Family farming (venting)

[NH homesteader]

Toxic is right. You have me beat! Although my MIL is awfully close to that bad!

Thanks everyone. I needed to vent and commiserate more than truly needing advice but I do appreciate that as well!

Heck yes a country boy/girl can survive! My daughter can't wait until she's old enough to help process chickens. Kinda weird. But hey she'll never starve!

 

[Baymule]

Both of you continue on as you are doing. You are happy, your family is happy and just to heck with the nay sayers who just don't get it. You can pick your friends, but you're kinda stuck with your extended family.

 

[greybeard]

My mother in law is the type of person that anytime you disagree with her. "you are attacking her." .

It's just part of how life is nowadays--some are good at dishing it out but can't take it when thrown back at them & it don't take much at all on line or in real life for some people to get their wittle feelings hurt. My in-laws thought I hung the moon, but my 2 older sisters both gave my wife an undeserved ration of crap last year (I'm 66 yrs old currently) and I had to have a 'come to Jesus" meeting with the both of them and offered to throw both off the porch and out onto the lawn if they didn't mind their own **** business. Some believe everyone is a unique little snowflake and everyone brings something to the table but it's been in my considerable experience, more often than not, that dish sometimes smells of dung and not fit for consumption.
This may get worse as your children get older. Don't know how long you and hubby have been married, or the age of your future farmer kids, but I am reminded of what Deputy Fife told Sheriff Andy.

 

[Baymule]

I hope both of you are open and honest with your children about your family members. They can bad mouth you to your own children and get things all muddied up. It can tear kids up when people they love are back stabbing their parents or when people they love tell them their parents lifestyles are wrong. If these attacks against you continue, and they can go on behind your back with ugly remarks dropped here and there, after years of this, your children can be led away from you. Explain to your children why you don't live the way your family does. Explain to them that Grandma and Grandpa might mean well, but you don't want to live like that. A constant stream of negative remarks can wear down a child. Talk with them and let them know that if they don't like what is being said, it's ok and they can come talk to you about it.

I have one of those toxic EX-mother in law's and now at 81, after years of being rattlesnake nasty, she is basically alone. No one wants to be around her. The sentence fits the crime.

 

[misfitmorgan]

The MIL here was the same...always the victim...lots of medical problems, hypochondriac type, asthma(but smoked green stuff and flipped if she ran out), couldnt clean, couldnt help on the farm...it was all "too much for her."

Keep in mind the only things we asked her to do was clean up after herself, help weed 2 rows of the garden, and drive a tractor...while we loaded the hay rack. After two weeks she couldnt take "how hard we were working her" anymore and somehow thought she was in charge..in DH's house...he let her know in no uncertain terms she was not in charge and was a guest, if she didnt like how we lived she could leave. She did two days later and he didnt talk to her for 4 months. Now she knows to mind her attitude and not be rude or try to play the victim.

DH also chewed her out for being rude to me, now she is very nice to me.

The most irritating part was DH and i were both working full time minimum, and doing all the farming on the side of that...while she sat around the house all day.

We dont have kids but DH and i wouldnt let her act like that with them/us regardless...my own mother and family know not to do that kind of stuff either or they will get a ear full from me and i wont talk to them for several months. Somehow that not talking to them for a bit seems to help fix their attitude and issues with whatever your doing.

 

[lalabugs]

Beyond toxic! We try to deal with her as minimal as possible.

She does talk behind our backs as well. Since we live in a small town IT GETS AROUND. Always coming back to us. My husband has chewed her out. Which just resulted in him WHOLE family being against him, because he didn't just sit back and take it. Only option of not dealing with her is to move away from our small community. We're not doing that until we can get the right property/house.

Our kids when they spent time with her, always came home telling us all the horrible things she would say. We always sat down and talked about it. I am a firm believer of being completely honest with my kids.

We ignore her comments, go about our lives the way we want. She can live her life the way she wants. We will live it the way we want. Her comments use to really get at me. Now I just don't care.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Oh DH tells people stuff himself about what his family does or what so and so said he did etc. Because of it he has a reputation for being brutally honest, so if he tells someone no this is what happened or its a lie they believe him over the other people. We have had people try to start several different rumors, in the end they came out looking more like scheming jerks and we came out better in the eyes of the community.

At first i balked at it and told him he was embarrassing me telling everyone everything but i came to realize thats not a bad thing. Everyone knows us and most everyone likes us in the community here.

 

[Kusanar]

I was homeschooled my whole life until college at 17 years old. I have never hunted or killed an animal (flies and fleas don't count), but my dad hunts and when I was about 4-5 years old I was out in the garage in freezing temps helping him butcher a deer he had shot the day before or early that morning. I still won't kill one or gut it, but once it's dead, cold, and hanging, I can take care of the rest no problem. I'm not the most social person ever, I enjoy talking about animals and can talk your ear off, but I don't small talk, I think that's a "skill" learned in public schools, but I don't open my mouth unless I have something at least somewhat important to say... I don't like big crowds, I grew up as an only kid (I have 2 brothers but they were in their teens when I was born), so it was just me and mom mostly because dad worked and she stayed at home with me from the time I was 2 on until I started college.

I now work at an international company in the engineering department, own my own land (well, the bank owns it, but I'm working on it being fully mine, only have a 15 year mortgage and I pay almost 2 times the bill each month), have multiple vehicles, 6 horses, a dog, and 8 cats I support. I think I do pretty well for being a "maladjusted antisocial home school kid"

 

[misfitmorgan]

I was never home schooled but i dont see anything wrong with it 99% of the time. Once in awhile things dont go as planned or something not good can happen but otherwise i dont know why it gets negitive attention all the time...everyone should know public schools suck anymore, least where i live.

What kind of Engineer are you @Kusanar , i'm an engineer too though probly not the same kind lol.

 

[Kusanar]

What kind of Engineer are you @Kusanar , i'm an engineer too though probly not the same kind lol.

I'm actually an engineering tech, so I'm the gofer for the engeneers, but my job description includes CAD, working on machines, creating training documents, and setting new parts up on all of the machines. I'm in the automotive industry, making clutch disks for automatic transmissions.

So, what kind are you?