I know this is a flex only in very specific circles, but I have a great MIL. Hear me out.
My definition of how good a MIL is depends on how little they meddle or comment on me, because like every other headstrong eldest daughter in the world, I really hate being told what to do, least of all by people who have had no contribution to my upbringing. My own parents have a hard time telling me what to do, and they already have a relatively high success rate of emerging unscathed. Of course I know about Asian values and all that, and Confucius had some valid points, but most of his value system really sucked for women so I’m truly not about that 良妻賢母 life.
Anyway, back to my MIL. We had one serious talk before I tied the knot, but I made it clear that I wasn’t going to defer to anybody for the sake of tradition. Basically, it’s my relationship and my marriage so I’ll do whatever I want. This was possible only because my partner is not a mama’s boy with an oedipal complex, so I had every confidence that we are in tandem and he would back me up if needed. Whenever my in-laws interacted with me, it was with the knowledge and acceptance that I don’t need or seek their approval. I like having that distance, and I think they do too; I imagine that I am a real headache to try to reign in. On my end, it’s liberating to not care what a bunch of elders think because they have neither an emotional nor financial hold on you. But it is also a privilege. Some may say, a luxury. This is definitely not the case for many women out there who must swallow their indignation and hurt if they want to keep the peace and remain married.
I know full well that good MILs are the exception rather than the norm. Anyone with some familiarity with reddit would have stumbled upon posts by women complaining about the grip their MILs have on their spineless husbands, the bullying and abuse, or their future MILs turning into momzillas during the wedding planning process. In my own conversations with others, I’ve heard of MILs doing (and saying!) truly unhinged things that would've induced me to file for a restraining order ASAP. There’s also a show that was trending on Tiktok earlier this year called ‘I Love A Mama’s Boy’ which gave us more drama per episode than entire seasons of KUWTK. Knowing what others suffered reminded me of how lucky I am to have the MIL that I have, and to never be that MIL from hell in the future.
My interest in stories about evil MILs thus stems not from a desire for catharsis or representation. I just find this dynamic (of a wife and mother fighting for the same man) fascinating the way some people love watching public cat fights or F1 accidents. It’s messy. Like Marie Kondo, I love mess. There’s something immensely enjoyable about voyeuristically peering into human nature’s natural love triangle. Ainslie Hogarth's 'Motherthing' gives us just that.
'Motherthing' is told from the perspective of Abby, wife of Ralph Lamb and nursing staff at an old folks' home. Abby is one messed up woman, owing to her single mother having a string of boyfriends and prioritising them over her for all of Abby's childhood. She is certain that she's lacking something (I am too—maybe a few screws) that makes her a real and whole person, and she thinks that good and perfect Ralph can fix that. Abby longs to start a family with Ralph and give her life purpose. The only problem is Ralph's mother, Laura, who has debilitating depression. Laura loathes Abby and has no qualms using any and all means to keep Ralph by her side. One day, when the pair is out for dinner, Laura kills herself very bloodily and messily, traumatising Ralph beyond repair and kickstarting his own spiral into depression. Abby steals the ring that Laura said she would bequeath to her DIL but then rescinded out of spite. To hide her crime, she buries the ring in the backyard. Soon after, Ralph claims that Laura is back and that her ghost has never left the house. Abby starts to get haunted as well and she must find a way to exorcise her MIL and save Ralph from certain death.
This modern and funny horror story is also gothic in the strictest sense of the word. Location: old house haunted by a vengeful ghost. Atmosphere: full of dread. Item(s) present: cursed artefact (Laura's ring), the kitchen knife (tool for the creation and exorcism of a ghost). Undercurrents: sexual repression, sexual deviance, emotional incest, child abuse. The narrator's mind: unstable. Similar to Henry James’ novella, we don't even know for sure if Laura's ghost actually exists or if Abby's mind is just so shot to hell that she becomes infected with Ralph's hallucinatory psychosis. This was a weird read, because Abby is a really weird character. Some of her thought processes made me go, "Huh??" and we get the sense that her whole life, she has been masking and pretending to be normal to trick others into accepting her. Because all she wants is to belong, to be loved after the maternal rejection she suffered. There is a huge disconnect between her interiority and how she functions in mainstream society, e.g., in her marriage and when talking to her colleagues at her job. She struck me as an alien, but perhaps that is what made this quite fun to read. I found myself lowkey rooting for her to triumph in her battle against her MIL's malevolent ghost, even if I found the means through which she succeeded a little icky (not even the murder, but the sex).
‘Motherthing’ also reminded me of a Singaporean short story my teacher1 assigned the class when I was in secondary school2, ‘The Martyrdom of Helena Rodrigues’ by Stella Kon. The story was imprinted so strongly into my brain matter that even now, at twice the age I was, I still remember it as a cautionary tale against dating a mama’s boy. Here is a quick summary of the plot:
The story is told from the perspective of the main antagonist’s BIL, whose brother married the most controlling and passive-aggressive woman alive, Helena. Most people don’t seem to be aware of how insidiously manipulative this woman is. His brother quickly succumbed and died from a stress-related ulcer a few months later, leaving their son, George, in her iron grip. George grows up cowed (I guess the more recent slang for this is ‘cucked’) and enters adulthood still obeying his mother’s every whim because of the deep-seated guilt that she instilled in him. Eventually, George meets Caroline, whose strength of personality manages to rescue him long enough for them to get engaged. Helena employs her sudden declining health to keep George by her side, like a surrogate husband, and George calls off his engagement and gets sucked into the house indefinitely. Three days later, George ‘accidentally’ overdoses on medication and dies at home.
It’s quite a dark story to show to secondary school children but I maintain that this was one of the best stories I had ever read in my childhood. It made me realise how funny and full of bite Singlit could be, and that not everything produced by local writers was trauma porn, propaganda, or insipid tales about the value of the nuclear family. Unlike 'Motherthing,' however, the would-be DIL fails in her attempt to rescue her man from his evil mother's talons. Helena outlives them all, which then makes the title ironic because she only affected suffering but it's the men who loved her who did the actual dying (in a way, she killed them). The reference to catholic martyrs in the title also suggests that Helena is, to quote Taylor Swift, "not a saint and she's not what you think; she's an actress." Laura doesn't fare as well as Helena. This is quite an effed up situation to receive the happy ending that we as readers long for, but Hogarth delivers and it is a befitting, albeit uncomfortable, end.
My teacher was a cool guy who was honestly 2 cool 4 skool. I heard he left the service soon after to go and get a better-paying 9-5 at Changi. I think of him often because he gave me my first taste of true Singlit—messy, ugly, funny, and real. Not the whitewashed and sanitised ‘let’s all hold hands and cry over how much we love our country and family’ nonsense of today. Is it any wonder that kids don’t care much for Singlit when you only give them toothless versions? Let’s be honest—when you were a kid, weren’t you most enthralled with the bloodiest and most scandalous stories? Who cares about thinly-veiled attempts at preaching nationalism and filial piety? It’s insulting to the children’s intelligence, honestly speaking. This is why they’d rather flock to foreign works.
This was back in the 2000s when English teachers were allowed to share Singlit with the students without having to adhere to the draconian and puritanical standards imposed today. Singlit for kids in school now must be wholesome and promote family values. Criticism of the government/ state is not allowed. Characters cannot be known to have a sex life. There can be no references to mental illness, suicidal ideation, drug use, murder, or suicide. Under such unspoken rules, a wonderful classic like David Leo’s ‘Soup of the Day’ would be instantly censored for (1) domestic abuse, (2) depictions of sex between a married couple, (3) depictions of an unhappy marriage, (4) murder, (5) promoting violence, and (6) cannibalism. I don’t even think a play like Haresh Sharma’s ‘Off Centre’ would be available to study again, given how touchy schools are about the very real issue of teen depression and neurodivergence.