My aunt married into an Arab family. One of her husband's relatives told my grandmother that in their culture a daughter leaves her family and joins her husband's for good. My poor grandmother was horrified.

PS Of course for most Westerners, there is great truth to the Irish saying.

The more I contemplate that saying, the more it makes me think about all those daughters of times past, and even in some cultures today, expected to work and care for their parents and have no life of their own.

I'm not so sure. I think this is much more dependent on personalities, existing familial relationships and circumstances than on anyone's idea of a predisposition or likelihood.

Aw rob, I'm so sorry. It's been almost 2 years for me and it still hurts.

((((hugs Carol))))

Not so for me. My husband was the oldest of 11 children. My Mil treated me like a daughter and she and my Fil were always willing to help us with anything. My own mother had little interest in my family.

Oh Rob, my first motherless Mothers Day, too. I always bought my mom about 18:red geraniums for her planters. I still have her house so I planted some red geraniums anyway., Its such a strange feeling.

As for the saying, I think its true. I spent a fair amount of time with my MIL but it wasn’t the same as going to my mom’s house and I know my boys had more fun with my mom.

Neither of my boys married so I’m still #1. Younger one has a wonderful girlfriend and they have been together a long time.

ded? Red geraniums were my mother's favorite?! Seriously. She says they looked like happiness. Hugs to you!

In my family, I would have to say we had strong bonds to both sides. My husband’s family were farmers and my parents were businessman and housewife and lived in the city.

My children were very close to both sets of grandparents.

I adored my in-laws and my husband always speaks very highly of my parents.

Hugs back at you, Rob . We put a red geranium on my mom’s grave, along with other flowers.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you friends!

My Mom died, I think of TB, in psych hosp. in '42 when I was 13, brothers 10 and 8.

When Dad remarried a few years later, we boys got a ready-made sister, a bit younger.

The other survivor, youngest brother, selling family farm, retiring in the city, I've lived for 18 years on what was stepmother's brother's farm, sold after his death.

ole joyful

Love that saying. i find it lends itself to grandmothering. Daughters understand their mom’s skills in mothering them and their siblings, and so they share their grandbabies with comfort. DILs dont have that experience in their background, so the relaxed sharing is more limited.

I have one son and two daughters. My son has been married three years and thus far I see no signs of him distancing himself from his father and I. My father took care of his mom for years-, she moved in with us when I was in high school-she had sons and daughters. I do think it's more about the family dynamics than the saying has space for.

That saying does not apply to my family in the least - I guess you have to be Irish.

My father remained very close to his mother all his life, and my mother tried to distance herself from her mother as much as possible. My brothers always remained close to our mother after marriage, and my sister was more distant. I'm still single.

I think a lot of daughters these days are more independent from their mothers. My brother's wife tried to distance herself from her mother as much as possible, for good reasons, as her mother tried to be very controlling, and all of her children resented it, especially the daughters.

One study was cited by a May 12 article in The Atlantic. It was quite convincing, measuring maternal family contact vs. paternal family contact with children and grandchildren. The numbers are pretty convincing.

An earlier study -- that I came across today while looking for the Atlantic piece -- concerned work in Holland. It measured how often maternal/paternal grandmothers living within 20 miles of their grandchildren actually visited the kids. Maternal family visited more often and traveled farther to do so. That article included the conjecture that maternal ties are stronger in part because they are never in question, whereas paternity is less certain. (Now *that* psychological insight came out of left field to me! Is it an unconscious bias?)

I'm also thinking that no study said the ties were *positive*, just that they were stronger. Maybe '*her* mother is more apt to be the infamous Interfering MIL?

I have two sons, no daughters. After their wedding ceremonies, i asked my son(s) to put his hand in mine. I told him I loved him and would forever. But then I asked my brand new daughter-in-law to hold her hands out. I placed my son’s hand in his bride’s hands and said I was turning him over to her. 🥲

(and no refunds, no returns haha)

You can pick your friends but you can't pick your relatives (whether by blood or marriage). A roll of the dice, anything and everything is possible and like lars described, the generalization doesn't apply to the experiences of my wife and I nor those of my now adult kids in relationships.

Also, you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose. Always remember that.

What a charming thought, Elmer! hahaha

When describing maternal and paternal ties (as in the Atlantic article), you are talking about the difference between bonds with mothers and fathers, whereas the saying refers to the difference between sons and daughters - two completely different sets of criteria. The strength of a maternal bond does not distinguish between a son and a daughter, and I have found that sons often have stronger ties to their mothers while daughters have stronger ties to their fathers, which is the opposite of what the Irish saying predicts.

Whereas in some societies, daughters are expected to go and live with their husband's families, in some ancient tribes, sons were forced to leave their tribe and find wives in neighboring tribes - partly to prevent inbreeding and partly to promote cooperation between two tribes. Most people today do not live in such tribes, except in more remote and primitive areas where the gene pool is small.