Boy mom to future mother in law
I hope I’m not alone in feeling like this, and I hope this post doesn’t make me the icky sort of boy mom I have a fear of becoming.
I am a mom to only boys, so in the future I may find myself being someone’s mother in law, and grandma on the dad’s side. Being a mother myself, I know how much I felt like I wanted my mom in that postpartum period, and the early years of my boys life. I haven’t spoke to him about it but I wondered if my partner also felt the same way. Naturally I went to my own mother for advice, help and support, my mother in law often being a last resort. I noticed I did this with my first and swore to myself to not abandon or neglect her with my second, although it was completely unintentional the first time around. I know mother in laws get a bad rep for unsolicited advice, unwelcomed visits and so on, and I never want to be that mother in law. My own mother in law respected our boundaries, if anyone pushed them it was often my own mother.
Part of me mourns a future where my sons with probably not need me in those times as much as their partner needs their mother, and I know that’s okay, I know that’s how I felt. I’m not the sort of person who would demand to see a baby or show up unnanounced, if they asked me to stay away I would. I don’t know what the point in writing this is, I guess I just wondered if any other boy moms felt the same way.
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Maybe I have a different feeling about this because my own mother never was really in the picture so it may not be helpful but I do have a step mom and a MIL, I really think it’ll depend on how you offer help not necessarily your place in the family unit. While my step mother is very sweet and I know she will want to help a ton with the baby my mil definitely has more knowledge on postpartum and pregnancy and she has opened her home to us for the newborn phase. (I also will be a boy mom shortly) as a woman who spent a lot of her life growing up without a mother I will say I may have had a stronger connection to “mother figures” in my life while looking for guidance but I think this can be common even if you did grow up with a mother. There are things you may want to talk to someone else about or you may not feel comfortable at the time sharing with your mother that I think really helps to have another supportive mother figure to run it by first.
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