to be pissed off that my MIL is annoyed that my 15mo can talk?

[Spottedmirror]

My 15mo is becoming a chatty little thing. Lots of new words by the day and happily starting to sing the odd word on a song “quick, quick, quick” in Polly had a Dolly or “inkle!” in Twinkle Twinkle, that kind of thing.

LO is our PFB after over a decade of trying so we are VERY proud, but I’m very careful not to be too overbearing (I know how wearing that is on other people) whilst still remaining encouraging. Lots of “yes that’s right shoes” when she points at shoes and whatever else - surely just normal parenting?
(and if anything I think I consciously keep my voice down when parenting outside our home because I’m always so aware that I might hurt someone who wants a baby but isn’t where we are now).

SIL is coming back from Australia for an extended stay. We have yet to meet her little one who is 3 (due to being mid-miscarriage when they were last here). Her 3yo is a very active and happy child by all accounts but as yet doesn’t speak.

MIL is very annoyed that my LO can speak and is picking things up rapidly. Each time we FaceTime she is outright annoyed that my child is chatting away with us.
She sighs, rolls her eyes and says things like “she doesn’t stop talking!” and makes snide remarks like “maybe Mummy talks too much!” or “mummy should turn your pram round so you two aren’t always chatting!”

On Boxing Day via FaceTime she hinted that when we visit her house and DIL is there, we should try not to encourage our child to talk.
She was insinuating that our 15 month old was showing off.

I understand that BIL and DIL are possibly concerned about potential issues but that shouldn’t be taken out on our small child.

I was a bit shocked last night by the hints on the phone call and I was working last night so I’ve stewed over it a bit.
Surely I’m not unreasonable feel pissed off by this?

EDIT: should add if I wasn’t out the door to work as the call was happening, I’d have probably told her to repeat what she had said.

Our DGS has a mum whose primary language is Portuguese. Her English is perfect. He did seem a bit slow to start talking compared to our other DGCs. It seems that being brought up to be bilingual can result in children’s delayed speech at first, then once they get going they race ahead. This was certainly true of DGS.
OP’s DN has three languages to deal with. Patience will sort out any perceived language delay.

How did it go?

I hope it went ok Op!

What a thing to be annoyed about! Would she prefer the child to have a disability or developmental delay and not be able to speak?

Her behaviour is just absurd and rude.

Maybe there's some kind of jealousy - I was always jealous of people whose babies or toddlers napped and was guilty of the odd barbed remark about the amount of benadryl and cough mixture certain parents must be going through, but when it's a different generation whose children are all grown you wouldn't think it would still be a touchy issue if hers were late talkers.

How did it go, OP?

How did it go OP?

I can highly recommend an episode from Bluey called Baby Race - it shines a light on how parents feel about their babies hitting their milestones, and how it doesn’t really matter. It’s so good - get your mil and sil to watch it!!

Tell her to get stuffed and you can’t help it if you have such an advanced toddler, but everyone in your family was the same, so it must come from your side 😀😀😀

There's also no evidence of Einstein joking about it himself.

The tale of him saying the soup is too hot and then being asked why he never spoke and he replied until now everything was in order is an apocryphal anecdote.

The better evidence came from his sister that says he spoke hesitantly but slowly, but there's no reliable evidence to say what age Einstein was when he started speaking, or that he himself acknowledged this.

Biographer Walter Isaacson who had access to the families documentation and archives treated the soup story as folklore rather than fact.

He may well have been later than average to speak, but there's no evidence to say this was a profound delay, but the story sticks because it allows vulnerable parents to cling to hope that their non speaking children will one day suddenly speak, and be academically genius too but it is a false kindness to say things like Einstein didn't speak until much later.

Congratulations on your cute LO!! One of mine was an early talker and wouldn’t shut up. You’re a good mummy bear and don’t let your horrible MIL tell you differently. I’d keep my distance if I were you and protect my precious baby at all costs. Let her carry on with trying to equalise things - I hate to put my neck out there but a child not talking at 3 is a bit strange. Some kids are more quiet than others so don’t know how big the discrepancy is between your sister‘s child and yours but no defense to be rude to you and your family.

This is fucking nuts. My PFB is also a massive chatterbox at 14 months and I would be fuming if anyone suggested that wasn’t something to enjoy or respond to. I’m not there parading him round like a freak, but I would never not encourage his enthusiasm. That’s truly ridiculous. Some people need psychological help SO BADLY 🥲🥲🥲

Horrified that this 'old nasty 'suggested mummy" turn the pram away so that shes not talking to you all the time" She suggests sensory deprivation. Did she do that to your SIL do you know? If so,maybe SIL has copied this and thats why her 3 yr old is not verbal yet. Language has to be modelled for a little one to speak. You should consider meeting SIL somewhere away from her DM. Keep your little one away from your MIL too unless you are with her.

FAMILIES. I'm so sorry, @Spottedmirror
I wouldn't have been going near SIL, DN, MIL at all. MIL needs some bloody manners. Your poor DH sounds as though he had a hell of a time.

Honestly, as I get older, I withdraw more & more from people because of things like this. Why are so many folk just STUPID?

Totally agree my teen is 15 now and severely autistic and non verbal
I have long since accepted it is how it is
But in the early days I would cling to stories like Einstein speaking late and other stories of late speakers and everything working out okay in the end it can be cruel to give false hope.

“mummy should turn your pram round so you two aren’t always chatting!”

That's awful isn't it?

Even when mine were turned away I would chat to them.

I despair when I see parents engrossed with their phones & ignoring their kids.

Apparently I used to follow mum around talking to (at?) her.

She would ask if my tongue was tired & I'd stick it out to show her that no it wasn't😊

She could never understand that all my school reports said how quiet I was!

Thats horrible. I had a very critical mother (my young child used to say 'why is gran saying mean things to you' in front of her which made her check herself a bit) and my Stepmom was also vile to me and my child when they were younger. She competed with him on things, and showed off her knowledge on topics. She also criticised his drawings of dinosaurs and dragons (he was good at drawing and enjoyed it). She also didnt like me much but thats a whole other story. Anyway I know this type of behaviour. She is jealous and showing her dissapointment and concern for other childs development by putting down your daughters development. There are a few options in my experience for handling this

• Agree with your husband that everything she does to put your daughter down you will repeat in an exaggerated way to draw attention to it. Depending on her character this may or may not work. She may enjoy the attention which you dont want to encourage her with
• You or your husband speak to her about her behaviour - nb this never worked in my experience
• Avoid contact with your daughter to protect her. The older your daughter gets the more aware she will become of the disapproval of her grandparent for her development. Even at this young age she will be picking up on it though she wont understand it. You always need to protect your daughter from this woman as she does not love her and does not have her best interests at heart. Always remember how she has behaved towards her. I would not trust her in her sole care ever, and restrict her contact with her. Maybe combine restricting contact with speaking to her about the impact of her behaviour towards your child.

My daughter has a medical condition herself which makes life hard for us and most importantly her. In that element of life, their child is fine and for that I’m just grateful.

Going by the rest of your posts, I'm not surprised you've said this about your daughter in response to someone telling you to show some compassion...

To be fair, since the child - your DN (not that you call him that) - is only 3, lives in Australia, and you've never met him, you are not fully going to know his medical condition. If his current lack of speech does turn out to be because he's autistic and non-verbal, his health issues in total could be quite great, and has hard if not harder than on his family than his daughter's medical condition is on you. Not that it's top trumps.

I do think it's a shame your DH books a holiday so you can avoid his SIL rather than him being upfront with her. Although the reason you haven't met her son is because you were sadly "mid-miscarriage" last time she came over, and not because you booked a holiday.

Your daughter sounds very cute - focus on enjoying her and shut down MIL if she says something stupid. If it wasn't for being kind to SIL (who frankly sounds like she may not deserve it) every time MIL said something condescending about my child I'd answer something like "oh, that's strange you feel that way, we are constantly getting complements on how charming/delightful/engaging she is". I'd also suggest that you think very carefully about what environment you want your daughter to grow up in and whether your MIL is too toxic to be around her.

If she thinks a 15-month-old is 'showing off' then she's thick as fuck and you shouldn't worry about anything she says.

Oh - I like this!!

All strength to your DH, OP.

Your MIL’s behaviour is bad enough but for it to be an extension of her parenting of him is very painful.

I would be being very calm and direct with her and saying you have heard much criticism of your Dd due to her progress with language.

Say you yourself never compare one child to another, they are all to be treasured equally and all will reach their achievements in their own time. And ask why she is so critical of your DD’s language development.

Because her daughter is her golden child.

She's probably really worried about her other grandchild and is finding your child hitting those development milestones really confronting.
My child needed speech therapy and is neuro-diverse and there is a bit of a road to acceptance while the assessment process goes on, sometimes grandparents can be even more resistant to the suggestion there is something going on and I can completely see a grandmother in denial saying "x is just talking loads because mother is a chatterbox" while deep down being really worried.
As long as nobody is nasty to your child in any way I'd just let these comments go. A 3 year old not talking at all probably has a disability and it will all emerge eventually.

@Spottedmirror I broke off contract with my Mum because she's a covert narcissist, when it was just impacting me I made excuses and couldn't see it. When she was disrespecting my DW and I realised she'd behave the same way with my kids, putting works in their heads, I cut all contact. It may sound extreme but in retrospect it was inevitable.

I think this is a situation where you feel relieved that your baby is meeting all the developmental mile stones and recognise that the need to protect her daughter's feelings has caused some misguided bonkers requests.

Never heard anything so ridiculous, your MIL needs to check herself