My US raised niece and her inlaws problem!!!

sridivya,
Even if you take today's generation who works in India, these days lot of women don't wear bindis'.I used to work in bangalore and heard from lady's who married across states, they only talk in English and also food they don't prepare. Either some one at home will prepare or most of the time either they eat outside or in offices.
So the culture even in India also same, it won't be like earlier generation where women struggles and struggles to make every one happy.
In my friend circle, if you 6 families all of them are raised in India, at least 3 families they never make any kind of idlis or dosa's.
It's clearly her husband expectations. If he wanted to keep happy his parents, he would prepare breakfast for them and he would do whatever they wish .Why only DIL has to do.

 

I really think that your niece should only do what she is comfortable doing and leave it at that. Her husband should be the one communicating to his parents what she will do / not do. That generally works well for the interfering parents.

I am in a similar boat as your niece. I was born in India but raised outside of India most of my life. So I am not comfortable wearing a saree. I told my husband-to-be this before marriage (he was born and raised in india, came to us for his masters). The first thing he did when we entered the house after marriage was " I don't like Pooja wearing sarees so she will only wear salwars". That shut the IL's up. Then when they visited us here, the first thing he did was show them how to operate the washing machine. So they had no illusions about me doing their laundry for them on a daily basis.

Small things like calling them up during the day is ok. But the more you bend to people like this (IL's with plenty of time on their hands and nothing to do except complain about DIL), the more they will find fault with you. They can only take as much advantage of you as you allow them to, therefore, it is imperative to nip this behavior in the bud by getting your niece's husband to talk to his parents about what is going to happen and what is not.

 

Yeah, that's not good. I totally agree with what pmahensa said...

The dil can stand up for herself all she wants and tell them what she will or won't do, but at the end of the day... they will NOT care or listen to what she says. Think about it... if they respected her enough to listen to when she says 'no', then probably they would not have bossed her around to begin with. So her handling this on her own is just not going to work, at least not in the LONG TERM. That's why her husband needs to handle it and be VERY firm and crystal clear in his talks with his parents. I have found that inlaws adhere to the rules a lot more when it comes from the son instead of the dil. JMO.

 

ASG that was my point. The niece needs to get her husband to do the talking. He needs to stand up for her rights while the marriage is fresh or else, his parents will get used to bossing her around.

 

Yeah, totally. And the thing is... it should be done SOON, early in the marriage. I mean, it'd still be effective if he stood up for her a year down the line, but SO much more if he did it now. Plus, if he waits, the resentment could really start building up in his wife... like 'This guy said he loved me, then why is he letting his folks trash me'. Been there, felt that. It's toxic to a marriage. Hope this guy figures it out ASAP!