Modern Manners

Real Simple’s Etiquette Expert, Catherine Newman, Offers Her Best Advice On Your Social Quandaries.

- Catherine Newman

M.W. ASKS…

My mother-in-law is obsessively clean, and when we visit, she scolds us at every turn. My in-laws recently built a lavish house with a finished basement suite “for grandkids,” but I don’t feel comfortable sending my kids to stay with her because I don’t want them scolded for being kids and I don’t want their hands to get raw from overwashing. She won’t come to our house because we are “too dirty”—her words. Is there anything we can do to get her to be nicer or to deal with these rules?

I’m sorry for your MIL that she’s compromising her relationship with her grandkids over a particularity about her things—although it almost sounds as if it might be a genuine mental health issue rather than a more straightforward pickiness, and I do appreciate the basement suite as an attempt at problem-solving. Offer your kids a psychological exit from the drama: “We try to respect Grandma and the way she likes her house, but those are values we don’t share. Do your best, but don’t fret if there’s a problem.” But the word “lavish” makes me think that this is a person who could afford to put you all up in a hotel somewhere, so suggest it and let her. Meet somewhere neutral, where she can have her own (meticulous) space and the kids can jump on the beds unscolded.

M.P. ASKS…