Mother-in-law, go find another woman to give you a grandson. I'm taking my daughter and leaving.

(From a reader submission. Images in this article are from the internet.)

Mother-in-law, go find another woman to give you a grandson. I'm taking my daughter and leaving.

A daughter is a warm little padded jacket. My daughter is lively and lovely, yet she still can't win my mother-in-law's favor. Clearly we live in an era where having a boy or a girl is equally good, and clearly they are all our own flesh and blood, yet because of gender, there is no peace day after day. Is a boy really that important?

Speaking of it, my mother-in-law's fate hasn't been great either. When she was still young, my father-in-law unfortunately passed away, leaving only her and my husband to depend on each other. She carries some thinking from the old society. Because my husband is her only son, she places special importance on him, and she desperately hopes I can give birth to a son, because only then, in her eyes, would I count as carrying on the family line.

I feel I'm still young and shouldn't be tied down by children too early. I should enjoy a few more years of just the two of us with my husband. But my constant use of contraception caused her dissatisfaction. My mother-in-law would often make pointed remarks, mocking me for not having children. For the sake of my husband's face, I didn't respond to her. Later, she probably spent a long time working on my husband, and my husband also suggested to me that we might as well just have one, that it was only a matter of time. I agreed, and actively began preparing for pregnancy.

Soon I became pregnant. The pregnancy was hard but also happy, especially when I saw how lovely my twin daughters were; my whole heart would melt. I love my daughters very much. When they cling to me and call out "Mommy," I feel the whole world warm up. But my mother-in-law doesn't like them. When she sees them, she always frowns, her attitude toward me grows colder and colder, and she isn't close to the girls either. My husband doesn't like dealing with these trivial matters. He focuses on earning money to support the family, so it became me alone taking care of two children, which was especially hard.

A few years later, my mother-in-law actually told me to have another child. She said, "Your two daughters are a bit older now, go have a little brother." I felt there was absolutely no need. A child's education matters more than anything, and having another would be meaningless. What's more, I can barely manage with two children; having another would leave me even less time. So I retorted, "Mom, I already have two children. There's no need to have another." From that day on, my mother-in-law got worse, and the house was in constant uproar. She always nitpicked, seizing on this and that to find fault, and whenever she saw my daughters touch anything, she would curse and grumble. It hurt me so much to see it, so I argued back. Gradually, small quarrels turned into big fights, conflicts kept coming, and I was stuck in negative emotions all the time. Life felt especially exhausting. I felt this was utterly pointless. I also knew her aim in all this fuss was to get a grandson, but I am not a baby-making machine.

That day she started bossing my two daughters around again. I felt very uncomfortable watching it, so we argued fiercely. I angrily said to my mother-in-law, "Mother-in-law, go find another woman to give you a grandson. I'm taking my two daughters and leaving." My children are my angels. If this is the only way for them to have a better environment, I'm willing to do it. Tell me, was I too impulsive?