MIL says she doesn’t want baby at funeral but DH does

[KristinaYang]

FIL recently peacefully died, after short illness. MIL was very reluctant to have baby (11 months) round to visit during this time but encouraged older child age 11 to visit lots. We went with the flow and visited with one child, no children, both children etc so a real mix and we thought that was ok-no negative comments.

DH and I had previously noticed that in laws were/are not as interested in baby as they were/are with older child but had put it down to their older age this time round, plus then FIL becoming unwell. MIL has also made some negative comments about baby eg comparing them to sibling and saying they are given too much attention etc. I’m making this point as I wonder if that is clouding our thoughts a bit here?

Funeral is tomorrow. MIL has today said baby is not welcome as she doesn’t want them to steal the show. She is shocked we even considered it.
We don’t have any childcare for baby (though I could stay at home) but then older child would be alone at funeral as DH is reading a lot of the service. Older child was close to FIL and will be upset understandably.

DH says to all go as originally planned but I am on the fence, MIL expressly says no. I feel stuck in the middle, and I really don’t want to make MIL’s day worse, but my loyalty is to my DH. WWYD?

YANBU- Stick with DH
YABU- Follow MIL’s wishes

Not a big fan of your grandchildren then?

@LetsPlayShadowlands

”E.g. saying the other grandchild MUST go. What if he didn't want to?”

I guess he’d get to see you can’t always get what you want

That's what you took from that post?!

Yes, that poster thinks children are 'screaming brats' who cause disruption at lots of places and she knows this because her own GC.

Perhaps. I don't have grandchildren and I've seen plenty of screaming brats disrupt gatherings their parents should really have had the nous not to bring them to.
Or at least have had the grace to remove them when the disruptive behaviour began.
They were probably thick enough to imagine their kids were delighting all who had to listen to them too.

I've got 6 GC, none of them are screaming brats and have all behaved beautifully at weddings and funerals. However, the OPs child is a baby and it is really nasty to say a baby is a screaming brat.

I really don’t think ‘brat’ is a fair description of an 11 month old baby, though, as it implies bad behaviour and this isn’t true of babies. If we were talking about a 2-3 year old then fair enough.

Crying babies can be a huge distraction, obviously, so I do see where the MIL is coming from, and posters here saying that it can be disruptive if parents don’t take them outside.

Describing your grand kids as screaming brats is not very nice grandma

How do you know that? Maybe she actually meant what she said and she wants all the attention on her and she isn't prepared to share it with a baby.

Of course following it with her having no connection with her own GC gives us a pretty clear picture of her. Maybe she doesn't understand biology because clearly she does have a connection even if it is one that doesn't interest her.

Not only from personal experience. Also from observation. Some posters don't seem to understand that it's not obligatory to dote over babies. Nor that certain situations such as funerals are inappropriate for a coo-fest
Like an earlier poster, I too would have appreciated the honesty of MIL's comment that she had no interest and felt no connection with the baby GC. Is it better that she fakes it?
Apart from the fact that she is now 10 years on from the first GC being born, none of us know how her own health is. As I remarked a lot earlier in regards to the FIL, she may well feel there is no point in expending emotional energy over a child that she will not see growing up.
People who have witnessed the dying of a long-term partner mostly understand that you go through a period when there are no normal emotions left. The tank is empty. Sometimes it can refilled. Not always, though. Life changes when you finally understand that you too are sitting in death's waiting room.

I think shes right.

Would it be OK if someone else called her GC screaming brats?

Unless you're MIL, it appears.

🤦‍♀️

The marvellous thing about babies is how portable they are, if one starts crying just move it outside

Another astounding post. WTF does it take for people to understand that this woman is under the most enormous pressure and is going through the worst time in her life ? I think it’s utterly disgraceful to suggest that she meant she wanted all the attention on her - that’s not what it’s about and it’s not what she said - for anyone thinking rationally and not determined to see the worst in people, it’s clear she meant that she didn’t want anything to detract the focus from her husband - remember him ? The bloke in the coffin ? And it’s actually not about ‘sharing’ it with anyone else either. Everyone at the funeral will experience the loss according to their relationship with the deceased. And for the widow it will be about doing her best to make sure her last act of love - planning the funeral service - goes as perfectly as possible. If you can’t see that, shame on you.

@Dylanesque I agree. Just look at how MN reacts to childfree weddings - B&G endlessly called selfish for not wanting to invite a random child they’ve met once to their day that they’ve spent thousands on.

I’ve been at two funerals where a toddler was allowed to run riot - in one case literally running around the speech-givers ankles, in another standing on the pew thumping his hands up and down and shouting - parents said at the wake that they so happy that their DC were there to help the widow cope with the difficulties of the day, and cheer everyone else up. Completely ridiculous and utterly insensitive but that’s many parents nowadays.

No one would care if the baby did cry.

It isn't that simple, @LetsPlayShadowlands. I can't speak to the experience of being widowed, but I gave the eulogy at my dad's funeral. I was holding so much stuff in on that day (my mum was completely in bits and needed a lot of support) that if a baby had started crying midway through it, I wouldn't have been able to cope with trying to battle through over the top of that, and I suspect it would have added to my mum's stress burden too. (Especially as a lot of parents don't seem to have the courtesy to take crying children out of that kind of event, 'He/she's just as entitled to be here as everyone else,' etc etc.) That's not about minding if the baby cried, it's about added stress.

Let me be clear that I'm not blaming babies or small children in any way if they cry at these occasions, it's what small children do, especially if they're in an environment that is unfamiliar and perhaps disconcerting to them (and this is another thing - those advocating for babies at funerals are coming off a bit oblivious that it might be upsetting for the baby). It's the way some parents act that I have an issue with.

And as far as babies 'lightening the mood', not only do I agree with a pp that that's not appropriate at a funeral, but also I know that if I'd then been expected to coo over a baby at the wake (as women are always expected to do in a way that men just aren't, let's not beat about the bush here) it would have taxed my stress levels and made it even harder to hold everything in and be strong for my mum. And again I think it would have placed an unfair stress burden on her too.

Sorry, but this is the biggest load of shit posted so far.

Listen to what the woman said, she doesn't want the baby stealing the show, she has no connection to her GC. That's pretty astounding. Not sure why people are so determined that she didn't mean what she said, she didn't say she didn't want the baby to make a noise, perfectly easy thing to say.

Stop making excuses for her, she should have some compassion for her son, it really isn't all about her, he has lost his father and he deserved some consideration. The baby didn't have to be anywhere near her and who would want to take their baby near a woman who says things like that but she didn't care about how her own child felt.

If she was my MIL she wouldn't have to put up with my children stealing the show any more as she wouldn't be seeing them.

The trouble is, many people don't.

And in this case they’re portable enough to be left in someone else’s care if the widow doesn’t want it at the funeral at all.

I took the ‘stealing the show’ line to mean that your baby would take focus away from the deceased, not MIL.
i hope it all goes well OP.

It's a very Victorian attitude isn't it, all this children can't be at funerals? Harps back to 'children must be seen and not heard.' If a baby is crying then take them out immediately obviously but other than that I think it's odd and to be honest kids should get used to funerals young imo , they're like weddings, part of life.

Has it crossed your mind that the reason she has no connection with the baby is that she may have spent the entire 11 months of it’s short lifetime so far, caring for a very sick husband and trying to come to terms with the prospect of losing him ? And I’m not making excuses for anyone. I’ve been there and I know how hard it is to focus and to express yourself properly about anything, when all you really want to do is die too and be with your loved one. If MIL is taking medication such as tranquillisers to help her through it, that will only serve to muddy her thinking even more. So if she said anything that could be misinterpreted I would hope that the people around her would make allowances and maybe after the funeral, in the weeks to come when she’s thinking more clearly, it could be talked about and sorted out. The funeral and the days immediately before it are not the time to tackle it.