Hiring a sitter would resolve stress of mother-in-law’s care

Dear Carolyn: My retired mother-in-law graciously provides day care for my two daughters while my wife and I work. With child care in our city being practically unaffordable, it’s a huge help to us and beneficial for the children, we feel.

But she exacts a toll for her efforts. Mainly in the form of constantly haranguing and lecturing my wife on her deficiencies as a mother — i.e. doing anything differently than she did because she was obviously the perfect mother.

Mainly we put up with it quietly, but the latest rant really bothers me. My wife and I wanted to celebrate our fifth anniversary and my mother-in-law basically told us it’s selfish to do anything as a couple, as your focus should be on your kids. It took all my nerve not to shout at her that maybe that attitude is exactly why your relationship with your husband is terrible.

My wife just wants to move on and not do date nights because of it.

How can I explain to her and her mother that doing things as a couple is essential to a healthy marriage and not “selfish”?

When you say day care is “practically unaffordable,” you’re just talking money.

But you can’t afford your mother-in-law’s care

— not for much longer.

I suppose if you had no other work or day-care options, or if it were just a matter of counting to 20 during “Milly’s” judgmental rants and then politely ignoring her to do as you see fit, then it would make sense to keep paying her toll.

However, your wife doesn’t shrug this off; she’s actually overruling her own judgment in response to the criticism. Even if she doesn’t agree with Milly’s take, she’s buckling under the weight of it and making choices she wouldn’t otherwise make.

That’s poison. It’s bad for your marriage, you’re dead right about that — but it’s also corrosive to your wife’s confidence as spouse and parent, and confusing for your daughters. Let’s not pretend you’re keeping it from them, because kids learn to read you fluently well before they can form the words to explain that.

Not to mention, this dynamic is flat-out terrible for whatever relationship you two have left with Milly.

That’s the least of my concerns here, because Milly seems intent on smashing that up single-handedly, but it might hold sway with your wife — and you need her to summon her strength to resist Milly.

To see how, let’s zoom in on two modifiers in your letter: Milly provides day care, but to do so “graciously” would require some baseline respect for you two as parents; and day care is “practically” unaffordable, which means you can afford it, if barely. Yes?

These words are your two points of access to the problem. You either set whatever limits you must with this caregiver for her attitude to pass for grace, or you curb your spending enough to afford a new caregiver. It is really as simple as that.