to be cross with mum....

[slowginny]

In brief, my mum turned to my one year old DD at the dinner table this evening and said "we don't love you, you're not loved". This was part of a wider conversation and in her defence, she did say she was only joking but I am fuming (and told her off in front of guests at the time).

Her argument is she never meant it and DD doesn't understand. This isn't the first time and I've asked her not to do this before. DD's father is absent and I'm rather concerned that these kind of comments will cause long term niggling damage to her confidence.

Am I going overboard when she says she doesn't mean it?

It is NEVER acceptable to say this to a child...... never

Need full context and convo to say

1year
Old will not
Really understand that an if it was part of a bigger discussion and was a joke we can't judge from what ou har
Posted

why on earth would someone say such a thing...I tell my friends kids I love them !

Agree totally, it is competely unacceptable.

Isolated that sounds like a shitty thing to say... I think you would have to tell us the wider conversation for anyone to be able to try to rationalise that sort of comment, because even at 1years old, kids can pick up on tone even if they dont understand the words, and I cant imagine ever saying that to a 1yo.

That's horrible :( I hope she stops saying things like this when your DD is old enough to understand what she's saying!

Well, was it a conversation about people telling whopping untruths and giving an example?

I would never say that to a child regardless of their age.

Horrid thing to say. And 1 year olds understand far more than we think.

Ok - at one she will not understand, so no harm done today, but why the hell would she say such a horrible thing? What on earth made her think it was an OK thing to say to a little child?

I mean, I've said it to an older child, 3 or so, 'I don't love you, you are a smelly little monster', whilst laughing & joking with them and they say 'You do love me, you love me this [ ] much and I'm not a smelly monster' but not in a way that they would ever think it was meant.

Big difference.

I think we need context to judge. A one year old can not understand that, and if it was a joke then there won't have been a 'tone' to pick up on.

Lots of families joke around about things like this...I've had my boys squealing with laughter by insisting 'I'm not being your mamma any more!' And 'I don't want any more cuddles from smelly children'. Taken out of context, that sounds awful and abusive, but in reality my children know very well that they are loved dearly. What is your mother's relationship with your daughter usually like?

X posts with chipping.

One year olds do understand more than they are given credit for, but not conceptual stuff like 'love'.

Well, by 'one year old' I assume the OP meant a child of 11-13 months, not say 23 months - that would be different, by then they do have quite a good grasp of things like 'love' - kind of.

Come on OP
Context clearly needed

sigh feel for you OP. I think 1 year olds can be perceptive, even if they don't understand words (and they may understand more than they can speak) they may get the meaning, feeling behind them.

it is a very strange thing to say, cruel too, and i agree with posters its just an unnacceptable thing to say to a baby, toddler. i don't see any context here either. btw, was it meant as a jibe to hurt you? does your mother come out with such outrageous things as if she cannot control what she is saying (but she can if she wants to?) just wondering.

The comment came from a conversation (sorry I can't remember all of it but I think someone was talking about a pet they were going to have put down). Mum's comment was a bit out of the blue in the context of the evening.

Mum is prone to random, quite hurtful comments to me. I usually write them off as my being a bit over sensitive and ignore them and her. I don't remember her always being like this though.

I don't want to be overly protective but I feel she's going to chip away my daughter's self confidence with nasty random comments if I don't put my foot down. I'm loathe to use the term 'abusive' but it wouldn't be completely inappropriate to use for her comments. I think I need to suggest it to her that her behaviour is inappropriate and needs curbing now before there's a big argument.

What an utterly bizarre thing to say! Even IN context its odd, and I can't imagine a context in which it would be reasonable.

Whether your dd understands or not is irrelevant at this time, its something that should never be said.

The only context I can imagine is sarcasm? Did you say something prickly to which your mum responded with sarcasm? Very very odd.

It really doesn't matter whether your DD understood it or not, the comments were very hurtful towards you. It would break my heart to hear a relative of mine say something like that to my DS, even if it wasn't serious. I'm glad you called her on it, and I think you should call her on any more remarks she makes. It absolutely makes my blood boil when people trot out the "you're too sensitive" line as an excuse for being rude and offensive. My family often said I was sensitive which, translated, means "we expect you to be silent and put up with whatever shit we shovel your way, but you're not." It always strikes me as funny that often if you challenge someone who claims you're "sensitive" they immediately take umbrage and get highly offended. They don't seem to see the irony in that.

It sounds more odd than anything else to me. I would have got upset and angry with her and asked her what she was talking about, and told her that if she makes random hurtful comments like that to my kids she isn't going to be seeing them unless I am around to check she isn't saying anything hurtful. Bizarre.

YANBU.

She may not understand now but she will and you can't know exactly when that transition will occur.

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the support. I've asked her not to do this and explained my reasons but I'll be firmer in future.

I wonder if she might be doing this because someone's done it to her as a child? Her parents, my Grandparents, sounded as though they undermined her a fair bit. Kind of niggled at her confidence and she's not got a great deal of faith in herself.

My MIL is a bit like that too.

Regularly she would tell my boys " Watch out or I'll break your arm" all in a jokey way

It was never funny ...and I don't know why she did it?

YANBU ...best its nipped in the bud.