Woman 'bashes' MIL's parenting in front of the whole family, 'I just lost my cool.' AITA?
AITA for bashing my MIL's parenting in front of the whole family after she brought my mom up?"
I'm 30(f). I've been with my Husband "Joe" for 4 years. We went to their annual family dinner last weekend. There was roughly 12-14 people who were there, all adults.
MIL has a "I'm better than everyone" attitude and has brought up my mom multiple times for literally no reason. She's only met my mom twice. But anyways... My mom has 8 kids. I'm the oldest. And.. my mom had me when she was 15. We are 30, 27, 25, 21, 15yo twins and 13yo twins.
She never made me be a parent to the younger kids. She established her own business when I was 3 and it's still growing strong today. She never made me work to pay the bills. We lived in really nice houses my entire childhood. We went on vacations often. She was kind, fun and made our childhoods exciting and full of love. And all of us kids, we turned out fantastic.
Me and my two oldest brothers all started our own business by the time we were 21. My 21yo sister is a co-owner at a hotel with her husband and his family. We all own our own places. BUT since my mom was a super young teenage mom and birthed 8 babies, my MIL is a judgemental twat about it.
Well, I'm currently 7 months pregnant with our first daughter and most of the family who attended this family gathering had no idea we were having a baby. So we had a lot of people congratulating us and asking questions. Well, my MIL says "yup and they better raise her right! We don't need a repeat of her mom, popping kids out at 15 and not stopping till she had a damn circus."
I snapped and asked her wtf her problem was and she said "well, I'm just saying. No granddaughter of mine will be ruining her life by having babies that young so I'm just saying she needs to be raised right, without that sort of influence."
And like...my husband was telling her to shut the f up and she wasnt listening and I just lost my cool. I told her she had zero room to speak on anyone considering she raised a bunch of losers outside of my husband (she has 4 kids and my husband is the only one not in prison) and told her that maybe she should have had her kids at 15 because obviously waiting until she was in her late 20s didnt do a wink of good.
I reminded her that me and my siblings had more accomplished by the time we were 21 than all her kids do in their 30s. And...then I told her she will be lucky if I allow her influence around my daughter because I "have seen the type of people she raised". She immediately screamed at me to get the f- out. It wasn't her house but I just left anyways. My husband is on my side but I can tell he's upset. I can't tell if he's mad at me or his mom. AITA?
ETA: it might be a possibility that my husband felt I was looping him in to my comments about her kids being losers (though I did say "outside of my husband"). When I met him he was unemployed and didn't really have an ambition or motivation to be anything.
He lived with his sister, who is now incarcerated. Had no bills, no responsibilities. But literally right after he met me (literally the first day) he went and got a job and so I really wasn't a part of his life when he wasn't doing anything, if that makes sense. So I will apologize to my husband, off that fact alone.
I didn't intentionally loop him in to it, though that may be how it felt to him. His 3 siblings, the people I dragged in to it.. we have never gotten along. Prior to them being incarcerated (2 years ago - a drug bust at their house and assault on a police officer), they threatened me a few times after I wouldn't loan them money.
So when I dragged them in to it, I didn't really care that they had nothing to do with their mom starting it. I do now, because they truly had nothing to do with this. But in that moment, I didn't care at all. I didn't think before I spoke.
Thank you all so much for your input and kind words about my mom! She is truly a remarkable woman and I will consider myself blessed to grow in to even half the woman she is. I will be logging off and this is a throwaway, so I'm not sure I will be back. However, just know I appreciate you all so much. Now it's time to go speak to my husband and smooth things over. I hope you all have a fantastic evening!
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
NickelPickle2018 said:
NTA, she went low and you took her straight to hell.
Accomplished-Emu-591 said:
NTA, and I agree she is too toxic to have around children. Congratulations on your expected little one. I hope your husband is not upset with you. Sounds like your mother is quite a person.
Reasonable_Tenacity said:
NTA. You set your MIL straight. There are just some things in life that you hold dear and won’t let anyone cross that line. For you, it’s your mom. When your MIL made those ugly, judgmental remarks, it was game on. Everything you said was true and that’s why she raged. I would go LC for sure.
joe-lefty500 said:
NTA Good for you. You are a champion and your mom sounds awesome. Stand up to that old witch every chance you get though I doubt she’ll be coming after your mom or you anytime soon.
PuffPuffPass16 said:
Nope NTA! By the way, how is your Mum doing? Does she know about these comments? I’d love for your Mum to go over and ask MIL what the hell is her problem, I wonder if MIL would say it to her face...
Zestyclose-Middle717 said:
Everybody gotta be humbled sometimes. NTA.