Both of our kids are with people they love. Nobody’s engaged yet, but I’d be surprised if there weren’t a couple of weddings somewhere in our future.
When that day comes, I already know one thing. I’m not going to call anybody my son-in-law or daughter-in-law.
The word comes with baggage
Think about every joke you’ve ever heard about in-laws.
The mother-in-law who criticizes the cooking. The father-in-law who will never think the guy is good enough. Dreading Thanksgiving. Splitting holidays like a custody agreement. Whole sitcoms are built on it.
None of those jokes are about love. Every one of them assumes conflict or disappointment before anybody has even sat down at the table.
The word sets you up for that. I don’t want to start there with the people my kids love.
A new family
The other problem is the “in-law” part.
It’s a qualifier. A son-in-law is a son, sort of. A daughter-in-law is a daughter, sort of. Related by law. Like a contract. It puts them in a second tier, a little bit outside the real family, even if nobody means it that way.
But the bigger problem is what it assumes. “In-law” assumes they’re joining my family.
They aren’t. I believe that when two people get married, they start a new family. My kids’ spouses won’t join my family. Each couple becomes a new family of their own.
And if we’re really, really lucky, we get invited to be part of that.
What Scripture says
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)
Leave comes first. Before the holding fast, before the one flesh, there’s leaving. The new family comes first, and the old ones step back. That’s the design.
The in-law relationship I keep coming back to is Naomi and Ruth. Naomi’s sons are gone, and she tells both of her daughters-in-law to go home to their mothers. She doesn’t claim them. She opens her hand.
One goes. Ruth stays:
“Where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16)
It’s one of the most famous loyalty stories in the whole Bible, between a woman and her mother-in-law, of all people. So much for the jokes.
The part I want to get right is Naomi’s. Not the staying, the open hand. Ruth’s choice only means something because Naomi didn’t demand it.
That’s the kind of family I want with my kids and the people they marry. Not one that’s owed by law. One that’s chosen.
We become family when we choose to be.
Just son and daughter
So I’m dropping the “-in-law.” If my kids get married, the people they marry will be my son or my daughter. No hyphen. No qualifier.
That might sound like I’m claiming them for my family. I’m not. They’ll be starting their own. It’s about how I treat them, not where they belong.
I didn’t raise the people my kids love, and I don’t get credit for any of the good in them. But I can treat them like my own. I want them to know I’m glad when they walk in the door, and that I’m on their side. Nobody has to earn their way out of a second tier, because there isn’t one.
I know it’s just a word. But words set the expectation. “In-law” says they owe us a seat at the table.
I’d rather be the kind of family they want to invite in.