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Nope!! I live in a very rural small town and everyone is set in their ways about EVERYTHING. I've not mentioned my parenting plans too much yet, but I'm already getting a funny look from telling my birth plan. I can imagine their faces when LO gets here!

I think they are open minded, but to be honest I don't really know what they might disagree with us on - both sets of parents have very firm "MYOB" personalities regarding the way my husband and I parent. They stay OUT of it, unless we ask for help, and they don't share any opinion with us unless they agree with what we're doing. Both sets of parents have said "You're adults. You'll be fine!"

One reason I my parents and in-laws!

I've been surprised about how open minded my parents have been. Both my parents and IL were very supportive of extended nursing, which surprised me. My MIL has been less open minded about other things unfortunately and taken it as an offense when I do things differently than she does though I think she's starting to learn that I'm just as, if not more, stubborn than she is. She's a CIO from day 1 and everything, even diaper changes, on a schedule while we cosleep and are very unscheduled, especially not with diaper changes and def feed when baby's hungry especially in the early months.

My parents (father & stepmother) have specific ideas about the way things should go. But they're super about adopting a very, "This is how we parent your younger siblings, but this is *your* baby, so you have to do what *you* believe is best" attitude. Which is awesome.

DH mother is the same way. She makes suggestions based on how she parented DH and his younger brother, but isn't forceful or opinionated or judgey or anything. He's only 2 1/2 weeks old and his father has already made some judgey comments - particularly about our choice to not circumcise. And this was while visiting us on the second day in the hospital. His mother (DH's grandmother) called it "unhealthy and disgusting" and his father remarked that he "didn't know how [he] felt about this], like he gets a say? Smh. Then asked DH how he felt about this (DH is circumcised, btw), like I was the sole decision maker and how he would feel "having to walk around with all that extra skin." All that extra skin. Boy, I'm *still* fuming. If only I was with it enough to stick up for myself, but I just kept trying to change subjects But I foresee future tensions in regards to parenting yet to come. Time to grow a backbone (because I surely don't have much of one!).

My father and father-in-law are both very open minded about parenting, but they both have young children (my youngest sister is about to turn 4 and my brother-in-law is 7). They are more up-to-speed on things that have changed so there's not a generational gap.

My dad and I have had great conversations about breastfeeding, first foods, education, etc. It's pretty cool.

My mom and MIL are not as up-to-date about how things have changed but they can be both open-minded and set in their "well, I did xyz and it worked." Even though we aren't in to xyz. But they are both very supportive of our parenting.

My mom is not open minded about my parenting. She sends me very long emails of 'tips' on how to better raise my kid....

My dad knows to keep his mouth shut, and DH's mom is just crazy, so I don't usually listen to any of her 'suggestions,' and she has a lot!!

So far the biggest difference of opinion has been nursing and how to get the baby to sleep....

My parents are, for the most part. My mom does have an old fashioned idea about things like etiquette and manners (not to say that DS has bad manners), cause I tend to think some things are not important. For example, DS asks me if he can "get down" when he's done with his dinner. My mom insists that he needs to say, "may I be excused?" and I think it's a little much for a casual family dinner.

But for other things, my mom acknowledges that I'm doing well. At first she was a little pushy, but I'm hoping with the next LO, she'll see that I already raised one kid who is pretty stellar, so hopefully she'll let me be a little better this time.

Not sure how MIL will be. I dread a bit on finding out.

Eh, not really. My mom has her opinion on everything and it gets really annoying.

@ZombieBullfrogHoller: I hate when the IL assume that you made the decision alone. We're a partnership!! We make decisions together. MIL was like that about DDs name. The name we picked was the name of one of DH primary school friends little sister who passed away. She actually asked me if DH "was ok with that name" when it was his suggestion and I'm the one who had to come around to it. *rolls eyes*

I think we parent very similarly to how my parents did, so there's not been any conflict there. They are very open minded in general. They've been interested to see some of the updates and newer theories. DH's father is very religious and traditional so he probably doesn't agree with a lot that we do but he stays out of it so I'm happy. MIL voices her opinions but we just assume that whatever she says will be crazy. She had a lot of conflict with my SIL over parenting issues and doesn't really have a relationship with those grandsons because of it. I think she is making an effort to be more open minded with us.

My sister already broke my parents in with "new" parenting things, so my parents are pretty open. My dad does roll his eyes a lot and say things like "we never had to *transition* from two naps to one" but then my mom reminds him that she was the one home with us and she certainly did do it

Mil questioned a few things a little more than I would like- like breastfeeding- is she getting enough, how long will I do it, etc, but generally I think she will stay quiet if she disagrees. It's frustrating when people think they remember things but I'm pretty sure they remember incorrectly (she kept telling me I'd feel kicks by like 12 weeks when I was pregnant).

I think they are, because they haven't said anything to me, but they are very respectful of our choices as parents so they may just be polite. My mom works with kids so she is up to date on more modern parenting than most.
MIL is not open minded and is very critical of my choices, but I'm critical of her choices in return. She is pro cry it out, think its strange that I wear LO, thinks I should put her to bed with a bottle, buy a walker even though they are banned here, etc.

Yes, I think both sets have grown a lot in their open mindedness in the past 20 months. My parents are old hippies, and my IL's are very traditional. We fall somewhere in the middle as parents, and are super easy going. Both sets, while they don't necessarily agree with everything we do, respect the boundaries that we make the final parenting calls.

Our big differences-
My parents are super pro cloth diapering, extended breastfeeding, and co-sleeping.

My IL's are pro- formula feeding, and CIO.

When we've done things differently, all it's taken is an, "well I'm the mama, that's why." And each backs off.