In-laws - North vs South

Inlaws are inlaws and dont think NI or SI makes a difference. I have heard horror stories from both sides from friends, so I really cant pick one over the other.

 

i think it all depends on persons....and i also support that NI MILs are abit more friendly and open to thiere DILs.......where as in SI MILs they treat DILs as out siders....in my example...my MIL and other family members never accepted me as afamily member..but my mom she gives more importent to her DILs in those 2 DILS one is a stepsons wife..but no body can make it out by thiere behaviour....she loves both of them equally and every thing is same..none of them went to thiere moms place for deliveries or anythng...and they hardly go to visit them as they like in inlaws place....mine is reverse..even if i sneeze my MIL used to send me to my moms place...hahaha

 

It really depends on the person. we cannot generalize like that. I have lived in a mixed community because of my dad's job. In college I had friends that were both NI and SI.

Same in US.. I have friends on both sides. If a MIL or DIL is a bad person regions cannot help them. Their mode of "torture" maybe different. However outcome is the same.

I have seen cases where in both cases NI as well as SI...inlaws visited during pregnancy and tortured the DIL. She is alone cooking with a big belly while all are in the living room laughing and watching TV.

Makes me mad. At such occassion I have always marched in to kitchen and helped the poor soul. If the MIL said anything(like you are guests).. I always mention sweetly - In our community its considered Sin..if one is sitting while pregnant lady is working..so let me help her. You sit aunty. Don't worry I am fine.

Our ASG put it very aptly..the looks feature is very rampant in NI, so is status and money. Bothers the hell out of me.

Does not matter which region you come from..it will exist in different forms and ways .
FL

 

ASG,

SI inlaws too are focused on looks. But that is compromised by the dowry a dil brings in. The more darker, the more fat a dil is the more dowry.

And yes, nose is the key factor for SI inlaws too. When my best friend had her baby, her MIL was disappointed with the babies nose (The baby looked just like his mom).

The lady I once had in my life as MIL, luckily compliments on my nose but often gets me on my complexion. I am wheatish and she is fair looking than me. She used to give me carrot juice every morning to improve my complexion and throws tantrums saying how much ever juice she fed me with, there is no improvement in my complexion. She complains about my complexion to her neighbors (but the neighbors do compliment me on my looks) and that my mom did not feed me with good food. I have taken this complexion crap for few days and one fine morning I said, "Yes, you have fair skin and I have a fair heart". After that complexion was no issue for me.

 

That is just so weird!!! I don't get what nose has to do with looking good or being a good wife! It's odd to me that my mil has focused on that one feature, considering her nose (and my dh's and my sil's and my fil's) is not pointy!! And although I have somewhat "sharp features" (although not sharp enough for my mil's satisfaction) I adore my dh's button nose and given the obvious strong genetics, am sure my future-baby will have the same round nose! Who cares?? I just don't get what makes one type of nose prefered over the other!

You could have told her, "There's no improvement because there's nothing to be improved!! I'm good looking AS IS!"

Carrot juice.... :rotfl! Lucky she did not try to make you sit in a tub of bleach!! Really, when will we move on from this fairness thing? It's sooooo silly. I love when my dh gets a tan at the pool, he looks like a golden pancake. :kiss

 

Actually with all that carrot juice, I thought I will turn Orange. :rotfl

Yes, it's weird and let's blame it on their genes.

 

:cool2: Point! :rotfl

 

When i was in my 7th month there was no special treatment care for me except
1. FOOD- if i had my breakfast downstairs in the kitchen and then went up,sat with her she didnt bother to ask out of anger or whatever.But she was v particular about things like how much veg i had and to see if i had 1-2 extra meals than the regular ones or not.But still i never felt cared for,it felt like i was in a jail...she used to use v harsh words all the time and sometimes shout on the topmost of her voice....
2. HOUSECHORES- i still did everything like washing the vessels-she used to yell at me when she saw any of the utensils had a lil dent or if the handle was bent,tilted....or if i washed stainless steel ones with the steel side of scothbright instead of sponge.,the marks that drops of water make a nd other silly things.I tried as hard as one could and never said a word or made excuses...still i dont know,she was never normal.
3. WALK- there were plenty of reasons (orthodox) for me to not go to any park for a walk and she didnt come with me cos she said i was too slow,the park was too small for her to walk (she walks really fast) or its her yoga time at 5pm and after that around 6-6.30 iam supposed to prepare dinner before SIL comes.
4.CLOTHES- since its just been 1 year of marriage,most of my clothes are bright colored and they bleed their color.She didnt allow me to wash them in the machine saying that it gets colored and so i'd soak them in bucket and then wash all by hand till it hit 11am(in the open area at the back of our house)...and it was in march-april,when the delhi temp had reached max 41 deg.she also used to complain that i had no fixed schedule and that i should be having more rest now.
5. SOCIAL CIRCLE- nobody except my FIL felt for me.they just never realised that im also a human being,i also wish to get out of the house,go on walks or meet people or atleast meet my own parents once in a while (in 5months,she only let me visit them once,didnt let me go to my dad's promotion party) and I hardly made any calls since my cell was lost,misplace whatever and MIL used to keep a check on every single line i said to my mum.she even tried to cntrol on what i spoke,whos well-being i asked in my family and if it was wrong of me to ask more about cousins....giving me EGO lessons.I had no internet and they didnt let me become lib member saying that its not safe to cross that main road,not even once in a month...and no1 gave me anything to read except the 'baby and childcare book' (MIL would belittle me saying 'oh you only read this many pages in a week...etc) and newspaper.and the tv remote wasnt more than like 15min in my hand.If i was watching something of my choice,MIL would ask me to change to so and so channel after just 2min.i wish she could work on her EGO so i could appreciate,respect her and may be could give her love.I always wished i didnt miss my mum,i wanted to make her my own mum.

Sorry for such a lenthy,boring post but my mind just cant seem to rest.

 

Archana, you should probably edit the post to say "my friend's MIL, who happens to be South Indian is so-and-so" I am really appalled by the amount of generalizations people just throw out! My MIL is South Indian like me and not once has she commented on my nose, hair, structure or whatever else.I do not have a perfect nose and I am on the plump side, but my MIL never demanded dowry to offset my figure (or the lack of it!). None of the ladies in our family and friends circle who are MILs pass comments like that and they are all South Indians! From the interaction I have had with North Indians by way of friends and such, I have not seen MILs pass comments on looks like that.

ASG, I am sorry to say this and you are probably going to be terribly offended by this, but from the things you say about your MIL, she hardly seems like a representative of many of them out there. Most of the things you say she has said/done are just too extreme :spin She seems even worse than some of the fictional characters that we get to see in Indian soaps! So she can hardly be used as a yardstick to measure other MILs' behaviors.

As it has been reiterated many times before, there can only be bad people and when they are bad, they are bad in any role they assume, be it as the MIL/DIL/SIL/friend/boss, whatever! It doesn't matter if they're North Indian/South Indian/American Indian, whatever!