# The American notion/joke that a mother-in-law is a mortal enemy **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 10, 2016, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296 "2016-08-10T00:49:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2016, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/41 "2016-08-10T19:51:21Z")
On our wedding night, my new mother-in-law came up to me and said that from now on I can call her Kathy. That was a pretty big deal. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2016, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/42 "2016-08-10T19:59:18Z")
My take: The MIL wanted her daughter to marry ‘up’, but instead the daughter married an artist (or someone else not up to MIL’s financial standards). So MIL doesn’t like the husband, and the husband doesn’t like the MIL because she’s critical of him. ---
**Author:** ![nofloyd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nofloyd/32/2870_2.png) [@nofloyd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nofloyd)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2016, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/43 "2016-08-10T20:23:30Z")
MotherinLawHell - site’s been going for years [http://motherinlawhell.com/#](http://motherinlawhell.com/#) ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/44 "2016-08-10T20:56:48Z")
I love my MIL (and she is very nice to me). I always try to share any MIL jokes I find with her. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2016, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/45 "2016-08-10T22:47:49Z")
The best thing that ever happened for my relationship with my mother in law is that I left her son. We get along well, he never sees his family, and my ex mom in law likes my current partner. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/46 "2016-08-11T00:08:35Z")
> [@XT](#): > > American? I’m pretty sure this crosses cultural lines. Though it’s not normally a ‘joke’ in some parts of the world…mother in laws can be real monsters in some cultures. I understand in many Asian countries and cultures they are. I know this is a real thing in Mexico. No idea about Europe…maybe it’s not a thing there, which is why the OP thinks it’s an American quirk. I was once told a Russian mother-in-law joke (by a Russian). [Background: burial space is very hard to come by in Moscow. Being buried in the Kremlin wall is a great honor, normally reserved for famous writers, artists, generals, etc.] Mother-in-law wonders aloud where she will be buried. Son-in-law comes home one day and excitedly proclaims, “Great news! I’ve arranged for you to be buried in the Kremlin wall!” “Fabulous!” says the mother-in-law. “However did you manage to do it?” “There’s one small catch,” says the son-in-law. “You have to do it tomorrow.” ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/47 "2016-08-11T00:57:07Z")
I was not a mortal enemy, but I am my MIL were simply on different wavelengths. As a trivial example, I was accustomed to taking my shoes off when indoors. This did not go over with her at all. And I was accustomed to lying on a couch to do serious thinking. Ditto. Two years after we married she came down with breast cancer and was never the same and died three years later. My wife is convinced that we would have come to appreciate each other. Maybe. My mother took an early dislike to my wife for reasons I could never fathom. Everything was fine until we moved up our wedding date by three months and then my mother blew a gasket. After we had a couple kids she came around and they were mostly happy with each other till my mother died. My wife and I get along great with our two DILs and SIL. One son gets along great with his MIL (who lives with them and is their nanny). The other one’s died young and never met my son. I have no idea about my daughter and her MIL. I have the impression she gets along well enough, although she has an SIL from hell. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/48 "2016-08-11T00:59:01Z")
My MIL isn’t my mortal enemy, she just has a fatal flaw, and that is her ex-husband. Their divorce was the worst divorce I have ever seen in my life, and when **Sr. Weasel** was about 18 and his little sis was about 12, they both engaged in the most immature, disgusting, damaging behavior toward their children in the course of their breakup. It was really hard to forgive the six years they spent dragging my husband and his sister through the mud and I was there the whole time having to deal with the fallout. I am especially bitter toward his mother because his father at least respected my husband’s wish to be left out of their divorce drama, but his mother insisted on dragging us into everything, including, at one point, subpoenaing us both to testify against his father in court. She ignored all of our attempts to set healthy boundaries, and emailed and called us to the point of harassment. Eventually, I just started filtering my email by keyword and sending all her messages straight to my junk folder. While the divorce has been over for years, and they are lovely people when not dealing with one another, I still get occasionally really pissed off when I reflect upon how terrible her behavior was during that time period. I’m particularly angry about how consistently she ignored the needs of my sister in law as a teen because she was so focused on her vendetta against her ex-husband. I feel like me and my husband were the only ones who truly had that kid’s best interests in mind and we were barely adults ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![Reluctant\_A](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@Reluctant\_A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reluctant_A)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/49 "2016-08-11T02:24:52Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > 😕 The man I call my dad is not my biological father; He married my mom when I was seven. I didn’t realize I was speaking in code. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/50 "2016-08-11T02:50:16Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Someone once noted that the joke/meme about one’s mother-in-law being an enemy or hostile figure seems to be a mostly American phenomenon Well there goes about 80% of British comedian[Les Dawson’s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Dawson) career material. “There was a knock on the door. I knew straight away it was the wife’s mother. All the rats started throwing themselves into traps.” ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/51 "2016-08-11T02:57:29Z")
In real life, I suspect women are more likely to battle with their mothers-in-law than men are. But the comic trope has always been that men get nagged by their wives’ shrewish mothers. I don’t know if “Americans” created this stereotype so much as American Jewish comedians did. ---
**Author:** ![nicky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f0a364/32.png) [@nicky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nicky)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/52 "2016-08-11T07:33:46Z")
I though the british MiL joke stems from poor newlyweds having to live with the wifes parents . ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/53 "2016-08-11T08:29:58Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > I’m assuming the parenthetical was supposed to be “mother of her husband”. This has been my experience, and what I’ve observed from friends. > > Sources of conflict I’ve noticed: It’s hard for the MIL to deal with the fact that she’s not the most important woman in her son’s life any more. The wife feels like the MIL is judging her harshly on traditional wife duties, like cooking, keeping house, and child-rearing. One that I’ve noticed both between MIL-DIL and directly between mother-daughter is territorial issues: my sister in law telling her mother “this is my kitchen, not yours!”, me telling my mother “don’t you dare ‘organize’ my closet if you want to set foot in my house again!”, my aunt telling her MIL again “this is my kitchen, keep your hands off my pots and pans!”… and occasionally in the opposite direction, my great-grandmother telling her DIL (my grandmother) “you’re using my kitchen now; you don’t move the things, you learn where I put them!” My other aunt once mentioned that the relationship with her MIL had always been pretty good, but she realized how good when her MIL made a suggestion about changing the location of some pots and pans: she didn’t move them, she didn’t nag, she didn’t ask “oh, but how can you have it like this!” She made a suggestion explaining the logic behind it. And the ceiling opened and a chorus of angels sang Hallelujah. ---
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/54 "2016-08-11T09:09:49Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Sources of conflict I’ve noticed: It’s hard for the MIL to deal with the fact that she’s not the most important woman in her son’s life any more. The wife feels like the MIL is judging her harshly on traditional wife duties, like cooking, keeping house, and child-rearing. IMO is is part of the whole adversary between my SIL and MIL I spoke of upthread. My MIL stays out of everyone’s marriage (my husband has 5 siblings). You can ask her advice or talk with her about certain things, but she’ll never take sides. Her overall attitude is “I’ve done my job, you’re now an adult, you figure it out.” My husband became my mother’s primary caregiver when she had probably Alzheimer’s so I wouldn’t have to quit my job. They got along famously. I daresay I became a bit envious every so often because she and I NEVER had a relationship like that. Then again I was her only child and a daughter at that. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2016, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/55 "2016-08-12T06:42:37Z")
Re the point upthread about wives and their mothers-in-law. There’s a more serious thing in some Asian cultures, where marriage is still as much between families as between the individual husband and wife. In very traditional families, the new wife (even if she has been chosen for social status as shown by educational qualifications and the like) moves into the husband’s family home and can be very subordinate to her mother-in-law, even to the point of being treated like a skivvy, or worse in some cases. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2016, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296/56 "2016-08-12T07:00:39Z")
the battle between in laws in my family was between mils and dils but didn’t italy have a cream pot that was called the mother in law and daughter in law because it had a spout on either side and you couldn’t pour out of both at the same time? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-notion-joke-that-a-mother-in-law-is-a-mortal-enemy/762296.md?page=2)