Total Motorcycle Community Forums

Old folks...they tend to worry about others the older they get. This is the norm. in any culture. The level varies individually.

It works in reverse too. The older you get, the more certain "advice" and "opinions" bounces off and goes out the other ear. Don't confuse this with stuborness, tho. The wiser you are, the better you can discern BS from legit info. You have to. It's a huge waste of time to analyze all incoming BS. A lot of BS stems from ignorant or people with an agenda.

This happens to contain both. People ride motorcycles all over the world. In much tighter streets with very few traffic laws, mind you. They have to because of hundreds of reasons. Yes, there are accidents. But it's more due to lack of traffic laws and enforcement than to inattentive driving.

Your MIL is misinformed. Accept this. You don't have to argue or even confront her about it. As Scan said, talk to your wife about this. If your wife is OK with you riding, she'll work it out with her mother.

Did I say you'll filter the ignorance and the BS as you get older? Yeah, I think I did...

there are no accidents with motorcycles only crash's. I agree with everyone else. I actually dont hear my mil cause my mil will wait till im out of range and then begins to scold her daughter (my wife) so I never hear it . well at least until my wife tells me what she said lol.

I know how you feel. My wife won't even tell her parents that I have a bike...

Anyway, as far as dealing with her, I can't really say, seeing as I don't know your MiL. However, mine is a pain the arse on a regular basis and I just deal with her very directly. I am always polite, but I am also very straightforward and not afraid to tell her when I am not interested in hearing her opinion on something.

Being married for almost 9 years does make that a bit easier, however, as I'm sure you still feel like the new guy adjusting to more people in your family. What you need to realize is that it's not their decision to have you in the family or not. Your wife is the one responsible for that, and I assume she knows and accepts the real you, and that includes you on a motorcycle.

However you decide to handle it, best of luck to you.

spinner wrote:Chalk it up to her being ignorant about motorcycles and don't let it get to you. Sounds like she makes generalizations based on the statistics she hears.

+1 In my case, mine was ignorant. period.

Tell her you don't bust her chops her about her riding a broom...leave you and your bike alone

Not quite my choice of words, but that's along the lines of my usual responses to her. She has a pretty good sense of humor, just isn't very open minded.

Just be thankful you don't have to live with her. On the flip side of this coin, my best riding buddy is my son-in-law who is married to my only daughter. When we go riding, he gets a word of caution from my wife and myself about being careful. The poor guy gets it from both inlaws. He mostly humors us...which is exactly my advice to you. Humor her.

Kal wrote:I'd reply to this... but she'll know...

yours too eh?


I can handle my MIL in small doses. She came to visit after the baby was born for a few weeks......its just not a good mix. I like to run my house my own way (at least when the wife aint around )

Andrew wrote:I've been married a little over two years, no kids. I get along with my in-laws, but for short periods only. Actually, I really like my father-in-law, it's the mother that makes life difficult.

Anyway, she's visiting for a few weeks. At the very least it's given me a reason to take the long way home a few times and go joy riding instead of being home.

We're driving around on Saturday when we begin talking about motorcycles. She commented that her brother had just sold his motorcycle, because he finally "got it out of his system." Then she goes on to say that she's glad I'm going through this "phase" now, so that when I have kids I'll be over it and won't be a bad influence on them!

I just about ran off the road when she said that. I made a smart comment that killed the conversation, but I've been steaming about it since. How do you guys react to things like this, and how do you handle your mothers-in-law?

We're in the same boat, married a bit over 2yrs, no kids and a dog.

Well, with my MIL, its the same thing, but pretty much with all our favorite activities: guns and motorcycles. She makes sbarky comments to DH about him riding, that we didn'y even try to tell her that I'm riding too. We did tell his dad though, he was cool with it.


At this point, I've started making some solid "educating and responsible" type comments in return. I realize might not be the best as far as diplomacy goes, but it does get the point acoss we enjoy the activites and we will continue to do them as we please, after all we are adults with our own lives.



DH and I were visiting our last visit before leaving the States, it was for Christmas. Since guns aren't allowed in JPN (aside from shotguns), we had packed our collection with us so we could leave it with my dad when we got to visiting my family. Well, MIL freaked out when we heard us say we brought all our guns and accessories. She said "Oh my goodness, did you bring ammo too!?!" And as plainly as I could put it, I said "Of course, how else will we shoot them?" She froze and stared, DH was thinking the same thing but didn't have the balls to say it so off the cuff. I was reacting merely from a shooters standpoint. She was questioning overall the badness of guns. Ehhh, you can't win.

I'm beginning to forget she's his mom and started to talk to here like I'd talk to any other friends or acquaintences. That will bite me in the butt sometime, no doubt.

I love his family to death, they're really good folks. But like any family, they do have their moments about things. We just humore them and grin and bear it, knowing full well we'll keep doing what we do.

Hang in there Andrew