I do want to preface this that I do like my MIL, but this whole situation was a little bit of a trigger for me yesterday.
Since yesterday was Mother's Day, my husband and I decided to invite my in-laws over for lunch.
Everything was going well until my in-laws started talking about my MIL's brother's (who is deceased) granddaughter's First Communion.
They talked up how much they ended up spending on my MIL's grandniece, which was $400 between the dress, shoes, gloves, and veil that they don't have since they are in quite a bit of debt due to MIL's spending habits.
Then my MIL looks at me and says," My brother has grandchildren, but I don't have any," and smiles that smile that probably others have seen that is an implication of," i WaNt GrAnDbAbIeS!"
My MIL knows that I come from a very toxic family system where I was abused emotionally and physically and parentified into taking care of my sibiling. My mentality has been since becoming an adult in regards to parenting has been," Been there, done that and I never wanted the t-shirt to begin with."
In addition to this, I have discovered over the years the contingental conditions that I carry that I really don't want to pass along to another human being. I know that to them that I appear as being smart, healthy, and successful, but I have disabilities that I have to deal with every single day and that I do seek medical care for on a regular basis which I do not think is right to pass on to a child.
Not only that, I'm the main breadwinner of my household, and I can't take time off to take care of a child or risk reduction in income due to being a parent because of the field I work in. I know that there women who do make it work, but they are also the ones who want to have kids. I definitely don't. I'm happy being an almost mid-40s woman who just wants to coast to menopause (I know there really isn't any coasting through menopause. HA!) and not have to worry about potentially getting pregnant ever.
I also can't trust my in-laws with childcare since MIL admitted to me a horrific thing (not going to mention it here in case there are other abuse childhood abuse survivors reading it, but I will say it was REALLY, REALLY BAD) that she did to my husband when he was a toddler when she got angry at him. This event did lead her to seek therapy for her own childhood trauma, but it would make me very nervous to leave a child in her care. She has not been in therapy for a very long time, but she really needs to be to deal with her own childhood trauma now that both of her parents have passed away. It would be a condition that I would set in place if they were to ever want to have the child stay with them overnight is that my MIL is in ongoing therapy, but I digress.
My FIL is pretty immature as an adult and I would not trust him around a child for an entire day without him disobeying instructions about a child in his care since he would rather be the "fun grandparent." He is a nice guy, but it would be a very fim no from me to leave him with kids without supervision.
Fortunately my parents are both gone, so I don't have to ever worry about them doing the same things that they did to me to my children or try to sue me for grandparent's rights when I would be keeping them far, far away from my children.
I guess I am just tired of the "i WaNt GrAnDbAbIeS!" or "I can't believe that (insert X relative here) is a grandparent before I am!" I wish I could calmly and gently explain to my in-laws that they're just going to have to look to their other son for grandchildren because they aren't going to be coming from me.
Anyways, just wanted to rant, but any advice is appreciated.