Ok so both my MIL and FIL think that they know what is best for SS5 and DD6m. They think that "expierience" triumphs all. Here is where my problem lies... Their "expierience" happened 32-43 years ago. FIL had a daughter "baby1" when he was 17. Married the mom, did the house thing, and then divorced. Long story short, his ex gave their daughter up for adoption without telling him (back when that was possible.) Then comes along MIL (actually she was around for a little while when he still had baby1 but not very long) They got preggo with my SO "son1" when MIL was 17 and FIL was 19. They married, lived at her parents until SO was 7, got preggo with another and had to get their own place. MIL's parents paid their down payment on their house and they moved in. Now baby1 is 43, son1 is 39, and son2 is 32. This week alone, she has told me that we need to get a house in the same town as SS's BM so that he can ride the bus everyday in order for him to have "structure." Sorry but I am not going to buy a house in a certain town because BM lives in that town (for now) and SS will go to school there. SO and I have no problem driving him to school or a freinds house or any of that. She Told me that I should never let any of our kids attend the AH school district because they are a horrible, over crowded, district that does not care about their students. You ask her why and she says it is because they were having problems with son2 in high school and when she went to go talk to them about it, the first person she talked to said that they weren't familiar with him on an individual basis. He ended up dropping out and she blames the school district. Both SO and I graduated from there with honors and we loved it. She would rather them go to the school that is KNOWN to have really high rates of pregnancy and drug related problems. Sorry but I vowed that my child would never go there. Not to mention the fact that I whole heartedly believe that when a student drops out or does not succeed, that the first people responsible are the parents, not the school. Obviously there are circumstances in which this is not the case, but in general that is my belief. She constantly tells us what is best when it comes to children, pets, homes, ourselves, EVERYTHING. Every time I ask her where she got her info she tells me... wait for it... THE INTERNET!!!! Her exact words are always "I did a lot of time researching on the internet last night and..." Are you serious?? Has anyone seen that commercial? lol She is the same one that share those outragious, obviousely photo shopped, or at best just fabricated stories on facebook. She spends all her free time on facebook. Any ways, this weekend she told me that I started my daughter on solid foods way too early and that any medical problems from here on out are brought on by me and my ignorance. Her reasoning was 1. a news artice, and 2. because she doesn't thing SS started them that early. She has also gone on to tell me that I let her sit up on her own too early and I let her put weight on her legs too early, and that I "over medicate" my child because I gave her tylonel PER DR ORDER even though she didn't have a fever. Well what put me over the top was that today she called me just to tell me how she thinks SO and I are doing it all wrong. I work full time and he just recently got a job that is about 28 hours a week. It works well with our schedule because he works either while my mom can watch BD and BM has SS, or at a time that I can have both BD and SS at work with me. We don't lose out on any family time and we really love having our schedules match up. We are not rich. We are not poor. We aren't even scraping by. We are simply living comfortably. MIL is arguing with me telling me that we need to think about the picture as a whole and SO and I should both be working full time, as many hours as we can so that we have a cusion. I would totally agree! IF, and I did say IF it was necessary. We are living comfortably, have a college fund that we put money into monthly for each child. have a fair amount in our savings (enough for emergencies or what have you) and enough to pay the bills and eat. She thinks that because we don't go out and finance two new cars, we don't go on a vacation every year (except the entire week we spend at the cabin each summer and a few weekends out of the year at the other cabin), and because we sometimes decline outings, dinners, or an upgrade on something that works perfectly fine, that we need to work for more money. I am happy to decline going out to eat and having a few beers. I don't need the newest cars or the newest technology. I don't want to go on so many vacations that they start to feel like a normal weekend off. I enjoy living within our means, spending time as a family, and not having the stresses of SO and I working two different shifts. MIL never fails to bring up the fact that her and FIL "worked opposite shifts for 17 years all the way until SO was 17 years old and never saw each other." MIL says "we never even got to talk to eachother, we wrote notes in a notebook because otherwise there would have been no communication." Guess what! It was YOUR CHOICE to do that. YOUR CURCUMSTANCES may have forced you to do that but MINE do not. Look at where it got you now!!! FIL works his a** off to support you and your 32 year old son! Your son who has never moved out of mommy and daddy's home. You guys live paycheck to paycheck, always whining about not having money for this and not having money for that. Then, MIL goes and gets a minnimum wage job (which is fine) because she is sick of not having money. THEN, because BIL overtook MIL's car so that he can work to pay for his 4wheeler (which I think he should have gotten a car instead), MIL needs to look for a used car so that she can get to this new job. BIL decides he wants a newer one too. So MIL and FIL decide to finance TWO new cars and just park their old one. Now that MIL finally got a job so that she could have a little extra money, they have already spent that money because they now have 850 dollars in car payments. (FIL just got a BRAND new truck in june.) Her paycheck is already gone and the vicious circle begins. THEN MIL calls me up after work today bitching about how she "has worked far too long and hard to have to work nights or weekends and is seriously thinking of quitting this job but can't because they have car payments now" You ungrateful lady. You have been out of work for 6 years now, don't have a degree, and are 65 years old... who are you to WHINE about someone giving you the opportunity to work for them???? Sorry just had to get it out.

SO I guess where I was going with that is...

When does expierience triumph all else? Am I wrong? Times change. The way things work change. The way people choose to spend the years that their kids are little change. Is she right? Should I do things the way her "wiser" eyes see as best?