"Remember daughter in laws are also someone else's daughters, treat them with respect like you do your own daughter." A post by Elaine Caroll Barrat on Charous Corner Group on Facebook. This facebook post inspired this blog post and I agree that is absolutely true.

And we must also remember Father In Laws and Mother In Laws are also someones Father and someones Mother too, so treat them with the respect you treat your own Father and Mother.


And of course family always has tensions and arguments, its a natural occurance when people get close, but before you bad mouth a father in law or mother in law to their face or behind their back, ask yourself, can I send this text or speak to/about MY mother or MY father in this fashion? And yes not all mothers and fathers are perfect parents, but who is perfect? No-one really...


Another thing to consider is that Your idea of disrespect will be different to another, so sometimes when you think you are being upfront and necessarily confrontational, it may be perceived as disrespectful, justifying your behaviour to yourself does not mean whoever you are confronting will also see it as necessary.

And also practical things like sometimes Whatsapp "delete this msg" doesnt work for people who have not upgraded to that version, that's just for eg.
 I mention this modern day communication tool because the lesson in it is: think BEFORE we type instead of thinking AFTER we type and THEN scrambling to erase/delete because the truth is peoples minds do not conveniently have a delete button like whatsapp and sometimes they remember long after you have forgotten.


I also find in my ever-learning journey of awareness and "consciousness communication" that immediate reaction (or over reaction) to a situation is detrimental to the perception of my mental stability.

So what I do before rash reponses is I look inside. This involves asking oneself: am 'I' being hypocritical? Am 'I' acting one way while my words express another? Am 'I' the one causing the drama with family by over reacting? These questions I find are essential to understanding my own 'part to play' in any interaction. Sometimes when I see exhibitions of hypocritical behaviour I am urged to act emotionally but instead I approach the exhibition with thoughtful insight and enquiry to bring growth to myself and not the one exhibiting the hypocritical. This is by no means easy, and there is no perfect execution of this, but it stops me randomly screaming or text screaming at people and forces me to rather find warmer kinder ways to enquire.


Selfishness begins with expecting everyone to prescribe to the laws you have governed on yourself, its a hard pill to swallow, but an important revelation in growth and development when you realise not everyone wants to live your life. And looking around at the volatile "in law" relationships that exist, I find they are built on this basic premise. And when this volatility is packaged and flung at someone, it asks for tension to be the underlying essence of all interactions that follow.


I am Hashtagging this post #FamilyFriday because I have seen this post (picture above of Elaine Carol Barrats post) and thought lets invent a new hashtag: #FamilyFriday! Where we actively make the effort to learn more about bettering communication between family, especially with in laws because of the incessant issues we are perpetuating with unconscious behaviours and always getting the same soured results. This is done in an effort so that anger and resentment are not harboured and one day explode where family bonds are broken permanently. 


Everyone has their faults and at the end of the day everyone is leading their life the only way they know. 

When they are open for change is their decision, it is not up to you, what IS up to you is changing yourself so that your interactions are less destructive to your peace of mind and those around you. 

Especially in the Indian community Mother In Laws get a bad rap, and sometimes if they exhibit despicable behaviour some may believe they are deserving of the bad attitudes from their daughter in laws and son in laws. But there is a growing pattern of daughter in laws being resentful of their parents in law and this has disastrous effects on the children and spousal relationship. I think before we judge anothers choices for certain behaviours I think its imperative we look at who is watching us, who is modelling themselves on us. Our children pick up the way we treat our in laws and in turn may believe its okay to be disrespectful or mistreat THEIR future in laws. Its also good to remember that one day you yourself may be an inlaw and so if we are ever conscious of this cycle that spins from parents to children and in laws alike there may be a chance to reinvent this system on inlaw animosity. But its starts with us, me and you.


This does not negate the equal truth that parents in law sometimes are over protective which results in bad treatment of their children in law, so this message to be conscious of interactions in all aspects is for all parents children and in laws on both sides. When you are prepared to look in the mirror and face your own truths, being kind to even the person who appears to hate you the most comes naturally and in that way you diffuse your toxicity from the equation and it may not bring complete peace, but more peace than you currently have is guranteed.


As families go, intense conflicts always arise, but when you cannot let go of the need to judge an in law for who they are you will forever bang your head against a brick wall and in the end only your mind is damaged from the holding onto the toxicity.

Having conversations about the different ways we live and think is healthy but it is not up to us to "law" over others or tell people how to "act". The moment you do that there is a start of rot in a relationship, and rot decays your soul from the inside out. 

So the next time you type an angry text or whatsapp or decide to call someone out on how they "should be better at this life", remember healthy debate is good and can be constructive if you allow it, but prescribing someone how to live their life on your terms only brings separation, anxiety and unnecessary complications for yourself.

So bringing it back to the post that inspired THIS blog post, think before you speak/type/interact with an in law, treat them with the respect you would your own, because your Inlaws aren't your Outlaws, until you make them just that.