Mum referring to unborn grandchild as ‘ours’ instead of ‘yours’

[ourbabynotyourbaby]

NC for this. I’m pregnant, third trimester and well aware that I’m potentially being overly sensitive.

Back story: I’m single, pregnancy unplanned but very much wanted. Baby’s dad is involved. I have plenty of support in the form of him, his family, my family and friends. I am not emotionally struggling.

I have a good relationship with my mum but she has always been obsessed with wanting grandkids. This will be her first, and likely only, grandchild. She can be overbearing at times, and is very touchy feely, tactile and open - it’s not a bad thing, but I’m quite the opposite. I’m not a hugger, I keep my emotions to myself. I think I take after my dad - neither of us will say ‘I love you’ as it’s just unspoken that we do, but my mum will gush all sorts of what I see as ‘emotional’ chat. I just can’t bring myself to reciprocate it out loud, it’s not that I don’t feel that way. I hope I can with my child, of course. It’s something I need to work on.

Even since I was in early pregnancy, she has made reference to ‘our’ baby and I feel uncomfortable about it. I’ve just sent her a photo of the nursery and she replied saying ‘looks lovely, all ready for our little baby’.

AIBU to feel uncomfortable at her saying ‘our’ baby over ‘your’ baby time and time again? Is this normal?

I'm 40 and a couple of my old class mates are now grandmothers and, judging from their social media, they too have gone a loopy, as in excited, with it.

My mum is dead now so there's no point in me making a huge issue about what she did years ago. Yes it was weird, I called her out on it at the time but what am I gonna do about it now? She was a bit weird but she was a good mum and grandmother.

YANBU. It's not harmless. This is weird and possessive behaviour, and it's indicative of deep psychological trauma. For some reason this generation can't let go of being in control and being at the centre of the family unit.

The quicker she explicitly understands that she's a grandmother to this child, not the mother, the better for all of you.

My childless/free aunt made a big point of saying "he's mine, he's mine" when my son was born which I found really weird tbh. People are weird like this with babies as it redefines the family heirarchies/structures and they find it disconcerting. They can dress it up as excitement/love, but there's definitely some power-play going on. It reminds me of the sort of behaviour you'd get in a gorilla enclosure when the alphas start contesting.

Yanbu totally personal totally depends on relationship

They're not trying to claim him or her as their own. They're not claiming any part of them. It's just an expression of love and belonging in the emotional sense. Your child is both genetically and emotionally part of your wider family. No-one is trying to own them.

You have no idea @saraclara - she went on about adopting my first child from me because it was a surprise but much wanted pregnancy. There is a huge degree of ownership and power play in her words.

So what do you want her to say? ....how’s my baby grandson?

Well yes. That is technically correct and more appropriate.

I think there is potential here for your mum to over-step with baby, so take it as a sign that you need to be assertive with what you want from the get go. So she doesn't get to stay over for the first few weeks, have the baby for sleepovers when it's not even going to be 6 months etc. And if he refers to herself as mummy, nip it in the bud straightaway.

she went on about adopting my first child from me

That's one HELL of a drip-feed @ourbabynotyourbaby. If you'd said that in the OP...

It could be worse my mum constantly referred to her self as mummy to my eldest when he was born. We fell out big time for a while because she could not get why I was annoyed at her.

@saraclara I didn’t say that, that was another poster.

[quote ourbabynotyourbaby]@saraclara I didn’t say that, that was another poster.[/quote]
I'm so sorry. Yes, I completely misread. Apologies.