A woman on TikTok doesn't think it's her job to keep her in-laws in the loop. The TikToker, Morgan Strickell, is pregnant and much of the content she creates is related to pregnancy. In one video, she explained why she doesn't want to be the primary person who shares pregnancy updates with her husband's side of the family.
"I refuse to be the primary communicator with my husband's side of the family," she said in the video, adding that she previously "got a lot of hate" when she spoke about the topic.
Morgan explained that the issue came up again recently when she received a call from her mother-in-law. Her mother-in-law was upset because she wasn't receiving any updates about Morgan's pregnancy. Instead, she was finding out about any updates through her sister, "who sees the posts on social media."
But Morgan didn't realize that her mother-in-law wasn't getting the updates. She thought her husband had been communicating with his mom.
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Later, Morgan had an upcoming ultrasound. She wanted to make sure that her mother-in-law knew about it “so that her feelings aren’t hurt.”
She reminded her husband to send the information to his mom. Her husband's response? "Why don't you just send it to my mom?"
She explained to her husband that she would not be the one to share this information with his mom because it was not her responsibility to do so. She thinks it's fair that she communicates with her side of the family and he communicates with his side of the family.
In her video, she said that she and her husband talked about it a bit but he didn't understand why she wouldn't reach out to his mom. In his mind, it wouldn't take much more effort for her to also share the information with his mom.
However, she still believes that it is not her job. "I’m not his kin keeper," she said.
"If he wants to maintain a relationship with the people in his life, and have them know information about our lives, that is 100 percent on him,” she explained in the video.
She added that she thinks communicating with both sides of the family "tends to fall on women’s shoulders," which isn't fair.
"It’s either assumed that [women] have a larger social battery, or that they have more time — neither of those things are true in our relationship," she explained, adding that her husband has a larger social battery and tends to have more free time than she does.
Morgan also believes it's a double standard because people wouldn't think her husband was responsible for her communicating with her mom.
"Not a single person would look to my husband as it was his responsibility if my mom was left out of the loop,” she explained. “If my mom doesn’t know what’s going on, I’m a bad daughter. If his mom doesn’t know what’s going on, I’m a bad daughter-in-law.”
Many TikTok users sided with Morgan — and some even thought she was still doing too much by reminding her husband to contact his mom.
"You are ALREADY doing more work by reminding him to tell his mother," one TikToker commented.
"If he thinks it’s not much work for you …it shouldn’t be much work for him," another TikTok user pointed out.
Some also pointed out that it would be unfair to blame her for his lack of communication.
"I’m on your side and I’m actually the mom of three boys who don’t communicate with me, but it is their responsibility to keep me in the loop not their wives," one person wrote.
Another TikTok user added: "A lot of the times MILs think we are keeping their son from them. No [ma'am] I just stopped planning things and HE is too lazy to visit or make the effort."
