PenPenWrites

Seems like an obvious thing to say: Get off to a positive start with your grown child's spouse. But a recent Carolyn Hax column details how one mother-in-law managed to tick everyone off at the wedding. She ignored the bride's and groom's request about no photography during the ceremony, ordering the photographer to take the shots. The commotion during the ceremony upset the bride and when the couple called the mother about it a few days latter, she refused to discuss it. Now, according to the letter from the bride, the mother blames her daughter-in-law for the spat and won't talk to her.

As Hax notes, "This isn't about pictures. It's about her staking out her territory at your wedding, and now, with her outsize anger at you, in your marriage."

It's also about centrality. Most of us would not–hopefully–be as brazen about getting our way. But a big issue for us, as parents of grown children, is letting go–not just of trying to control our child but of  needing to be center stage, of being the one in control of the family drama. We may be more subtle than the photo-aggressive mother in the Hax column, but guilty in smaller ways. It's why I keep referring myself to a Note to Self: "It's their life."