I used to think being a good daughter-in-law meant learning which battles weren't worth having.
I was wrong about that.
Some battles started with a spoon, a container of potato salad, and a woman who couldn't understand why the rules in my house applied to her.
Her name was Diane.
She was my husband's mother, and she had a way of making an ordinary request sound like an insult.
I didn't know how much trouble six weeks could cause.
When Diane sold her house, she needed somewhere to stay while she waited for her new condo to become available.
She asked Mark and me if she could move in temporarily.
Six weeks, she said.
Not six months.
Not indefinitely.
Just long enough to get through the awkward stretch between selling one place and moving into another.
I remember standing beside Mark at the kitchen counter when he told me she'd asked.
He looked almost embarrassed about bringing it up.
"She doesn't have many options for the next few weeks."
I understood that.
Moving was expensive, and finding a short-term place to live wasn't easy.
Diane was his mother.
I wanted her to feel welcome.
"Of course she can stay," I said.
Mark looked relieved.
"Are you sure?"
"Six weeks. We'll manage."
I meant it when I said it.
I even thought we might enjoy having her around.
She could spend time with Noah, our four-year-old, and we could have dinner together without rushing through every conversation.
I pictured a few inconveniences.
An extra person at breakfast.
More laundry.
Someone else using the bathroom when I needed it.
Nothing that seemed impossible.
I didn't picture myself standing in my own kitchen, trying to explain why a serving spoon shouldn't go back into a communal dish after someone had put it in their mouth.
Diane arrived with her belongings and the certainty of someone who had already decided she was doing us a favor by accepting our invitation.
She thanked us for making room for her.
She said the arrangement would be easy.
She said she wouldn't be any trouble.
I believed her.
For the first couple of days, there wasn't much to complain about.
She unpacked her things and settled into the space we'd made available.
She talked about her new condo and the things she intended to buy for it.
She had opinions about the furniture, the kitchen cupboards, and where we kept things.
I let most of those comments pass.
It was her first time living somewhere that wasn't her own home, and I told myself she needed time to adjust.
I kept returning to those six weeks.
Six weeks, and then we'd have our house back.
On the third day, I walked into the kitchen and found her eating potato salad.
The container was on the counter.
Diane was standing over it with a spoon in her hand, taking leisurely bites as though she'd prepared a private snack and didn't expect anyone to see her.
I didn't think much of it at first.
Then I watched her lift the spoon to her mouth.
She took a bite.
She licked the spoon clean.
Then she lowered it straight back into the potato salad.
I stopped walking.
For a moment, I wondered if I'd misunderstood what I'd seen.
Maybe she was going to put it in the sink.
Maybe she'd simply forgotten there was food left in the container.
But she scooped up another bite.
And did it again.
"Diane?"
She glanced at me.
"Yes, honey?"
"Could you please use a different spoon for that?"
She looked down at the container.
Then she looked at the spoon.
"What do you mean?"
"The spoon you're eating with. Could you get a clean one instead of putting that one back in the food?"
She blinked at me.
I waited for her to understand.
Instead, she gave a small laugh.
"What on earth is the problem?"
I tried to keep my voice pleasant.
"You've been eating from the spoon, and then you're putting it back into the container."
She stared at me as though I'd accused her of doing something terrible.
"It's potato salad."
"I know."
"What's going to happen to it?"
I didn't have a clever answer.
I wasn't trying to win an argument.
I simply didn't want someone else's saliva mixed into food that other people might eat.
"Could you just use a clean spoon, please?"
Diane shook her head, smiling.
She made it sound as if I were a child who'd become frightened of something harmless.
"We're all family here."
I looked at the container again.
Family.
That was the word she used whenever she wanted a rule to disappear.
I could have taken the potato salad away and started over.
I could have thrown it out.
Instead, I stood there feeling awkward in my own kitchen, wondering why such a small request had become a disagreement.
"All right," I said finally. "I just wanted to ask."
She gave me another smile and returned to her snack.
I left the kitchen.
That was the first mistake.
Not because I should have shouted or humiliated her, but because I convinced myself that letting it go was the same thing as solving it.
I didn't want to make Mark's life difficult.
I didn't want Diane to feel unwelcome.
And I didn't want to become the kind of person who turned every household irritation into a family dispute.
So I swallowed my annoyance.
I cleaned the counter after she'd finished.
I put the potato salad away.
And I told myself it wouldn't happen again.
It happened again.
The next time, it was pasta sauce.
Diane was preparing something in the kitchen while I was occupied with Noah.
When I came in, she was tasting the sauce with a spoon.
That was perfectly ordinary.
People tasted food while cooking.
The problem came when she put the spoon back into the pot.
I watched her do it.
She stirred the sauce, tasted it again, and returned the spoon.
I stood beside the stove for a second.
"Diane, there's another spoon in that drawer."
She looked over her shoulder.
"Why would I need another one?"
"So you can taste the sauce without putting the same spoon back into the pot."
She gave me the familiar expression.
The one that suggested I was making an unreasonable demand and she was being extraordinarily patient with me.
"Oh, you're still worried about that?"
I was.
I didn't say so immediately.
Instead, I opened the drawer and took out a clean spoon.
I set it beside the stove.
"There you go."
She glanced at it.
Then she continued stirring with the original spoon.
I felt foolish for having bothered.
I also felt angry.
Those two feelings seemed to arrive together whenever I tried to set a boundary with her.
She made a small issue feel embarrassing enough that I began questioning whether I should have raised it at all.
That evening, I mentioned it to Mark.
We were in the kitchen after Noah had gone to bed.
I was putting away dishes, and Mark was wiping down the table.
"Your mom did it again today."
He looked up.
"Did what?"
"The spoon thing."
He understood immediately.
"Oh."
"She tasted the sauce and put the spoon right back in the pot."
Mark sighed.
"Did you ask her to stop?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"She ignored me."
He set down the cloth.
I could tell he was already uncomfortable.
He loved his mother.
He also knew she could be difficult, but knowing that and confronting her were two different things.
"Maybe she just isn't thinking about it," he said.
"Then she can use a clean spoon when I remind her."
"Right."
He sounded as though he wanted the conversation to end.
I understood why.
He'd grown up with Diane.
He knew how quickly a simple disagreement could turn into an argument about respect, gratitude, or everything she'd ever done for him.
I didn't want to be the reason he had to deal with that.
But I also didn't want to spend six weeks watching her eat from serving dishes and then pretend it didn't bother me.
"Can you talk to her?"
Mark rubbed the back of his neck.
"Yeah. I'll say something."
He did.
Later, I heard him speaking to her in the living room.
He wasn't angry.
He wasn't even particularly firm.
He simply asked her to take her own portion of food with a clean utensil rather than using the serving spoon to eat.
Diane's response was quiet enough that I couldn't make out every word.
I heard her laugh, though.
Then I heard Mark say, "I'm just asking, Mom."
A few minutes later, he came back into the kitchen.
"I talked to her."
"How did it go?"
He gave me a tired look.
"She thinks you're making too much of it."
I lowered the dish I was holding.
"And what do you think?"
He hesitated.
"I think she should use a clean spoon."
That should have helped.
Instead, I felt the weight of the whole situation settle back onto my shoulders.
Mark agreed with me.
But agreement wasn't the same as getting his mother to change.
I put the dish away and closed the cupboard.
"All right," I said.
I didn't want to argue with him, too.
The next morning, I found a spoon resting in the bowl of mashed potatoes.
There was a small smear of food on the handle.
Diane had already eaten breakfast, and I hadn't seen her prepare the potatoes.
I stood there looking at the bowl.
I didn't know whether she'd used the spoon to taste them or had simply left it there while serving herself.
I didn't ask.
I took the bowl out of the way and washed the spoon.
Then I washed the bowl.
It took less than a minute.
That was what made the whole thing so frustrating.
Using a clean spoon would have taken less time than arguing about why she should use one.
But Diane didn't seem to hear the request as a practical one.
She heard it as a judgment of her.
And every time she reacted that way, I found myself trying harder to prove that I wasn't judging her.
I softened my words.
I smiled when I spoke.
I explained what seemed obvious to me.
She still acted as if I were insulting her.
By the end of the first week, I had begun watching the kitchen more carefully than I wanted to.
I checked serving utensils before putting food on the table.
I paid attention to which spoon Diane was holding.
I found myself moving dishes out of reach when I saw her eating directly from them.
I hated that.
I didn't want to monitor another adult.
I didn't want to be suspicious of the person staying in my home.
Most of all, I didn't want Noah learning that the rules changed depending on who was breaking them.
He was four.
He watched everything.
And Diane was about to give me another reason to worry.
Click here to continue reading: PART 2: The Rules Seemed Simple Until Diane Used the Same Spoon for My Four-Year-Old Son and Told Me I Was Raising Him Wrong
I Thought Six Weeks Would Be Easy Until I Found Diane Standing at My Kitchen Counter With a Spoon in Her Mouth
Part 1 of 8
