Am I just not that much of a mother bear or whatever they call it ?

[Sistaas]

I've been spending a few days with my sister and her family..

I noticed some significant differences in our parenting styles. Her kids are a little older but I feel like she's always been like this and I just don't have the same instinct and I'm wondering whether I'm missing something and should be more like my sis or if she's OTT.

I'll give a couple of examples. If anyone even tries to reprimands her kids in any way, she gets really pissed off. For example she told me about how at nursery the teacher told her that her DD hadn't been kind one particular time and they'd had to have words with her about her behaviour. Standard stuff. My sis was so angry about this inside. She told me she thought 'you fucking bitch ' about the teacher for criticising her child.

Sometimes her kids get into the usual squabbles at nursery and this makes her so mad at the children. ' it's not ok! These kids are animals '.. it's just normal nursery stuff in my opinion. Nothing extreme. I get told that my child has been in a scuffle about sharing and I just tell the teacher we will work on kind hands at home. It doesn't make me angry or outrage me if a teacher says my child behaved less than favourably.

Well, unless it's constant ( which it was at one of her nurseries so I took my child out ). But the occasional ' this happened today ' from a teacher, doesn't make me angry.

Same with if I say anything to her children, like please can you put this down, or please remember to close the door. Minor stuff. She's always right there to defend the slightest thing. I don't have a go at her kids or anything like that. Just minor safety things. ' oh she didn't know she needs to shut the door ' 'ok that's fine but I just reminded her to please do it '...

Yet when it comes to my kids, there's a lot of nasty talk about how they behave. If we reversed that, she would go nuts.

Also just generally out and about when someone accidentally bumps her kid, she gets really annoyed.

Something happened today at soft play where my DD tried to touch a baby in a pram ( not on ) and the parent forcefully removed her arm. My DD held her arm and said it hurts after the parent did it. I didn't love it. I know my DD did something wrong there of course. But I think the parent could have swatted her hand away more gently. The parent grabbed her arm really hard. I didn't do anything about it. But my sister would go absolutely nuts if someone did that to her children. The fact remains that the parent probably was accidentally forceful, but could have said sorry for hurting your arm to mu DD, but can't touch my baby. That's what I would have done. I would have felt bad if I hurt a child in the process or protecting my own.

Anyway, it made me think that maybe I need to stand up for my children more. I could have said to the parent ' I'm sorry my child tried to touch your baby and I was too far to stop her myself , but please take care because you were quite rough and hurt her in the process and you don't seem to care '. ( I apologised for my DD ) and the parent just walked on.

How old is your child and do you have more than one?
Do you stand next to them at all times?
This response doesn’t really cover the reality of looking after young children especially if you have more than one to watch for. They can move fast and a good parent shouldn’t be helicoptering 9
over them at all times.
Also, interaction with other children, adults and even babies is good for all concerned. I just don’t get the angst about not allowing anyone to come within 4 feet of a baby whilst out in public.
I do often wonder where the balance has gone from our society.

3 ds less than 5 years between them all.
I didn't say it was easy - when I've been to soft play I don't expect to sit down. Either to prevent them injuring themselves/being injured or doing the injuring. In amongst the various scrapes they have all got themselves being in danger of poking other people babies isn't one of them.

Your sister sounds awful and she isn’t doing her children any favours. Where are they going to learn respect for others and responsibility for their behaviour? I dread to think about the sort of selfish pricks they’ll grow into when they’re teens and adults.

As for the arm grabbing. I would’ve grabbed my own child’s arm away if they were about to touch a stranger’s baby. The grabber was just instinctively being protective. You should’ve been watching and preventing your child from doing something inappropriate. The fault for that incident lies with you.

The father was only concerned because he wanted the baby to stay asleep. It's a small soft play. My DD and another child had tried to help the man when he came in, by opening the door and trying to help him manoeuvre the pram. I wasn't far at all and neither was the other child's mum. We were all watching and thought it was sweet that the kids were trying to be helpful. Then the kids started to try to look at the baby. At which point the man said ' be careful she's sleeping ' ' everybody be quiet '. The kids then started whispering, saying, ' be quiet ' and I told my DD as well to come away from the pram and started walking towards them. But I was pretty much right there the entire time. I just didn't expect her to try and reach over and try to touch the toy hanging on the bassinet. I was actually totally watching the situation and thought it was all under control. I suppose kids are just unpredictable.

This is a tiny soft play and adults / children and babies are constantly interacting with each other.

He shouldn't have grabbed her with so much force that it would hurt her. That was unnecessary, but I don't think he did with force on purpose, which is why I didn't say anything. Kids have also tried to come close to my kids when they were babies and I never hurt them while trying to get them to move away.

You sister is overreacting massively and that'll cause issues with school if it hasn't already. You're reacting proportionately to nursery, but I would say under reacting to your sister. I would start intervening when she criticises your children. That sounds really unreasonable of her, and not great for them to hear you going along with her negative comments.

But to the man, your DD is a random child and would have no idea if she was going for the top of the pram or for the baby. There are so many valid reasons why parents do not want unknown children randomly touching their new baby. I’m sorry but this was unacceptable.

@MorningOclock you don't need to be sorry.

I already said my DD did the wrong thing, right from the beginning. But the man grabbed her too hard. He also fucked up. He should have said sorry when he saw her crying and grabbing her arm from what he did. I said sorry to him and he just walked off. Not cool.

"For someone who can't even handle being told your DC have had a tricky time sharing at nursery, you sure seem fine criticising mine"

Your sister is way OTT, none of our children are perfect and I'd hate for nursery not to feel able to tell me what my DC is struggling with.

However, you are your child's advocate and you should not let them hear her talking like that about them unless they are also hearing you have their backs. For me, this is worse to be passive about. The person who grabbed her arm was most likely a reflex reaction to someone getting close to their baby. Not ok, but also immediately over and no further risk. Consistently hearing your sisters criticism, while also being shown that her children do no wrong in her eyes, will be far more upsetting to them over time.

I can still remember the resentment I felt towards my cousins 30 years ago because it was obvious to me that they were everyone's favourites. We have no relationship beyond saying hello if we bump into each other. It's a shame, it wasn't their fault, it just stopped me wanting to be around them.

I would have been raging absolutely raging mad if someone did that to my dd arm im sorry no way would I have let that go it would not have ended well even the thought of an adult hurting my child arm gets my back up let alone this actually happening I would have gone crazy your sis does sound very defensive for minor things but that incident at softplay im sorry you need to defend your child !!!! 🤯

I think there’s a a half way point; your sister sounds like she doesn’t think her DC can do any wrong which I think is problematic and causes issues at school. However I personally would have said to the parent at soft play that it wasn’t on to hurt my DD in that situation; while touching the baby isn’t on it wasn’t exactly going to do any harm

I think I'm very similar to you OP. Your sis is out of order she is the kind of parent who makes teachers lives hell! I wouldn't have challenged the man either it's not in my nature and I've often wondered if I'm too passive. He used excessive force but probably as a knee jerk reaction and its not nice but your child learned an important lesson. You getting into a spat with the man would have achieved nothing.

@Mummy2mybear I feel exactly the same!!

Most people wouldn't go mad in this type of situation regardless of what they say. Kicking off in front of young dc isn't the answer