MIL always asking about what DS ISN'T doing

[eastegg]

My DS is 19/20 months. Throughout his life my MIL has always had a tendency to look ahead to what he's going to be doing - 'by Christmas... this time next year he'll be running around etc' as if there's a set pattern for kids to do things. This has been really highlighted by the fact that he's a late walker (he's just set off properly this weekend! having done it for the first time a few weeks ago). For us this is really exciting, although I was never in the slightest bit bothered by him taking a while to get there, whereas MIL isn't interested now because she'e been asking about it for the past year. There was a stage a few months ago when she was asking 'is he walking?' every bloody conversation with me or DH.
She phoned on Saturday and I answered the phone. This was before DS had really set off walking which he did later that afternoon. She actually opened the conversation about DS with 'is he running around?'. Obviously not. I told my DH and he said she'd asked him the same question yesterday!He's barely walking and she knows that.
I can only conclude she actually wants to highlight what he's not doing. It gets really tiresome saying 'no'. Meanwhile she's missing all the exciting stuff he is doing i'e talking. I think she's being a bit of a cow. By the way she's not losing her marbles or anything.So AIBU to think she's being mean? I also worry this sort of thing could affect DS as he gets older. Views and experiences please.

make stuff up

'he is running/jumping/solving crimes'

and when he doesn't do it in front of her, say 'how strange - he always does that with me' innocently

YANBU - why is it that the older generation think that children should be walking at the age of 1, weaned before 6 months and reading by the age of 3? I do not understand - I think they have got mixed up somewhere. Stupid woman - as if he is going to go from cruising to running around in less than a day. Tell her that he will do everything in his own time and she should stop putting expectations on him and you. Interfering old bat.
I always had this with my dd not being out of pull ups at night until she was four and a half. She always had bad sleep patterns, sleep walking etc and couldn't wake herself. But my mum would always say 'is she clean yet??' What an awful phrase - of course she is clean!!! Argh!!!!!!!!

My MIL is the same. And it's not been helped with our youngest having had some health issues that have held back his development.

It really used to bug me that I would ignore the phone.

But I don't think my MIL wanted to highlight the negatives. Just looked and worded things a different way to me. And I am sure your MIL doesn't mean it either - they always want to think their off-spring are utterly wonderful.

I began to turn it around. When I got the "is he able to use a spoon yet?" I'd say " no chance but he did a really good Red Indian impression this morning whooping around the room and he's mastered the art of sticking his toes into his brother's eyes and he does a great tiger impression when he roars at the cat." Anything that breaks the negativity.

My MIL still goes on about the stuff he should be doing but she does laugh at the alternative things I list. And I don't feel like I have a kid who is a failure.

My MIL talks the same way as yours. I always thought it was more about her sharing her excitement (and emphasizing how she's done it all her self, 3 times :) ) with how kids grow. When your MIL started she wouldn't have known he wasn't going to stick to her "normal" schedule, so it probably isn't poorly intended.

People aren't built with perfect communication skills for every situation. She doesn't see him everyday so she is probably more hung up on her expectations and the traditional big milestones in the traditional order and has had difficulty adjusting.

I'm not really trying to make excuses for her. But thought if you could see it from this perspective it may help to make it feel less critical and negative. Of course she could be an old hag, in which case YANBU at all.

Thanks everybody. Thing is I don't sense any 'excitement with how kids grow'. She seems positively disinterested in the walking milestone now, as if she's got bored with waiting. And I'm finding it very difficult to put a positive spin on the 'is he running around' question, asked twice in 2 days when she knows very well what the answer is.

Maybe she's like me and finds babies boring ( well obviously not my own little wonderful darlings) and cannot wait for fun little monkeys. Cos' toddlers are brill.

My dad was always saying of mine "is he talking yet?", "what age did DC1 talk", "when do you think he's going to talk?" etc. I put it down to my dad being really forgetful so he probably forgets that he has asked me the day before and the day before that etc.

He's also always asking if I'm going to let my daughter have long hair, always, always asking!

My mum is a little like this, though not in quite so much of a negative way, but she's always searching for a boast and its hard to hide her dissapointment if there isn't one to be had or a new one.

She too is slightly obsessed with the walking thing. My 14 month old isn't quite there yet (though she can do 2 or 3 steps from object to object without holding on so it shouldn't be too long I wouldn't have thought) and I know she thinks its late because my brother was always said to be "lazy" and an "incredibly late walker" and I recently found out that he walked at 15 months so hardly what I would describe as "incredibly late"

It doesn't help that I was apparently walking by 11 months which just reinforced to her how "late" my brother was so I'm sure she's miffed about DD!

I'm not too bothered when she walks to be honest though I suppose I would like it to be by 18 months, not sure why. I just wanna buy her shoes I think!!!

My MIL always asks 'is she very advanced compared to the others?' asking about my antenatal group.

My late mother was just like that and it used to really upset me. She wanted a boast-worthy grandchild to show off about and DS just wasn't that boast-worthy. Ignore her. Kids do stuff when they do stuff and you can't force them to do anything they don't want to. Or tell her that he has been scouted by the British Olympic Gymnastics Team!
A friend whose child walked very late once pointed out that you can't look round a room of adults and say who walked first! So ultimately it doesn't matter.

TBH, it just sounds like general interest to me.

Or maybe she´s concerned if he does seem to be "late" at doing something?

Not sure if it´sa generational thing though-mums of today can be pretty competetive!

Don't worry lovey. My DD didn't walk until she was 22 months. Or crawl! She just started bumshuffling when she was 1. My Mum was great about it, the rest of the world not so. Tiresome, isn't it?

I agree not to worry about it. My PIL always asked if DD had teeth yet (first at 12 months) or was walking yet (15 months) and I used to say "no but she has a world of hair". I think they got bored of my reply.

My daughterwalked fairly early-11 months.

She looked like a doll as she was small-wearing clothes age 6months.

A friends daughter walked later but had more teeth much sooner.

And she would say "I´d rather mine was walking & had less teeth"

Maybe you could ask her if she has moved into a retirement village/lost her marbles teeth/booked in to have a purple rinse/[something else that she would hate and think would only apply to old people] yet - as now she is [insert her age here] that's what she is supposed to do at her age

Madinitials - that's a good idea, just keep saying the same thing over and over like she does! I do try to emphasise other things he's doing but then I feel I'm getting sucked into a competitive thing about when he does things, which is exactly what I want to avoid. I honestly don't give that much of a toss when he walks or does anything else, I just wish MIL would stop emphasising the negative. I get the depressing feeling it's always going to be a case of 'is he...(insert thing he's not quite old enough/doing) yet?'

I just don't really see why it's so annoying or offensive. DS was late to walk. I knew this. MIL discussed it with me from time to time. I didn't see it as a personal insult.

He did walk eventually. Now he's pretty damn good at soccer. MIL loves to brag about it. It's just grandparents.

Oh god, my post came across as patronising. Genuinely, it was meant well.