I have read a few blogs from the perspective of a wife, a husband or a daughter in law in an intercultural relationship but never from the prespective of a mother in law.
Yesterday I was talking to one of my colleague and I came to know a bit about the perspective of a mother in law and it was quite interesting so I am sharing it here with all of you.
My colleague is from Russia and she moved to Australia more than 20 years ago. She has two boys who were both born and brought up here. So they are more Aussie than she wants them to be.
Anyway, her older son was in a relationship with a Japanese girl for a while. They met when she came to Australia as an exchange student.
Last month they got married in Japan so my colleague and her family flew to Japan to attend the wedding.
She was not very happy about how everything was working out before she left the country. A few things that she mentioned were:
- She wanted a Russian daughter in law.
- She felt that her new daughter in law was not very open when she visited her. (She stayed in the same house with my colleague.)
- She wanted to be a part of the wedding preparation but she was never consulted about anything.
- She wanted the wedding to be in Australia especially after the nuclear problem in Japan recently.
- She was scared that her son was planning to move to Japan after the wedding.
Yesterday I saw her for the first time after the wedding. When I asked her how the wedding went, she was positive about her experience.
She said she is happy about lots of things after visiting Japan as she can now see that some of the things she was not happy about with her new DIL is more cultural than personal.
For example, she was a bit sad when her DIL didn’t hug her when they met. Now she is happy that DIL doesn’t hug her mum either which means that hugging is not a part of the Japanese culture. It made her realise that her DIL is not trying to keep a distance from her; it just is not a part of Japanese way of life.
Also she was happy that the bride’s family made a lot of effort to make them feel comfortable and welcome in Japan.
The most important thing for her was, that her son and DIL spent lots of time with them and made sure that they were looked after while they were there. So now she doesn’t worry about how her DIL is taking her son away from ber as she feels that her DIL is a part of her family now.
I think all relationships are difficult in the beginning but for intercultural relationship it is more difficult for a man and woman but same goes for their families as well.
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