—I’m not lifting a finger for my mother-in-law, and she shouldn’t even dream of it!— Anna says bitterly, her voice trembling with years of hurt. —That woman has no right to expect anything from me. In the seventeen years I’ve been married to her son, she’s never once lifted a finger to help—not with money, not with her time. And not a single kind word, either! She always said she didn’t owe anyone anything. Well, turns out she was right. But I don’t owe her anything either!
Anna’s telling me this from her cosy but modest flat in a little town up north in England. She’s got two teenage boys, a mortgage she and her husband have been chipping away at like it’s some unbeatable foe. Anna’s sure they’d never have managed without her mum. Her mum didn’t hand them cash, but she took care of the kids—school runs, homework, football practice, you name it. While Anna and her husband worked long hours, her mum made sure the kids were fed, picked up, and looked after when they were poorly. Without her, Anna says, they’d have been sunk.
All those years, they scraped and saved, grafting non-stop to pay off the house and give their boys a good start. Anna remembers how hard it was juggling work and the kids, especially when they were little. “Mum was our lifeline,” she says. “No way I could’ve worked like I did with two toddlers.”
And her mother-in-law? Not a peep. She lived for herself—saw the grandkids maybe at Christmas, if that. Always had something “more important” on—trips with her mates, her own little dramas. Anna swallowed her pride a few times, asked if she could babysit, but got the same icy reply: “I raised my son on my own, you’ll manage. Don’t expect handouts from me.” After a while, Anna stopped asking. Why beg when you already know the answer?
—My mum basically raised my kids,— Anna says, her voice softening. —If she ever needs help, we’ll be there in a heartbeat. But my mother-in-law? She’s my husband’s mum, sure, and maybe some moral rulebook says we owe her something. But there’s no bond there. She put up the walls, not me.
Anna goes quiet, watching the first snowfall outside. There’s pain in her eyes, but stubbornness too. What’s her mother-in-law expecting? That old age won’t catch up? That she’ll stay tough forever? Anna shakes her head like she’s swatting the thought away. “Life’s a boomerang,” she murmurs. “You reap what you sow. Love, respect, help—you’ve got to earn it. And she didn’t even try.”
Still, part of her wavers. Should she rise above it? Swallow the hurt and step up when the time comes, like it or not? Age comes for everyone—does family duty mean she has to forget the past? Or do actions have consequences? Anna doesn’t know, and it gnaws at her.
What do you reckon? Should Anna grit her teeth and help, cold shoulder or not? Or is it fair that you get back what you put in? Life always collects its debts—but who settles the bill? Maybe there’s no right answer. One thing’s clear though: family ties don’t come with a manual. They just test how far you’ll bend before you snap.
