven-minute drive from the in-laws' house. On weekends, we often go to my mother-in-law's house to rub rice. Once, when I was rubbing rice, I talked about the mother-in-law relationship I had seen in my family, about my grandmother's possessiveness of her son, and about the friction caused by the weak sense of boundaries in the extended family. I said that Chinese mothers have a bit of an "illusion" of "losing their sons" once they become mothers-in-law.
The mother-in-law replied, "No, that's not an illusion, I'm sure most women really feel that way." I actually feel like I'm sharing my son with you. ”
I exclaimed, "How is that possible?" I've never heard you mention it! ”
She said: "Does this still need to be mentioned? Isn't that the truth? She added: "It's just that this sharing is a continuation of happiness, not a deduction from my original happiness." Of course, it doesn't make me feel like I've lost my son, because after all, you didn't take him out of my life. ”
She added: "Originally, he only belonged to this family, just our son, but then with you, he belonged to two families, and he also had one more identity." This is a new phase in his life, and from then on his main role will be your husband, and then our son. Do you think I feel a little lost? But this is not negative, for him it is the inevitable growth. ”
It turned out that my mother-in-law would also lose her son to be shared. It's just that she knows how to let go and silently watches her son move towards a new stage of life.
Figure | From left to right are mother-in-law, father-in-law and husband
After two or three years of marriage, my husband and I began to face the problem of being urged to parenting.
During the relationship phase, my husband and I reached a consensus with Dink. At first, I didn't dare tell my parents, prevaricating that I wanted to enjoy the world of two for a few years. Later, when I returned to China, they were so pressed that they couldn't stand it, and I told the truth.
At that time, my mother was stir-frying, and the pot was filled with the sound of creaking oil. When she heard me say, "I decided not to have children," she had a look of disbelief on her face, and soon her expression became angry: "You don't want to be a mother, but I still want to be a grandmother!" She thought I was out of the ordinary, and Dad sighed.
Based on my parents' reaction to "Dink," my husband and I decided to be more skillful when telling my in-laws.
So we often lay the groundwork in their ears: we only want the two-person world, raising children is a huge expense, it is very difficult for us to live a good life, and taking care of children is beyond our ability...
Plans are often useless. Once, the family talked about the marriage of two little uncles, and my husband and I told my mother-in-law about Dink's decision.
The mother-in-law's reaction was a little excited, "I really guessed correctly!" As if reading a detective novel and guessing the ending in advance, she said smugly: "I am relieved that I am still a little relieved, fortunately you two do not want the child, otherwise the child may be taken care of in a mess." Then her tone became more relaxed: "I'm really worried that if you two can't take care of you, I'll have to run to help you at both ends of the three days, it will be too tiring." This decision is wise and works well for you. ”
I couldn't stop crying and laughing. Originally, I always felt that mother-in-law who grew up in a traditional family would want her children to have children according to the established procedures.
Born in the early 1950s, her mother-in-law began working in finance after graduating from high school. At the time, her education and job were pretty good. At the age of 20, she met her father-in-law, who was engaged in the engineering industry, and fell in love for 3 months, and they flashed marriage.
After marriage, the mother-in-law was planning to continue working, the sudden pregnancy disrupted her plans, and she did not struggle much, she chose to take full care of the family. She gave birth to three sons and worked as a full-time wife for 15 years. At the age of 35, after finally sending all three children to secondary school, she returned to the workplace. However, at that time, her academic qualifications and experience no longer had a competitive advantage, and she was willing to accept her position and salary, which could not be compared with that year.
The role of mother still influences her job search. In the UK, school is out at three o'clock in the afternoon, and she needs to rush home to prepare dinner for her children before then. She took a part-time job in finance and accounting, and she didn't start working full-time until all her children had graduated from college.
Talking about these things, the mother-in-law looked regretful. "I love each of them dearly and never regret all the efforts and sacrifices, but if I could choose again, one child would be enough, two at most, otherwise it would be so tiring." Raising them took me half a lifetime and changed my life's plans. ”
In the sixth year of marriage, I passed the age of 30, and for a while, I fell into a sense of crisis of not getting anything.
Before coming to the UK, I was engaged in the financial industry in Shanghai, the monthly salary fluctuated between 7,000-12,000, and I could pay the rent and still have a lot left, so I could buy what I liked without any scruples. After coming to live in the British countryside, I made a living from small businesses and small investments, although I could bear my own profits and losses, but when I saw the old acquaintances in the circle of friends in china, I felt that I was too bad to mix.
Some relatives and friends did not understand my choice of Dink, and some people came to lobby me to have a baby. Once, I posted a photo of chasing squirrels in a grove in the circle of friends, and a friend commented: So free to play, why not have a child? I was furious and immediately blacked out the other party.
Annoyed by this kind of thing, I often go to my mother-in-law's house to talk to her. The mother-in-law is 60 years old, and the light makeup cannot hide the signs of aging on her face, the corners of her eyes have wrinkles, and the nasolabial lines have become obvious. But she seemed to be more and more at ease. She loves beauty and wears a plain dress indoors regardless of the seasons. She paid attention to her manners all the time, her back was still straight, and her tone and expression were always as calm as a lake.
Seeing her, I was able to briefly withdraw from the comparison psychology triggered by the circle of friends.
"Women have to be a lady at all times." My mother-in-law told me that this was her mother's education for her. She said that beauty comes from self-confidence, which relies on the requirements of oneself and the improvement of oneself, rather than comparing with others.
When I was secretly sad about not being able to afford a designer bag, she happily showed me the £9.90 handbag she had bought from the stall: "Isn't it beautiful?" ”
My mother-in-law is my family and my girlfriend I can talk about. She showed me what a mature woman is, growing old gracefully, and being able to be her daughter-in-law is my luck.
The mother-in-law and father-in-law are not rich in their lives, but the mother-in-law is indifferent to money and her attitude towards work is more Buddhist. "Don't work too hard, just get a salary today, and a good mood is the most critical."
After marriage, she juggled work and family, but still retained her self and hobbies: her mother-in-law's historical knowledge reserves were amazing, she and her father-in-law were both interested in the history of the Second World War, and their favorite was to watch various historical documentaries together. She insisted on reading the newspaper every day, discussing current affairs with us logically and often with unique insights. Since marriage, she has taught herself French, German and Italian foreign languages, and in recent years she has been learning Chinese with me, although she is not proficient, but it is no problem to travel to foreign countries.
After retirement, like many elderly people in the United Kingdom, she and her father-in-law have certain savings, and they have pension and medical security, and they do not need to take care of the third generation, and their lives are more comfortable. Now that the two are nearly 70 years old, they still maintain the habit of traveling 2 to 3 times a year, publicly carrying a motorhome and driving her almost all over the European continent.
In the face of my anxiety, she most often said: You only live once, enjoy yourself, focus on yourself, be happy everyday.
I began to re-examine my life: no pressure to raise children, no commuting to and from work, no overtime. I also have a garden where I can raise flowers, grow vegetables, raise chickens, and hike the mountains, search for castles, and take pictures of the fields and cattle at any time. In fact, my life, on another level, is not too bad to be "mixed".
Figure | I took a picture with the cattle in the field
At dinner last weekend, my husband and I considered saying that we wanted to change to a slightly larger house, and when we were estimating the cost of down payment, loans, insurance costs, and daily maintenance, my mother-in-law handed me a cup of tea and sighed: Then the scope of your need to vacuum and clean is larger, and it will be very tired.
She added, "You two have no children, so who will leave the big house for in the future?" It is better to leave more cash and spend more money. ”
I laughed out loud: Sure enough, only my mother-in-law would care about such details.
- END -
Taste the beauty and sorrow of life
As an actor, Ms. Li Jingjing is highly respected by many international opera masters and is a famous opera artist who has won many international awards. She looks as well-behaved and lovely as a little sister next door, but under such an appearance, there is the infinite expressiveness and tension of the performance artist.
In order to present the most perfect lesson listening experience to everyone, Ms. Jingjing personally carefully selected the world's best version of the music repertoire, interspersed with the plot for everyone to enjoy. She will deeply analyze the music, plot, characters, era background, composer anecdotes and other interesting things, and ridicule western "serious" opera from the perspective of a young artist after the 80s and a first-line actress active on the opera stage. Listening to beautiful arias and learning about the moving story behind the music, will you fall in love with opera on the spot?
Today's good book recommendation
"Special Cute, Very Painful"
Mr. Lao She is a recognized language master and the first writer in New China to receive the title of "People's Artist". In addition to writing a large number of wonderful novels in his lifetime, he also created many distinctive prose essays. Today, I would like to recommend to you a collection of essays by Lao She , "Particularly Cute, Particularly Painful", which includes more than 70 classic essays in Lao She's 40-year creative career, covering customs and people, the lives of relatives and friends, travel arias, literary criticism, etc., from many angles to comprehensively display lao She as a modern literary master and language master's creative characteristics. The writing is lively and interesting, fresh and natural, highlighting the unique artistic charm of Lao She.
Lao She's bones are full of humor, and his humor stems from his integrity and kindness. Lao She always has sincere concern for ordinary things, and in his prose, he can taste the bitterness and bitterness of life from light humor. As he said: "Life is a rhythm, there must be light and shadow, there is left and right, there is sunshine and rain; the taste is contained in this changeable and fierce twists and turns." ”
The book also features a series of illustrations by popular illustrator Yamanaka's "Little Things on Earth" series, which complement Lao She's text.
If you are happy in your heart, life will be lovely. This "Especially Cute, Especially Painful" is for you who love life!