I (Saki) work part-time while raising two elementary school-aged children (a third-grader and a first-grader). Last year, we built a house near my parents-in-law’s house and moved there. The house is about a five-minute walk from our house. Since it’s so close, I was prepared for my mother-in-law to interfere in our daily lives, but we were able to maintain a comfortable distance from her. This is because my mother-in-law is a very active person and doesn’t have time to interfere with our daily lives.
This is an everyday occurrence. One after another, people bring deliveries to our house for my mother-in-law. They could have just left them at my mother-in-law’s house, so why do they bring them to our house?! Because we live nearby, everyone in the neighborhood knows that our house is my son’s and his wife’s.
It’s great that my mother-in-law has such a wide circle of friends. If you’re going to give gifts to her, it would be great if you could just give them to her directly so that I don’t have to bear the burden… But since my mother-in-law is often out and about, it’s inevitable that so many people come to our house to deliver things. They do so with good intentions, so I can’t just ignore their kindness. Every time I have to deal with people like that, I scream in my head, “It’s so annoying!!!”
Script writer:Tae Watanabe Comic artist:Yoshida Editor:Misa Ishii