The US government killed nearly 2 million wild animals last year. Why?
is a senior reporter for Vox's Future Perfect section, with a focus on animal welfare and the future of meat.
An obscure arm of the federal government killed almost 2 million wild animals last year using a variety of methods, including firearms, poisons, and traps that ensnare an animal's neck, feet, or entire body.
Carried out by the US Department of Agriculture's euphemistically named Wildlife Services department, the 2024 body count included over 2,000 green iguanas, almost 1,700 red-tailed hawks, and 614 armadillos, according to recently published data. The sub-agency even unintentionally killed one golden eagle, a species protected by federal law.
Wildlife Services kills animals for a wide variety of reasons when they pose an inconvenience or danger to humans. Some of the deaths, as disturbing as they may be, have a kind of logic, like killing animals (even native ones) to protect endangered or threatened species, or eradicating birds at airports that might strike airplanes (though there are growing efforts to rehome, rather than kill, these birds).
But four species alone — coyotes, European starlings, feral hogs, and pigeons — accounted for over 75 percent of the carnage, and they have something important in common. They all come into conflict with animal agriculture, and one of the primary purposes of Wildlife Services is to kill animals on behalf of the meat and dairy industries.
'We were the hired gun of the livestock industry,' Carter Niemeyer, who worked in Wildlife Services and related programs from 1975 to 2006, told me last year. Niemeyer specialized in killing and trapping predators like coyotes and wolves who were suspected of preying on cattle and sheep out on pasture.
Beef ranching takes up so much land — more than one-third of the continental US — that it's not uncommon for wild animals to make their way onto the fields where cattle graze, which is one reason why livestock producers are such a big client for Wildlife Services. Over 100 million acres are also dedicated to growing feed crops for cows, pigs, and chickens, such as corn and soy, a treasure for wild animals looking for food. Many are killed as a result.
This grim state of affairs reflects a little-understood consequence of animal agriculture: Over many decades, massive swathes of wildlife habitat in the US (and around the world) have been cleared for or degraded by meat production. And when wildlife pose any threat to that production, they might be shot or poisoned by the US government.
Starlings, who like to dine on livestock feed, are often poisoned with Starlicide, a toxic chemical developed jointly by pet food giant Purina Mills and the USDA that slowly and painfully kills the birds over the course of hours by damaging their heart and kidneys. Wildlife Services killed over 1.2 million of them last year. Many wild birds are also killed to prevent them from eating fish from fish farms or spreading disease at the operations.
A cormorant caught in a trap set by Wildlife Services. USDA
The killing of coyotes, wolves, and other major predators has long been the most controversial part of the Wildlife Services' program, as the animals, known as 'keystone species,' play a critical role in their ecosystems. Conservation groups, wildlife researchers, and some former agency employees say the threat these animals pose to grazing livestock is overblown. Ranchers have an incentive to claim that their animals were killed by wolves because the USDA financially compensates them for those losses. And within Wildlife Services, some former employees have complained, there's a culture of deferring to ranchers.
The USDA did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Niemeyer has described the instinct to blame livestock deaths on coyotes and wolves as 'hysteria.' The roots of such hysteria trace back to America's early European settlers, who believed (wrongly) that the eradication of wolves was necessary for livestock production, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison environmental science professor Adrian Treves.
The story isn't all bad. Despite its still-high kill count, it's worth noting that Wildlife Services nonviolently scares away far more animals than it kills, and it has managed to reduce its annual killings over the last 15 years (though the total kill count remains as high as it was in the early 2000s). The agency in recent years has been investing more in nonlethal methods to keep wildlife away from livestock and their feed, like guard dogs, electric fencing, audio/visual deterrents, bird repellent research, and fladry — tying flags along fences, which can scare off some predators.
But advocates and experts say these efforts are far from enough: 'I am cynical' about the possibility of change, Treves told me last year.
The bottom line: While urban and suburban sprawl are often invoked as some of the gravest threats to wild animals and their habitats, it's really agricultural sprawl — built to accommodate our high levels of meat and dairy consumption — and the government force deployed to protect it that most threaten America's wildlife.
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Beware of this silent, seething relationship-killer
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Get our best explainers on everything from money to entertainment to what everyone is talking about online. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Every day, Angela bites her tongue. But internally, she's stewing on negative emotions. 'I know that this is a problem with her and not with me, but the reason I'm feeling resentment is because it's really pulling me down in all aspects of my life,' Angela says. 'Because even if you know that you are not the problem, when somebody is coming at you every single day with aggression, it'll bring anybody down.' Resentment is the weapon we silently wield against partners, friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors for wrongs, either real or perceived. Harboring feelings of resentment is more common than people probably would like to admit — it's the weapon we silently wield against partners, friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors for wrongs, either real or perceived, that we can't seem to forgive. The experience is so pervasive, says therapist and registered social worker Audrey Kao, she created a YouTube video summing up all the information she'd shared with clients. Resentment is commonly described as festering or simmering, probably because it doesn't just come out of nowhere. Envy is wanting what someone else has, according to psychologists, while jealousy is a fear of losing what you have to another person. These are more momentary feelings that can accumulate over time to resentment, Kao says, which is a response to repeatedly being made to feel inferior or being the victim of perceived injustices. Hear a friend discuss their lavish lifestyle long enough and mild annoyance and envy might curdle to resentment. Opposed to envy and jealousy which are action-oriented emotions, resentment can be something you get stuck in. When people hold resentments, they often don't take action to rectify the situation because 'it's easy to think that the other person's behavior is the cause of our resentment,' Kao says, 'and if only they didn't behave this way, then I wouldn't be like this.' You may be hesitant to bring up your feelings out of fear the other person will get angry or end the relationship. When this state of affairs continues for a while, bitterness can take root. If the dam ultimately breaks, months or even years of resentments could come spilling out at once. With a lifetime of hard feelings out in the open, is it even possible to salvage the relationship? Should you even want to? Rather than let ill will accumulate and simmer over time, experts say, in most situations, you should fall back on a bit of evergreen wisdom: communicate your needs in the moment. How resentments form The simmering blaze of bitter indignation stems from a single spark. These inciting events are usually the result of broken expectations or when the resentful party was made to feel inferior, according to Kerry Howells, a visiting professor at Tallinn University in Estonia and the author of Untangling You: How Can I Be Grateful When I Feel so Resentful? You might hold resentment toward your partner when they failed to throw you a surprise birthday party. Or, like in Angela's case, you could feel ill will toward your boss for constantly undermining you. The blame shouldn't be placed entirely on one side. When you fail to communicate the fact that you wanted a surprise birthday party, you set your partner up for failure — and yourself for disappointment. 'We can interpret that as them not caring,' Kao says. 'If that disappointment doesn't get addressed, and we still don't decide to talk to the other person about how we really feel, then inevitably, that disappointment is going to be festering until it turns into resentment.' Those who struggle with people-pleasing tendencies in particular may prioritize others' happiness so that they end up silently resenting their friends for not intuiting their needs. There are, of course, power imbalances that make accusing your boss or pushy mother-in-law of overstepping unwise and unfeasible. 'The environment is unsafe — that's a very real thing,' says psychotherapist Israa Nasir, author of Toxic Productivity: Reclaim Your Time and Emotional Energy in a World That Always Demands More. 'Those are structural realities, and so you're stuck with resentment.' With no outlet, resentment builds over time. You file away every slight, every snide remark, every time your emotional needs aren't prioritized until it snowballs into something that rankles just underneath the surface. When resentment grows into contempt No one wants their relationship to devolve to a point where they despise the way a friend chews, laughs, speaks. But unchecked resentment can push us to unpleasant emotional territory. 'Resentment breeds contempt,' Nasir says, 'and contempt is a very powerful emotion.' Once there, you may find it hard to cut the person any slack at all. You therefore detach, give them the silent treatment, or become passive aggressive. You could resort to playing little games like waiting for them to acknowledge your anniversary first or making a backup dinner reservation because you don't trust your flaky friend to do it. 'Gratitude is about awakening to everything that I receive from others and resentment puts us in this state of ruminating about what's been taken away from us.' Excess resentment can ratchet up your desire to undermine and backstab, Howells says, as a way of coping with pent up bitterness. You might speak poorly of a coworker you resent not only to vent, but to impact how other colleagues see them, too. 'We think that's making it better, but it's actually making it worse,' Howells says. 'We push the relationship even further away.' Through all of this, the foundation on which your relationship was built, as well as any good memories or positive associations that went along with it, is forgotten. Resentment is the antithesis of gratitude, Howells says, and without it, all we see is a person to blame. 'Gratitude is about awakening to everything that I receive from others,' she says,' and resentment puts us in this state of ruminating about what's been taken away from us.' Addressing resentment without ruining the relationship There is a wrong way to air your grievances: unloading them all at once. It's nearly impossible to rebound after hearing how your partner or your friend has been carrying a grudge for all the choices you've made in the relationship. Before launching into a discussion, decide if it's even appropriate to bring up resentments. First, think about the role you played. Did you tell your friend you wanted to spend more time one-on-one and they keep planning group outings, or did you hope they'd just know? Are you really putting more work into a relationship or do you have unrealistic expectations of what dating should look like? 'Resentment always happens when a need is not being met, but you have to think about what you are doing to create an environment where your needs are not being met, and, of course, assessing the environment itself,' Nasir says. When you fail to take ownership over your own actions (or inaction), you're likely to place blame on others and find the cycle repeating in other relationships. In some situations, bringing up your resentments isn't necessarily helpful. For instance, if you're single and jealous a friend is getting married, telling them as much might only sow discord. What would be the point of the conversation? 'That might be a sign that it's more about your insecurity, or that you're not happy with your own life,' Kao says. In that case, your efforts would be better spent on working toward your goals. A friend's success or happiness does not negate or prevent your own. But there are still plenty of scenarios where it's worth having a direct, clarifying conversation in order to address your unmet needs. Kao has observed that people often drop hints about their feelings ('We never do date night,' or 'You always cancel our dinners') without coming out and saying, 'I feel unimportant when you spend more evenings at work than you do with me,' or 'I don't feel valued when you keep changing our plans.' The key is to communicate your hurt head-on without blaming the other person, which is why Kao and Nasir recommend therapist-favorite 'I statements' that focus on describing your feelings and how you'd like to mend the relationship. (No, 'I resent you' doesn't count.) For instance, if you're starting to resent a friend who seems to leave you out of every social event, you could say, 'I feel like I don't know what's going on with you. I think it's because we're both so busy. I'd love a monthly hang to catch up.' 'It's always helpful to come to the table with a solution, because that's the repair piece,' Nasir says. 'The solution is not just 'you need to change.' It's this thing needs to change, or this needs to be added, or this needs to be removed.' The whole point of the conversation should be to preserve and improve the relationship. Try to broach these conversations sooner rather than later. The longer you sit in the hurt, the more you might be tempted to dump a backlog of resentments. But don't race into them too quickly while the emotions are still so fresh that you end up saying something you regret. Finding that sweet spot can be as difficult as having the conversation itself. 'It's always helpful to come to the table with a solution, because that's the repair piece.' Workplace resentments are far trickier since there are risks to your livelihood. You could try to tell your boss you feel undervalued or ask a coworker not to put you down in meetings, but they might not be compelled to change because, technically, they don't have to. These people could also make your life more difficult. Howells suggests writing all your resentments in a letter that you'll never send or working with a therapist to parse through your emotions. The greatest gift we can give ourselves is knowing when to pick our battles. 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The fascinating backstory behind a bizarre State Department Substack post
is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers ideology and challenges to democracy, both at home and abroad. His book on democracy,, was published 0n July 16. You can purchase it here. 'The global liberal project is not enabling the flourishing of democracy. Rather, it is trampling democracy,' a State Department employee wrote on Substack. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images Last week, the State Department published a strikingly radical screed on its official Substack. Titled 'The Need for Civilizational Allies in Europe,' the piece accused Europe's governments of waging 'an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself.' These Western nations, according to author Samuel Samson, have turned on their own heritage: abandoning democracy in favor of a repressive liberalism that threatens to snuff out the heart of their own civilization. 'The global liberal project is not enabling the flourishing of democracy. Rather, it is trampling democracy, and Western heritage along with it, in the name of a decadent governing class afraid of its own people,' Samson writes. Samson asserts that German and French criminal investigations into far-right factions are politically motivated repression, but provides no evidence to support this extraordinary claim about the internal politics of key allies. He inflates the (real) problems with free speech law in Britain, while whitewashing the only authoritarian state in the European Union (right-wing Hungary). He presents a bizarre intellectual history of the Declaration of Independence, replacing Jefferson's chief influences (Enlightenment liberals) with Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas. The essay isn't just poorly argued: It has policy implications. Samson both insults and threatens allied governments, implying there will be some kind of US punishment if European states do not change their policies on free speech, election administration, and (for some reason) migration. 'Secretary Rubio has made clear that the State Department will always act in America's national interest. Europe's democratic backsliding not only impacts European citizens but increasingly affects American security and economic ties, along with the free speech rights of American citizens and companies,' he writes. 'We will not always agree on scope and tactics, but tangible actions by European governments to guarantee protection for political and religious speech, secure borders, and fair elections would serve as welcome steps forward.' Samuel Samson's title is 'Senior Advisor for the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor,' but he is not an experienced diplomat. In fact, he is a 2021 college graduate with no background in European affairs or foreign policy. His last job was 'Director of Strategic Partnerships' (a fundraising position) for American Moment, a right-wing organization dedicated to identifying Trump-aligned young people for junior staff jobs. But while Samson's path to shaping US-European relations is unconventional, it is hardly unintended. His own publicly available writing suggests that it is the result of a deliberate strategy — an effort to seed the US government with radical opponents of philosophical liberalism who aim to replace it with a form of illiberal Christian government. Samson described this strategy, in a 2021 essay, as 'the infiltration of liberalism's powerful institutions by right-wing post-liberal agents.' He said the strategy was worth pursuing, and that American Moment was an organization dedicated to turning the basic idea into 'tangible action.' (Neither State nor American Moment responded to requests for comment.) His ascent in the State Department is concrete evidence that this radical right strategy of 'entryism' — a small group trying to join another organization with the attempt of changing it from within — is yielding dividends. So when the State Department published Samson's piece on its Substack, it sent an unmistakable message not just to Europe but to likeminded right-wing radicals: They could begin more openly planting their flag atop conquered territory. The far-right's successful entryism About a decade ago, Harvard Law School professor Adrian Vermeule became famous for advocating an idea called 'integralism:' basically, a right-wing Catholic doctrine that calls for the abolition of the barrier between church and state. He viewed liberalism, in the philosophical sense, as an abomination, its obsession with rights and freedoms fundamentally corrosive of the 'traditional' moral values that Vermeule believes are essential for human flourishing. The only solution was to infuse the state with religious values — specifically, conservative Catholic ones. But how could you possibly get to such a society in the United States, where 20 percent of the population is Catholic — most of whom are themselves not Vermeule disciples? His answer, which he calls either 'ralliement' or 'integration from within,' is an entryist campaign targeting the bureaucracy. You get a few key people into positions of power, and then they quietly nudge the citizenry toward a place where they will accept some kind of 'postliberal' state. On the Right The ideas and trends driving the conservative movement, from senior correspondent Zack Beauchamp. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. 'The vast bureaucracy created by liberalism in pursuit of a mirage of depoliticized governance may, by the invisible hand of Providence, be turned to new ends, becoming the great instrument with which to restore a substantive politics of the good,' Vermeule wrote in a 2018 essay. These arguments helped make Vermeuele a leading voice in the so-called postliberal movement: a loose group of right-wing religious conservatives who shared his radical critique of our current political institutions (if not his integralist solution). Postliberal ideas became particularly popular among young conservatives, who felt that the pre-Trump conservative consensus was exhausted and out of date. Samuel Samson was one of them. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 2021, he took a one-year junior fellowship at the Thomistic Institute — a Catholic think tank in Washington, DC, associated with the Dominican order of monks. During that fellowship, he penned a piece for the American Spectator in which he endorsed Vermeule's strategy for taking liberalism down. Calling Vermeuele's ideas 'the popular blueprint for America's burgeoning post-liberal right,' Samson wrote that 'I believe the offensive strategy is…worth our effort.' His concern, however, is that the strategy risks corruption: that young bureaucrats and Hill staffers residing in Washington will be corrupted by living in a place defined by liberal values. 'The strategy's offensive nature requires its agents to dwell for extended periods, even lifetimes, within the nucleus of American liberalism,' he writes. 'As such, the strategy brings agents into full contact with the temptations of liberalism — sirens singing alluring songs of pleasure, sexual license, material gain, power, prestige, and social inclusion — beckoning the agent to direct the project to new, less-wholesome ends.' It is a sign that a truly radical ideological movement has begun successfully executing on its stated strategy for entering the political mainstream. Samson's solution to this danger is for radical entryists to engage in study. 'Read great books of the Western, Christian, and Classical traditions — as well as those that oppose them,' he writes. 'Yes, the practical skills of networking, legislating, and orating are important too, but detached from speculative truth, they are all functionally worthless.' Somewhat ironically, Samson's next move was to become a fundraiser. But the organization he would work for, American Moment, was one that Samson believed furthered the Vermeule mission. Founded in 2021 by three young conservatives — Saurabh Sharma, Nick Solheim, and Jake Mercier — American Moment was inspired by an essay written in 2020 by now-Vice President JD Vance. Vance argued that the conservative movement was trapped by its own donors: that the entire professional infrastructure of the right was forced, by power of money, into organizations who supported the open approach to trade and migration that the Trump movement opposed. 'Real change,' Vance wrote, would require that we come to grips with the fact that so much of Conservatism, Inc. depends on the status quo.' Sharma, Solheim, and Mercier built American Moment to try and end that dependence: to build a cadre of populist junior staffers. With Vance on their board, they created a database of like-minded young people to hire for early career positions, a fellowship program to bring young right-wing populists to DC, and even hosted social events to create a more robust right-wing youth culture in the capital. Their efforts have been reasonably successful. American Moment worked on Project 2025, and Sharma is currently serving as a special adviser to the Presidential Policy Office (which supervises hiring of executive branch political appointees). American Moment is not exactly as Samson described it before he worked there. While his 2021 essay claimed it was built to implement Vermeule's integralist ideas, its leaders took a more ecumenical approach. They elevated conservatives from all sorts of different right-wing subcultures, not just Catholic postliberals, so long as they had the right Trump-friendly policy views. 'The basic approach of, 'Well, we're going to do our -ism and do politics that way' falls apart,' Sharma told Politico's Ian Ward in 2023. 'You're basically signing yourself up to be a loud but ultimately defeated minority.' Yet the fact that an integralist like Samson was able to succeed there, and then use it as a jumping-off point to a senior position in the Trump administration, suggests it facilitated the success of Vermeule-inspired righties. Attempts to build a more Trump-friendly set of conservative cadres would invariably create opportunities for radical young right-wingers, especially if they were already thinking about entryist strategies for politics. That elements of the top leadership were sympathetic — most notably Vance, a self-described 'postliberal' deeply influenced by Vermeuele's ideological allies — surely helped things along. The State Department op-ed, in short, is not a one-off. It is a sign that a truly radical ideological movement has begun successfully executing on its stated strategy for entering the political mainstream.
Vox
2 days ago
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What do you actually owe your in-laws?
Anna can't exactly pinpoint when her relationship with her sister-in-law started to sour. Rather, it was a slow unraveling. When the two met over 20 years ago through their now-husbands, who are brothers, Anna actually preferred spending time with her future sister-in-law. 'We would hang out all the time,' says Anna, who is being referred to by her middle name so she can speak freely about her family. 'I would get through being with him just to hang out with her.' Anna and her sister-in-law also had a common enemy: their husbands' parents. At family gatherings, they'd steal away with a glass of wine and whisper, 'Can you believe they said that?' The women could compare notes about their mother-in-law's latest insult or how their father-in-law constantly belittled his wife. Vox Culture Culture reflects society. Get our best explainers on everything from money to entertainment to what everyone is talking about online. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Unlike Anna, 47, who largely kept her concerns to herself, her sister-in-law was vocal about her dislike for their in-laws. This rubbed Anna's husband the wrong way and ultimately drove a wedge between the two families. Now, they live an hour away and only see each other a handful of times a year. And when they do, it's awkward, Anna says. Her kids are no longer close with their cousins. Whenever Anna's sister-in-law invites her family on trips to amusement parks, they decline but end up going anyway — without them — and then lying about why they couldn't coordinate plans. 'I just hate the dishonesty,' Anna says. 'The worst part for me is pretending everything is fine when clearly everybody in the room knows it's not fine.' The relationship one has with their in-laws can be fraught and perplexing, friendly and intimate, polite and distant. The relationship one has with their in-laws can be fraught and perplexing, friendly and intimate, polite and distant. They're not the people you've chosen to bind yourself to, but you're still inextricably linked as long as you're with your partner. In-laws enjoy all the trappings and status of family, but aren't quite. Spending time with them can feel obligatory and not totally enjoyable. At the same time, there are no clearly defined expectations for what in-law relationships should look like, beyond the stereotypes. So what do you owe your partner's families of origin? They may not be your family, but they're probably going to be in your life in some form or fashion. They might never be a proxy for your own mother or sibling, but that doesn't mean they can't come close. The in-law stereotype As long as people have married, they have inherited their spouse's family. For centuries, parents aimed to pair their children based on the reputation, power, and wealth of a neighboring family, to create alliances through marriage. In many cultures worldwide, newlyweds typically moved in or near the husband's family. 'The aim of marriage was to acquire useful in-laws or gain political or economic advantage,' writes Stephanie Coontz in the 2005 book Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage. By the 1920s, Coontz writes, 'marital privacy was more important than adults' ties with their parents' and, as a result, the number of couples who lived with their parents dropped precipitously over the first half of the 20th century. As couples established themselves as independent entities, in-laws — especially mothers-in-law — came to be seen as prying interlopers, as evidenced in the 1954 book In Laws, Pro & Con. 'Many a mother-in-law sounds baffled, bewildered, and bitter in her role,' wrote the book's author Evelyn Millis Duvall. 'She reports that anything she does is misconstrued by her sons- and daughters-in-law. If she leaves them alone, she is being neglectful; if she is nice to them, she is being twofaced; if she appears interested in what they are doing, she is meddling; if she keeps out of their affairs, she is not interested in them — she just can't win!' Since then, the cultural view of in-laws in America has stayed remarkably consistent, says Sylvia Mikucki-Enyart, an associate professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa. The caricature of the overbearing mother-in-law still has strong cultural sway — TV and movie representations abound. In real life, there are entire Reddit communities dedicated to meddlesome 'MILs.' Now, try to think of a single well-known father-in-law joke. 'In-law relationships are this weird between place of being family but not being the same intensity of family as family origin.' Beyond these broad stereotypes, cultural and familial expectations and traditions influence the in-law relationship. For instance, daughters-in-law in Asian American families reported feeling anxious, angry, and confused as a result of their in-laws' traditional cultural expectations to be subservient and deferential, according to one study. Other research found that among Black families, sons-in-law sharing interests with their fathers-in-law and making an effort to engage in family activities helped strengthen their bond. The way you interact with your in-laws is largely shaped by your partner's example. After all, if it weren't for them, you probably wouldn't have any connection to these people at all. Marrying someone who has a history of regularly spending time with their family of origin is a strong indication that you'll likely see more of these people in the future. 'I would take my guide from my wife,' says Geoffrey Greif, a distinguished university professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work and co-author of In-Law Relationships: Mothers, Daughters, Fathers, and Sons. 'How close does she want me to be with her father and mother?' These expectations shouldn't come as a surprise — they're almost certain to come up while a couple is dating. As the relationship progresses and you gain insight into your partner's familial ties, you may learn how much they value weekly hangouts with their siblings or big gatherings for holidays. A close-knit family dynamic can, for some, be a green flag. Early on in his relationship with his now-wife Melli, Steven Schenberg, a 37-year-old in transportation logistics in Chicago, realized they'd not only be marrying each other but also each other's families. Within the first few months of dating, Schenberg grabbed dinner with one of Melli's sisters, attended the family's annual New Year's Day brunch, and slept on the floor of the hotel room Melli shared with her sisters at a wedding. Melli's brother is now one of Schenberg's best friends — a friendship that likely wouldn't have happened had they not met through Melli. Schenberg credits the closeness he maintains with his wife's family as part luck, part shared values. 'I was raised in a tight family nucleus,' he says. 'Melli was the same way.' The weird in-between space in-laws occupy Just because in-laws occupy a place of prominence in your partner's life doesn't necessarily guarantee them a similarly intimate space in yours. After all, you lack a deep shared history. There's always a degree to which you'll always play catch-up. 'In-law relationships are this weird between place of being family but not being the same intensity of family as family origin,' says Gretchen Perry, an associate professor of social work at the University of Northern British Columbia. 'When you have conflict, often, there's less tolerance for the intensity of that conflict [than] with your own family of origin.' And these relationships can be primed for conflict: too involved in-laws, absent in-laws, pushy in-laws, cheap in-laws, too-invested-in-their-traditions in-laws. Because there are fewer cultural norms offering a clear example of normative in-law relationships in Western societies, Mikucki-Enyart says, uncertainty abounds. 'Versus other cultures where when you get married, you go live with your husband's family and you're deferential to your mother-in-law,' she says. 'There are other cultures where it's very clearly outlined how these in-law relationships go, and in the US, we really don't have that.' In her research, Mikucki-Enyart has observed two types of uncertainty arise within in-law relationships: relational uncertainty (What kind of relationship do I want with this person? How often do we interact?) and family level uncertainty (How do we balance time with each family? How will grandparents interact with children?) The latter is usually more impactful, Mikucki-Enyart says, especially when grandchildren enter the picture. If a parent-in-law is uncertain about how best to help their adult child and their spouse care for their own kids, they may sacrifice closeness with their grandkids. 'There are other cultures where it's very clearly outlined how these in-law relationships go, and in the US, we really don't have that.' Mother-in-law relationships are typically the ones that are more fraught, at least in heterosexual relationships. This is because mothers have more points of contact within families. Women are still socialized and are expected to carry the bulk of child rearing and kin keeping, Mikucki-Enyart says, and a scarcity mindset pits mothers against their child's partner. 'There's not enough for all of us,' she says. 'We have to fight for a position and a spot, which leads to…it's either her or me. Not 'no, we can both love him and have individual relationships with this linchpin person.'' The recent 'boy mom' phenomenon only further ties a mother's identity to her male children — the trope suggests that relinquishing her son to a romantic partner means a woman losing a part of herself, too. Fathers-in-law, meanwhile, are seen as protectors. 'Men aren't involved in these relational roles, or their protectiveness is fulfilling their role,' Mikucki-Enyart says. How to have a pleasant-enough relationship with your in-laws Discuss how you want the relationship to look: As your relationship gets serious, talk with your partner about the relationship you hope to have with each set of parents. Set boundaries, too. How will you celebrate holidays? How will you address potential issues with the other's parents? If you plan on having children, how much access will each set of grandparents have? How often will you spend time with extended families? What will you do if parents want to see you more than you'd like? You might also have this conversation with your (future) in-laws if you're comfortable. It's never too late to have these talks. Determine how you'll navigate conflict: The blood relative is always responsible for smoothing over any conflicts. They should never throw their partner under the bus when bringing up concerns to their family of origin. Try using 'I' or 'we' statements: 'We love it when you visit, but could you give us a heads up next time?' Be prepared for compromises: Building a new family unit requires renegotiating old rituals. If your in-laws want you to come to their house for the holidays out of tradition, but you want to see your family, too, suggest alternatives: you'll go to their house for Thanksgiving and your parents for Christmas or Hanukkah. The more you buy into the cliches, the more they become self-fulfilling prophecies. 'Parents, especially mothers-in-law, are really in this damned if they do, damned if they don't position,' Mikucki-Enyart says. 'They're very aware of the negative stereotype surrounding them. So sometimes then they'll go to the extreme and really, give the couple space. ... Then children are like, 'Well, my mother-in-law doesn't even reach out, she doesn't even care,' and when she does, it's too much.' What do we owe in-laws? Whether an in-law falls under the umbrella of kin depends on how you define family. Those with a more narrow view of family — spouse and children — may be less inclined to bend over backwards to appease their mother-in-law. Still, in most cases, it's worth maintaining at least a cordial relationship with your in-laws for the benefit of your spouse or children. That's assuming you're treated with the same respect. Rina, a 31-year-old who works in hotel customer service in Toronto, used to consider her husband's sister someone reliable, someone worth confiding in. But over time, Rina's sister-in-law cut off contact with her, despite maintaining daily calls with her brother. At family gatherings, Rina's sister-in-law would ignore her and never told her kids to call her Aunt Rina. Recently, Rina's sister-in-law introduced her new baby to everyone in the family — except Rina. She was heartbroken. Rina, whose last name is being withheld so she can speak freely about her family, told her husband that his sister's actions made her feel like an outcast. 'He sees the problem,' Rina says in an email, 'and really wanted to help out.' He offered to talk to his sister, but Rina stopped him. It would only cause more drama. Related How to set boundaries with grandparents Knowing your in-laws, flaws and all, helps blunt the pain of any slights. In her research examining relationships between mothers- and daughters-in-law of East Asian descent, psychologist Angela Gwak found that though they were stressed by their mothers-in-law, daughters-in-law learned to cope with them over time. 'They've learned to accept them, but not like [their] family of origin,' Gwak says, 'but just learn to coexist together. The stress is less jarring because they know and can predict how they would respond to certain circumstances or situations.' Proof (and perhaps solace) that you may not be able to completely live without your in-laws, but you can learn to live with them.
