While many of us are gearing to celebrate this special day with our daughters, we have a humble request. Since time immemorial, many mothers and fathers have loved our daughters but struggled to accept their daughters-in-law. It is the ugly reality of our culture that while we say Daughters-in-law are like daughters but they are rarely treated the same.
It pains our heart when someone hurts our daughter; but sadly, we hardly care when our own words hurt someone else’s daughter. Though we bring her into our home; we hardly ever welcome her into our hearts. While we want her to accept us as her parents but we hardly give her that acceptance.
I have read many articles that say – Daughters-in-law can never be daughters and Mothers-in-law can never be mothers.
But I wonder why? Why we can’t be? Why have we given up on these relations and accepted that it would always be a power struggle where one – either daughter-in-law or mother-in-law would be the victim and the other would be the victimizer.Â
Sadly, the people who believe in this philosophy have been hurt or given up on our society, human goodness, and relationships. They may want us to believe that only blood relations are true relations. But are they the only true relations? Can we only have one mother and one father? Can we not love kids, who are not born to us? Aren’t they forgetting that the adopted kids can have a mother, other than birth mother?
By believing in this philosophy, are we limiting human’s potential to love people out of blood. Aren’t we belittling the relationships that people hold out of blood – Like foster parents with their adoptive kids?
The people who believe in this philosophy, tend to forget that being a mother is an emotion. Being a mother or father is just more than about giving birth to kids. It is about holding their hands when times get tough. It is about celebrating their success and failures too. It is about holding them together when the whole world is trying to break them.
If the people who don’t have kids have the ability to hold this beautiful emotion to kids born to other parents, then why not we? If we can do it for our kids, then why can’t do it for our daughter-in-law too! Â
On this daughter’s day, let’s pledge to break the chain and make our daughters-in-law a daughter! For those who have the daughters-in-law or who are going to become mothers-in-law can we promise today to do better than our earlier generations. Can we tell ourselves that mother-in-law can be a mother too! And daughters-in-law can be daughters too!Â
We know Daughters are special! But so are our daughters-in-law!
They might not be related to us through blood, But they can be related through love!
We may not have given them birth, But we can still protect them as one of our own!Â
They might not be raised by us, But they can be loved by us!Â