Don't Roll Your Eyes
Making In-Laws into Family
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
More than two million couples wed every year in the United States, bringing together a whole new family unit. The extended family may now include a hard to please mother-in-law who criticizes her daughter-in-law's childrearing; or a patriarchal father-in-law who expects all the kin round the dinner table every Sunday; or a new spouse, who a year or decade out, still gets shellshock visiting the in-laws. If that wasn't cause enough for a stiff drink, more than a million couples divorce each year, creating hard to define family structures. How do families handle the inevitable friction and how do they make sense of evolving family relationships? Ruth Nemzoff, an expert in family dynamics, empowers family members across the generations to define and create lasting bonds, including how to:
*Welcome a new in-law from a different culture and religion into your family.
*Not let differences of politics or philosophy impact quality time with the extended family.
*Respond to major life changes in an in-law's life, including financial crises, illnesses, or career changes.
*Retain warm connections with in-laws even amidst divorce and remarriage.
This is a must read for anyone dealing with a difficult in-law as well as anyone who will soon be welcoming a new member to their family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nemzoff (Don't Bite Your Tongue) advises how to improve troublesome relationships with a variety of nonblood extended family members. She encourages parents to work diligently on avoiding confrontations with their children's spouses and concentrate on their children's happiness rather than their own disappointment. Adult children are advised to focus on the good qualities of their parents-in-law, to always be civil, and to be generous in what they accept as an apology. While in-law sibling issues can run the gamut from accepting a transgendered sib-in-law to participating in long-term care for a sibling's disabled spouse or partner, or dealing with sib-in-laws who don't share the family's values, Nemzoff also provides useful tools for readers dueling with their child's in-laws over the love and attention of their children and grandchildren (who gets to spend more time with them? who offers more financial aid?). She also has advice for those with in-laws from different cultures, religions, and races. Offering plentiful composite case studies, the fair-minded, inclusive, and congenial Nemzoff doesn't promise quick solutions and realizes some problems are unsolvable, but she focuses on helpful ways to improve relationships that with time and effort can be fixed.
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