People Stress Out Over These 'Am I A Jerk?' Stories

"My Mil claims everything about my son when it comes to how he looks.

His hair color, eye color, the shape of his nose, and the way his ears stick out a little bit. Yeah, that all came from her and her side of the family. If I take claim to anything she either ignores me or tells me how I'm wrong.

I was thinking of getting a DNA test for my son so that we wouldn't have to buy two separate tests for my husband and me, but I was also considering just getting the two tests so that we would have a definite answer as to what my side holds and what his does.

There's one heritage we don't share. I'm half-Mexican. He's white basically.

I tell my Mil and also I tell her how if we just get one for my son, there are things that are going to be from my family, but I kinda wanna know the percentages for the things that overlap.

My very much white MIL told me to not be so sure about where my son would get his Mexican genes from because she thinks she found something recently in her family history that leads to her having Mexican genes too. Or something like that.

I was too angry to listen.

I get claiming the other things, but to now claim a heritage that isn't hers?! My grandfather taught me about his culture and I took it in as my heritage. It's a part of me that I'm proud of even if I get nonsense from some people when I tell them.

For her to try to claim it was the last straw. I blew up at her. I don't yell at people. She went completely silent as I yelled at her.

I told her how sick and tired I was of her trying to erase my involvement in MY son.

That her trying to take claim to a heritage that she knows absolutely nothing about was my final straw. I no longer want to hear a word out of her mouth about what my son looks like unless it's just to call him adorable. I no longer want to hear her pick specific things out about him. I told her that if she continues to do so, then she's not allowed to see my son until I say so. I finished yelling at her and my husband stepped in and talked to her in a stern voice.

He told me what she didn't wasn't right and that he agreed with me.

Including the part about her not seeing our son if she does it again. He also told me how he'd wanted to have a talk with her about this for a while, but now I told him not to since I hate conflict.

She was silent for a moment, with a surprised look on her face.

Then the crocodile tears started and she just sobbed and said that she didn't mean anything by it and how could I be so cruel as to yell at her about something so small. Then she called me a jerk and left.

Since then, a couple of people from her family have sent me messages calling me a jerk for being rude to her.

I'm like 98% sure that they don't know the actual story and when I did explain it to one person, they still said I was a jerk for blowing up at her over something small.

Is this a small issue? Was I the jerk for yelling at her?"

Another User Comments:

"NTJ. Get the test done, they're fun. And Ancestry will tell you which matches come from BOTH parents lol. I did that one and 23&me. Fun watching it update periodically and more. Any haters just know her side. She was rude first and you were tired of her BS." ammonites

Another User Comments:

"NTJ. She's minimizing your contribution to your son to maximize her own. Just a heads up on the DNA test thing. I did mine with Ancestry and about a year ago they introduced a thing where it divides your genes by parent.

So Parent 1 is genetically from A, B, and C, and Parent 2 is from B, D, and E styles. Not sure if the others do it, but that would be a good way to put your foot down. My paternal nan tried to tell me that my Scottish ancestry comes from her and she wouldn't hear that my maternal nan was *Scottish*. After it divided it by parent it was pretty hard to argue with one parent being 78% Scottish and the other being 6%. (Fun fact, the family came from a remote area so Ancestry named the county my mother's family is from)." Natural_Garbage7674

Another User Comments:

"NTJ. Sounds like she needed to be put in her place and you did exactly that, especially seeing as your husband agreed and supported it. I agree with you 100% that these people probably have no idea what the true story is. If you haven’t confronted her on this at all in any way and then jumped to yelling at her is probably a little overkill but I understand where it was coming from and don't think you did anything wrong per se but possibly could have been handled a little better.

Overall not the jerk though." ImNiceOccasionally