Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : One hour left on this stupid car ride, before I have to deal with her obnoxious ass. Sigh.

I am a married, 40-year-old guy with a wife, two kids, dogs, a home, a profession, hobbies. All in all, a satisfying life. But a couple times a year, that all gets disrupted, as we travel out of area to visit my mother over holidays. Such as this one.

My mother is a widow, living six hours away from me and my family. She’s not perfect, but she’s my mom. We generally get along. However, my kid brother (35 years old) lives with her.

My brother and I have been hit or miss over the span of our lives. The issues I take with him are complicated: He was never held to the uber-strict standards that my parents imposed on me. My successes were treated as failures, whereas his failures are just overlooked. He is kinda rude and crude. He has no common courtesy. There was some blatant favoritism towards him. But… whatever. I can largely roll my eyes, and ignore him. He does the same, and we are able to pretty much avoid each other.

And then, there is his wife.

My brother dated some questionable girls, over the years. But his most recent is a true piece of work. She is loud, opinionated, racist… and frankly, rather stupid. She has XYZ annoying medical condition, that apparently can make it difficult to conceive. She convinced my brother that that was adequate birth control. It was not. I now have a nephew, and a sister-in-law.

“But 21stMonkey”, you are saying, “you don’t have to like her. You can just ignore her, too.” Yeah, I’ve tried that. Doesn’t work. She has seemingly made it her mission to be as infuriating as possible.

1) Despite having no life, educational, or job experience, this woman is an expert on everything. I went to school for Computer Science, but she claims to know more about them. I worked in the credit industry. But her broke ass knows more about investing. I design games, professionally… but she knows more about them, too. I’m a hobbyist chef, with some catering experience. But she’ll happily tell me what I’m doing wrong in the kitchen.
2) A special, infuriating case of the above: She tries to parent my kids. My girls are 10 and 8. They are outstandingly smart, well-groomed, well-spoken, well-mannered. I’m proud of them. Yet, without fail, she tries to boss them around. When I politely say ‘I’ve got it, they’re fine’, she claims to have worked in a daycare, and is thus a pro. Bitch, you worked in your aunt’s home daycare, as a janitor, for three months. Step. Back.

3) Also a case of #1, she is really into herbal this, and essential oils that. I’m pretty sure that I’ll have to listen to another diatribe about the evils of vaccinations, before the week is over.

4) My brother and SIL are living in my mother’s house, rent and expense free. They’ve never paid a dime towards their mountain of debt. Yet, I’ll bet Christmas day will involve lavish gifts, just like last year. In particular, SIL doesn’t work.

5) SIL is a slob. Their room is straight out of Hoarders. Two outbuildings on my mom’s property are filled with heaps of their stuff, totally unorganized. The main bathroom is a dumpster fire of their shit. It’s disrespectful, I think.

6) SIL uses my nephew as a weapon. If my mom tries to lay down the law, SIL threatens to take nephew away, forever. It’s really hurting mom.

Ok, I’m digressing, a little.

All in all, this woman is a terror. I don’t want to fuck things up for my mom, and start fights. So, a while back I decided that I should just ignore SIL, and not exacerbate things while visiting.

This is not sitting well with some of my other family members. A couple think that I’m being rude by being standoffish. I don’t agree. I think if I engage, I’m going to blast this bitch, and harshly. And it will cause problems.

One family member thinks that I have a duty to support my mom, and keep her from being victimized. I try to help her out, but I feel that I can’t fight all of her battles for her.

What do you think? AITA for thinking that just staying away from her is the mature way to handle things?