In-Laws or Out-Laws?
Your relationship with your in-laws can be a blessing rather than a curse
children. I told him that the man who married my daughter has
to have a college education,” Stewart said. “He said he was not
love my mother-in-law.
college material. I told him that you don’t know what you’re
I joke and say that she is my mother-in-love. She has
made of.”
always treated me like her daughter and she has beStewart admits that she didn’t think Juakemo had enough
come my other mother. I don’t take our relationship for
“umph at first.”
granted because I have heard
But everything that her daughter
horror stories and seen the pain,
shared with him that she wanted
damage and havoc that rocky
in a husband, “he went about
extended family relationships can
that and pursued that, including
bring to a family.
a personal relationship with Jesus
The influence of extended
Christ,” Stewart said.
families on marriages can be
Today, Juakemo and Carletta
positive or negative. What many
have been married 15 years and
people fail to realize when they
have an 8-year-old son, Joshua.
get married is that they are not
Stewart doesn’t consider him as
just marrying a person, but a
her son-in-law but as her son.
family. During the holidays,
“God told me to treat him as a
these relationships can become
son, not a son-in law,” Stewart
especially strained when there are
said. “I’m telling you he’s exfamily gatherings to attend, deciceedingly and abundantly more
sions to be made about where
than what I could have asked
and how to spend the holidays
God for. He is absolutely an
My two mothers: Twenty-one years ago at our engagement
and sometimes difficult relation- party. To my right, my mother, Leola Copeland and on my left, amazing person.”
ships and past hurts to navigate. my mother-in-law, Gwendolyn Clincy.
And Juakemo looks at Stewart as
Some people are in love with
his very own mother. When his
their in-laws and have been welcomed with open arms into
own mother died about 15 years ago, Stewart stepped in. “She’s
their spouse’s family. For others, the in-laws are outlaws—the
just my mother,” he said.
source of constant consternation, pain and sometimes even the
“I think that having a good relationship with my mother-incause of marital dissolution.
law has been very instrumental in my life,” Griffin said. “We
But there is hope. Lessons can be learned from those who
had to get to a certain point. It did n’t start that way. I thought
have had smooth sailing in their in-law relations and those who
she had some prejudices about me and the side of town I came
have navigated the stormy seas and survived.
from. I probably did not look like what she had anticipated for
her daughter .”
Griffin understood that Stewart wanted her daughter, who is
Treat them like your own
now a professor at the University of Detroit, to focus on her
Ernestine Stewart’s relationship with her son-in-law started
education. But he said he also knew in his heart that she was
out on shaky ground.
going to be his wife.
A widow and mother of two daughters and a son, Stewart
“It was a test for me to go through to win her hand in marwas very protective. When her future son-in-law Juakemo came
riage,” Griffin said.
knocking at her door to date her daughter, Carletta, Stewart
“He went through all that even though I was giving him a lot
was a little skeptical. First, Carletta was just 17 and Juakemo
of challenges,” Stewart said.
Griffin was about 21.
“It was worth it for me,” Griffin said.
“I saw that he was raised different from the way I raised my
By Monica Fountain
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The Well Magazine Fall/Winter 2013