No -
Gotta just back up the OP again.
The issue in the OP was that the MIL told the child to shut up. Alias took issue with it. That’s all we really know. Somehow the issue turned into whether or not Alias and Harborwolf are freeloaders, failures, etc etc etc. I mean, come on! Disagree with the fact that “shut up” is that bad of a thing for grandma to say to Jr., but why start personally attacking the OP’s family based solely on the fact that she lives with her in-law(s)?
The responses seem to be way out of hand and unnecessarally mean, but hey, that’s just me.
I gotta agree with Martin Hyde and almost everyone else on this one.
I have to wonder about this statement:
It seems to me that unless you are paying a significant part of the house payment(and your MIL needs the assistance, which doesn’t seem to be the case) you have no power to battle over. It’s her house and you should feel lucky that she is willing to let you live there.
It certainly sounds as though your MIL doesn’t have to share her house, she is doing you a favor. You ought to keep in mind that your MIL might want to have her house back as having the three of you live there (for a year and a half!!!) probably interferes with her expected lifestyle.
Slee
No – based on the fact that they are living with MIL so that they can save up for a house. They could get an apartment, but they choose not to. Generally, people live with their in-laws only when it’s either that or the shelter, and then only for as long as it takes to find work, an apartment, the deposit money for an apartment, or some combination of the above. Not a year and a half. I don’t care how productively they spend their time; a house is a goal that should be striven for independently, not on MIL’s dime.
But hey, I don’t know anything about their life. Although I do know what it’s like to be the kid in the middle of these situations. It’s entirely possible that Harborkid is acting up, but mainly as a result of witnessing these “power struggles”. Poor kid. Seriously.
Well, I’d be pissed if someone told my kids to shut up. While it may have just been the outpouring of frustration, I’d watch for how often it happens, because not only is it a respect issue, but kids tend to repeat what they hear. Tell a kid to shut up (or fuck off or call them an idiot) enough times and they’ll figure that it’s OK to use that on others. If it happens with more frequency than you can tolerate, well then, yeah, you do have to investigate other living arrangements.
While I think “shut up” is a fairly mild rebuke, and the OP is going a bit overboard with her anger, I need to comment on the “favor” thing.
Doing someone a favor does not give you the right to lord over them. If MIL is being cranky, irritable, and unreasonable, then Harborfamily should not be expected to take it in the chops every day just because she’s doing them a favor.
Presumably people do other people favors because they like them and want to help them, not because they want license to be jerks.
If you expect me to keep silent about your bad acts because you’re doing me a favor, please, don’t do me any favors.
The hell’s wrong with using a spatula to clean up dog puke? Scrape it off the carpet or floor without rubbing more of it into the fibers or pushing it around. Then use the other conventional means to finish the job. I’ve done this.
Geez, didn’t you read the OP? She scraped up the puke and then the spatula went right back into the mac ‘n’ cheese, the little kid said “Ewwww, gramma, that’s gross!”, gramma told her to shut up, and the next thing you know, **Alias **is running to the PC to bitch out his mother-in-law and seize Total Domestic Power!
Well, that’s what I got out of it, anyway.
We usually wait until it dries.
JER-RY! JER-RY! JER-RY!
(bolding mine)
Nowhere in the OP (or the rest of the thread for that matter) does anyone say that the spatula was re-used for human food consumption immediately after having been used to clean up vomit. THAT would get a totally different reaction from me.
Is the 2% the part where you’re watching TV while Mom cleans up dog vomit?
This is getting unnecessarily heated and nasty. I’m going to close it for now, but if Alias would like for it to be reopened, she can e-mail me or Cajun Man.