DP nephew and our new baby

[Girlmummyxox]

Hello

Opinions have been mixed about this so pleade be kind if im being unreasonable. I dont have much experince with autism and its my first baby. So DP nephew is 19 and severely autistic. I say severely as he relies on parents for everything, cannot look after himself and has the mind of a child. I mean no offence by any of this.

He has a bigger brother (not autisitc) and three younger cousins. My little girl is the youngest in the family by quite a bit (dp started family later in life).

Let me say first that nephew is a lovely boy. I genuinely love listening to his movie facts and hearing how passionate he is about games.

Anyway, since our little girl was born (5 months now), he has been.. i cant think of any other word, obsessed with her. Whenever we visit or meet up he has to be the person holding her. When he holds her, he rubs his face all over her and strokes her body. Ive taken her off him before because I find it all a bit creepy. A word me and DP have bickered about. His family encourage him holding her all the time and take lots of pictures of this. DP thinks its because he is unlikely to have a family of his own and they like seeing how happy and gentle he is with a baby. Whenever he gets too close I have started telling him to give her space and sometimes ive taken her back. He has started telling his mum that im giving him into trouble. He sits and just stares at her while being inches from her face. And sometimes kisses her all over, me and dp tell.him to stop. He also always tries taking her from my arms to "show her something" in another room which is usually a laser light or disco ball (she loves colours and movement) but i refuse to let him take her and go with him, while holding her. Why should I? He is a vulnerable adult. As if im letting him take her in another room, alone.
He has now started saying "does she love me??" If we say yes, he gets happy and tries rubbing faces and whispering "i love you too, pretty girl". I dont know, I feel awful as I type all of this but its weird in my opinion.

My issue? Well its crossing boundaries, also I dont want to enable behaviour and id like to set boundaries and expectations now. If my daughter came to me in a few years time telling me another adult was doing this, id be furious. Dp said he understands why I think what I think but his nephew lives in another world and means no harm. He said he doesn't feel the need to speak to his sister as it'll cause offence and what would he even say. Id like him to tell her that she needs to speak to her son about boundaries because it isn't okay.

She has gotten to the age now where she doesn't like being held all the time but this makes him annoyed as she "isn't close to him" he tries to force it until I tell him no. He doesn't like cries and will put his fingers in his ears and shouts "lalalalala" until he is ushered out of the room. They have offered to look after our daughter on so many occasions to let me and my partner go out but its just isnt going to happen.

Partner thinks im unreasonable. Am I?

Thans

As would I

Use any language you want about this nephew, but people will call it nasty if it comes across that way 🤷‍♀️

Clearly it's subjective though. Plenty of people don't think it's nasty.

It isn't an autism bashing thread. Im sorry to the posters who feel offended. I'm looking out for my baby and it isn't okay. Its more so for the future. I want to set boundaries now for a few reasons:

1. i dont want DD to think its okay for any adult to do that. Why should i tell my child, dont let an adult do xyz to you but its oksy to let your cousin, he is autistic.
2. so it isn't a shock to everyone if said in future. Eg, why did we allow before but now havr an issue with it?!
3. to make a stand that his behaviour isn't okay and state what our boundaries are. If they dont like, which is their right, okay but they dont see DD as much and nephew certainly doesn't get as much time with her.

Im incredibly annoyed as he has also asked his mum for my DD to have sleepovers. Over my dead body.

Yes that's right. Peeple see the disability not the sexually mature male or female. Which is ironic given the posters criticising OP are calling HER ableist.

My mum had to sit our family friends daughter and her boyfriend, both with severe learning disabilities, and talk about sex and how babies were made and what contraception was. She was late 20's but mental age of about 10/12. Was quite keen on the idea of having a baby until mum told it hurt a lot. Her stepmum wanted nothing to do with it and Dad was just mortally embarrased to realise his daughter was sexually active so thye'd just ignore the issue.

And I was inappropriately touched as a pre-teen by a sexually excited, unsupervised teenage boy who sounds very similar to DP's nephew in capacity and behaviour. Pretending autistic or learning disabled people don't have sexual feelings and not taking sensible precautions about that is doing everyone a disservice.

Not that this is currently necessarily the case with this nephew but OP is right to draw boundaries about physical contact with her baby and enforce them. Maybe don't use the word 'creepy', to avoid the offended reactions from her DP and say 'not acceptable' instead. Because it isn't.

Are we now at a stage whereby we have to put our vulnerable babies in danger lest we hurt someone's feelings?

And plenty do 🤷‍♀️

Plenty of us with sen children who are labelled 'weird' and 'creepy' during childhood

No-one has said not to set boundaries and this thread has lots of helpful suggestions on how to do that, as it needs doing

He's an adult man. Not a child.

If a man who you knew but didnt have autism, did the things ive listed to your child, would you think it was creepy?

Yes he is 19, with the understanding of someone younger

He isnt a random man but the brother of the ops husband who has to hear his wife calling his little brother creepy

Tough for any sen parent to hear as its applied to kids and adults alike

Oh fab another ableist thread, with ableist posters. It’s been a minute since we had one of these.

Apparently so.
I don't blame OP for not being keen on the nephew. Who would like someone who was behaving in an unsettling way towards their baby?

I'm sure it is tough to hear, but that's the reality sometimes.

He's the nephew I think, not the younger brother.

I'm not surprised considering the thread that was deleted earlier today.

Partners nephew. His sisters son.

Yes, i'm not a fan of men in general so theres no need for any man to be near my kid, and i would lose my shit

But if my nephew had autism and wanted to be close to the baby, I would insist on supervised access during the visit, lasting one or two minutes and thats it. No further contact as it isnt appropriate and I want to protect my girl

I wouldnt say to his brother that he is a creep

I understand your concern very much and even agree - i just think you should speak about him differently and you might get more people on your side

Edit, youve said its your husbands nephew, I got confused when reading

No

Someone being unable to socialise appropriately due to a disability doesnt make them worthy of being labelled a creep.

I have felt really mixed about saying he is creepy. But these replies have made me see that it is his behaviour not him.
I have included him in things but fed up of going over and having baby taken from me while that happens. It is werid. I dont blame him. I blame his parents.

Pushing the pram with or without you there?

Plus I didn't once say he is a creep. Youre saying that. His behaviour is creepy and not okay.

I have to say that that actually occurred to me, too.

I wouldnt want my baby taken off me either! I would never allow that!

Yanbu at all in that aspect, we need to protect our girls as that gender has a lot of problems with it 😒😒

Maybe whats happened is you havent wanted to offend anyone and its led to resentment when actually the adults should've acted way sooner as its gone too far! xx

The reality is that he has the body of a full grown man and his behaviour is going to come across as creepy. Unfortunate, but true.

This is actually a brilliant idea. Then he has his baby and you have yours.