The In-Law Invasion

My mother and father-in-law arrive today to celebrate Christmas a little early.  As ever, I dive into cooking in advance and cleaning down to and including the baseboards.  Housekeeping happens as necessary in my gene pool, and that means I feel a need to do it when there's a need to do it.  As in, when we will have guests.  Really, I would like to have a crumb-free, uncluttered environment in which to live, and I try.  I just didn't come equipped to keep up with it.  We all have our strengths.

I fall on the short end of the cleaning stick, and so I guess I make up for it in cooking and baking.  Which makes a mess.  Doesn't it figure?

Stress.  I feel stress to get it all right, because I think, deep down, that judgment cometh.  Some people are very particular, very expectant, and I married one of them.  He comes from that kind of lineage.  And it stresses him out, too, wanting everything to be perfect, from the house and children to the meals and relationships. 

No matter how well we plan and prepare, very little of that perfection has a possibility of happening. We are fallible humans!  Personalities clash, preconceived notions make truth crawl under the carpet, assumptions slither into attitudes, and nerves stand on edge, and when any one of these bind with another, our minds and sometimes our stomachs take a hit. 

We want better for ourselves, and we want better for the rest of those involved. 

I think all of us married folks, from time to time, have in-law issues.  Even the most perfect in-law pair, either the seasoned parental couple or the younger wedded couple, have difficulties that seem to surface.  These difficulties may happen only in their heads, but they happen, leaving stress, irritation, and sometimes anger or tears at the inability to live up to the example, in the attempt to avoid criticism (giving or receiving), the attempt to avoid advice (giving or receiving) or ilkjn the attempt to avoid a hamster wheel world of trying to be everyone's everything.

My husband and I have navigated 21 years of marriage and dozens of visits here or there with our sets of parents.  Every time I think of Exodus 20:12, which reads:

"Honor your father and your mother,

so that you may live long in the land

 the LORD your God is giving you."

No suggestion here, a commandment.  Hoo-eee!  It sometimes feels like more pressure, but, in making it reality, it pays for itself.  First, in obedience to God, which should stand as our first line of action, in all things (don't look at me -- I'm practicing, too!).  Then to the feeling that comes from blessing the very people who provided your husband by giving him life in the first place.  Finally, in the continued blessing showered on us when we witness a change in attitudes and behavior all around because we have acted as we should.  

The in-law resistance we often feel, I think, we usually create ourselves.  We have our own preferences.  We have our own hopes for the relationship.  We have our own sets of expectations that, Satan-bound, put us first ... wholly because we feel that others should act or speak in certain ways to maintain the structure of the relationship we envision.  Dysfunction runs rampant in this way of thinking.  As Sheila Wray Gregoire illustrates in "Do You See What I See?" our preferences and sadly, our expectations color our vision.  We need to use God's vision -- and he gladly shares it when we ask.  It offers more clarity than we will ever find in an independent search.  It offers grace in place of contempt, it provides hope instead of defeat, it views everyone with love instead of with impossible expectations in mind.

And, while I'd sometimes like to toss the reminder of Christ's review of the marriage commitment (Matthew 19:4-6) toward my mate's parents when advice or questions arise -- I'd be offering God's word as judgment, wouldn't I:

"He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 

I know that I have my own expectations of perfection and hopeful views of what family should be.  I know my own biological family has no claim to perfection or excellence.  And, I remember, a little sheepishly, as I think of retorts or admonitions:

"A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control."  Proverbs 29:11

I need to keep the relationship in perspective and remember that feelings are fickle and hearts live out life on people's sleeves in family relationships sometimes.  It's our job, as wives ... as family ... to protect both.

Missing in Action: Respect

Does hearing a child use a respectful phrases, such as "please," "thank you," or "excuse me," cause you to stop in surprise, and maybe even say out loud, "Oh, how nice!"?  Then, do you feel all panicky, realizing you just felt shocked . . .  by good manners?

A mainstay of society, the respect many of us have taken for granted all our lives, appears to have diminished to an alarming degree at an alarming rate.  Some evidence to support this lack of  human decency, common courtesy -- the absence of respect -- comes in the form or road rage, violent acts reported on the news every day, rising rates of bullying and hate crimes, as well as in the divorce rate.  Lack of respect seems to have taken a top spot in "Hallmarks of Society".  Or am I just wearing my cynical-colored goggles?

My husband and I raise our children to use polite language, not always offering explicit instruction, but using it ourselves and expecting the same from those around us.  By "expecting," I mean, "hoping to hear it in turn or in kind."  We don't always hear it at home, but we hear about their decency and kindness from others, which, as most parents know, counts for a lot.  The families we know teach their children similarly.  We try to surround ourselves with Christian influence, people of faith and good character.

Yet, in many situations, those polite-minded children omit the words and actions they know, sometimes acting as if they never learned them.  This irksome occurrence happens because world they live in, outside our realm of expectation and teaching, does not require them to comply with our teaching or offer many instances for follow-up lessons by coaches, teachers or other adults who have not been quieted by lax social standards.

Twenty-first Century children often do not hold doors for others, don't excuse themselves when passing in front of another person, don't allow others to go first, and don't give up a seat for an elder.  These social mores have fallen into a category called "Old-Fashioned".  Can you feel my ire getting up?  Old-fashioned?  Respectfulness can never go out of fashion and allow rudeness to rule.

Respectfulness comes from within, from the heart.  A person can learn it and choose to either internalize it (make it real and purposeful) or sport it (use it when deemed helpful, like a magic trick to amaze and mystify).  Whether from heredity or environment, respectfulness makes the difference between what we really feel and what we think we should feel.  It's a way of life or an act.   Romans 12:10 reminds us, 

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor;

Our courteous actions and words should flow easily, toward those around us, simply out of respect to other humans, other lives.

When did our society decide that going against the grain seemed a good and right?  When did questioning of authority -- all authority -- take precedence over a sense of community?  When did we leave behind our words of kindness, deeds of heart-felt service and thoughts of decency for whatever popular, indulgent, selfish activity rolls past and waves at us?

Some point to the 1960's and the Feminist Movement, with the fight for equality between men and women raging and providing a win-lose outcome for marriage, family, and the workplace.  Then, we have the 1970's, during which new parents flouted the stringent discipline of their upbringings for a softer, more lenient parenting style, and more and more women entered the work force.  More and more marriages dissolved, too.  Forward to the 1980's with Time-Out discipline, offering 2-year olds a chance to contemplate their wrongdoing and to go forth and keep on biting in lieu of a talking to or (gasp!) a swat on the backside to deter the improper behavior.  More working parents, more divorce.  Hmmmm.  Don't lose track of the 1990's, during which time more children began to grow up in daycare settings than ever before, coming home to parents who weren't in touch with them enough to understand their baby talk, their personalities or their needs, and who had no time or energy to handle them after long days at work, if they enjoyed a nuclear (2-parent) family at all.  And now, 21st Century life provides all of these plus electronics to suit every whim, further dividing our time, our patience and our understanding of the difference between want and need.

Our culture needs to take serious stock of itself and decide where it can start plugging in some of the brotherly love it has lost, and to experience the outward effects of giving preference to others over self.

When those things happen, and they can, the abundance of good manners will overflow.  The decency of people lives inside each individual, but without motivation and cultivation, the human side of us beats it down in deference to selfish indulgences and more "me-me-me" ways of seeing the world.

We can do it.  We are all Little Engines That Could, we need only try, and then watch the sparks fly.