The Unspoken Grief of Having to Listen to Your Mother-in-Law Complain About Not Being a Grandparent

“A growing number of Americans are choosing not to have children. Their parents are grappling with what that means for them.” –New York Times

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Recently, the New York Times published an article chronicling the “unspoken” grief of parents whose adult children have decided not to have kids of their own. The grief is so unspoken their parents took it to the New York Times. My mother-in-law’s grief is so unspoken that she sent this article to me.

 

But what about my unspoken grief of having to listen to my mother-in-law complain about not being a grandparent? I don’t hear the New York Times knocking on my barren front door for a quote.

 

I could speak about my grief, but then my mother-in-law would probably rescind her offer to help us put a downpayment on a house, and we really need that unless we want to rent until 2045. So, I have to tell myself to shove it when she goes up to random babies on the street and coos, “You’re so precious. I can’t believe my daughter-in-law hates you.”

 

Her grief is extremely spoken for. On the other hand, I choose to keep my mouth shut and continue raiding her double fridge for cold cuts while she sits on the couch with a glass of $200 Chardonnay, lamenting on the short-comings of today’s generation. Groceries these days are really expensive. It’s between ham and having a child.

 

“They just don’t know what’s good for them,” she says as she goes in for another glass of wine. She’s only this relaxed because we’re at her second house in Boca. If we were in New York, she’d be halfway to a stroke.

 

The article claims that one of the main reasons for people choosing not to have children in 2024 is that they just don’t want to. This may be true for some, and is true for all according to my mother-in-law who is definitely right about everything all the time (including that wine is good for you if it’s expensive enough). But both the article and my mother-in-law fail to acknowledge that these days, buying gum is a major financial decision.

 

We have a Bernedoodle named Pepper, but unfortunately my mother-in-law does not see him as one of her own. Once, I caught her trying to put Pepper in the crib she bought and put in her guest room the day of my and my spouse’s wedding. The poor dog was traumatized. I should say that I only caught her doing this because the whole time she was loudly sobbing, “You’re all I have, Pepper.” That’s not true. She also has a house in Boca and plenty of friends to belittle. She’s doing just fine.

 

But the last was during Thanksgiving last year. We were doing some last minute shopping because my mother-in-law insisted that eight bags of cranberries simply wasn’t enough for the five guests that were coming, even though none of us like cranberries. So, we went to get more cranberries. I got a little wrapped up in looking at the store’s display of holiday sweaters for dogs, and when I looked up, my mother-in-law was gone. Vanished into thin air.

 

You’ll never guess what happened next.

 

“Will a 4-year-old girl named Aubrey with dark brown hair, wearing a ready dress please come to the customer service desk?” An employee said over the intercom. Immediately, I knew it was my mother-in-law. “Your grandmother is looking for you.”

 

Aubrey is my mother-in-law’s name. She always talks about having a grandchild named after her, even though that’s only something you do after a relative has passed away. But at that point, it was as though Aubrey had passed away, because I was fucking livid. We left the store without the cranberries.

 

We’re considering another Bernedoodle.