“Why I Don’t Owe My Mother-in-Law Care in Her Old Age”
“I won’t lift a finger for my mother-in-law—she shouldn’t even dream of it!” Anna exclaims, her voice trembling with years of pent-up resentment. “That woman has no right to expect my support. In seventeen years of marriage to her son, she never once lifted a hand to help us—not with money, not with chores. Worse, I never heard a single kind word from her! She always insisted she had no obligations to anyone. Now I see she was right. And I owe her nothing in return!”
Anna shares her story from a snug but modest flat in a small town in northern England. She has two teenage sons and steps into middle age shouldering a mortgage she and her husband have fought like a relentless foe. Anna is certain: without her own mother’s help, they’d have drowned under the weight of it all. Her mum never gave them money but took charge of the grandchildren—dropping them at nursery, nursing them through illnesses, collecting them from school, tutoring them, driving them to football practice, and feeding them. Thanks to her, Anna and her husband could work without distraction.
All those years, they toiled tirelessly to pay off the mortgage and secure their sons’ futures. Anna remembers the strain of juggling work and parenting, especially when the boys were small. Without her mother, she says, their family would have crumbled. “If not for Mum, we’d have nothing,” Anna sighs. “With two kids, I could never have worked the way I did.”
And her mother-in-law? She lived for herself alone. She saw the grandchildren only at holidays, and even then, barely glanced their way. There was always something more pressing—girls’ trips, personal errands. Anna swallowed her pride more than once, asking her to babysit, only to be met with icy refusal. “I raised my son alone, and you’ll manage too,” her mother-in-law would snap. “Don’t expect my help.” After a few attempts, Anna stopped asking. Why humiliate herself when the answer was always no?
“My mum practically raised my children,” Anna says, warmth softening her tone. “I’ll always be grateful. If she ever needs care, my husband and I will do everything for her. But with my mother-in-law? She chose this distance. Yes, she’s my husband’s mother, and some might say we owe her. But there’s no bond between us. No kindness to look back on.”
Anna falls silent, watching the first snow swirl outside the window. Pain and resolve flicker in her eyes. What does her mother-in-law expect? Does she think aging will pass her by? That she’ll stay strong and independent forever? Anna shakes her head, dispelling the thought. “Life’s a boomerang,” she murmurs. “You reap what you sow. Love, respect, help—they must be earned. She never even tried.”
Yet doubt nags at her. Should she rise above the past? Does duty to her husband’s family demand she forget the years of indifference? After all, time spares no one. Or is it fair for each to face the consequences of their choices? Anna doesn’t know, and the question gnaws at her.
What do you think? Should Anna grit her teeth and care for her mother-in-law despite the coldness between them? Or is it right that we receive what we’ve given? Life has a way of balancing the scales, but who decides how the debt is paid? Perhaps there’s no perfect answer—only the truth that family tests us, forcing us to walk the line between duty and what’s right.
