aibu to think grandparents are just expected to know their place now?

[justme39]

honestly feeling quite upset and not sure if i’m being unreasonable or not.

my ds and dil had their first baby a few months ago and ever since it’s just been rule after rule after rule. no kissing baby, no picking him up straight away if he cries because theyre trying to teach self soothing, dont call him my baby because apparently thats boundary crossing now 🙄

i’ve kept my mouth shut mostly because i dont want drama but yesterday i honestly felt humiliated. baby was asleep on me and i kissed the top of his head without even thinking and dil immediately goes we’re not doing that in this really sharp voice in front of everyone. atmosphere after was awful.

i do feel there’s a lack of respect if i’m honest. i’ve raised 3 children perfectly well, all grown adults with good jobs and houses etc so its not like i dont know what im doing. yet if i mention he looks cold or maybe he’s overtired suddenly im undermining.

another thing that upset me was photos. i put ONE picture on facebook after he was born because family were asking and you’d think i’d leaked government documents. ds rang me asking me to remove it because dil was really anxious. i did remove it but i wont lie i cried after because it just feels like nothing i do is right.

i’ve also offered loads of help. meals, cleaning, having baby so they can nap etc but apparently they want to figure things out themselves. then dil posts online about how exhausted she is all the time. i honestly dont know what we’re meant to do anymore as grandparents except buy things and sit there quietly.

now ds hardly messages unless she’s included as well which never used to happen

aibu to think younger parents are so obsessed with boundaries and gentle parenting they forget other people have feelings too?

Instead of focusing on your son’s reaction, you should be focusing on your own behaviour. YOU caused this. You have shown yourself as unable to follow simple rules and then you minimise your actions when you break them. I suspect this started way before the baby was born too.

Accept what your DS and DIL have told you. Reflect on it, and vow to do better. Then, DO BETTER.

This is very true for me too, especially the bit about parents pushing boundaries and judging. They didn’t even offer to take us home from hospital the day DS was born, just went to a different city to do their own thing instead. In laws picked us up and we stayed for the day so they could care for baby as I had gone through a 17 hour labour and gotten no sleep. Parents never offer to babysit and the only time they did, they kept texting me with complaints about how hard it was and to come back early in morning. In laws regularly have our children overnight and will pick them up for us if needed, will invite us round and cook for us, always give me fabulous gifts based on my interests. They are so kind and never criticise whereas I regularly get called names by my parents and they’ve never even bothered celebrating my birthday.

She's not wrong. Once again your focus is on how hurt you are and how unfair it is for you, rather than reflecting on your own behaviour.

When you apologise and then say 'none of it was meant badly', you undermine the apology. You're not taking responsibility. It's just 'I'm sorry but...'

after reading some replies last night i decided to send dil a text saying sorry if id upset her because genuinely none of it was meant badly.

So a non apology followed by an excuse?

posting online was wrong, you had a simple instruction to follow, and you let your excitement run away with you and disregarded their wants, that was wrong. But the other things like asking if she has enough support etc isn’t wrong.

leave them to cool down, you’ve apologised, and clearly you don’t expect to be left alone wjth the baby, but maybe make a concerted effort to respect their wishes, and follow what they want to do with their baby. Now is clearly a pivotal time for them, and it’s time to put their wants and needs first over your feelings. You sound lovely and like you want to be an involved and loving grandmother, and it’s time you show them that, not that you will do what you want to do regardless of their feelings, which sounds a bit like what you have done in some circumstances

Why can't mothers pass on stuff to babies then?

she said the facebook photo proved i dont respect boundaries and that i have a pattern of doing what i want and then acting innocent after.

Sounds like she’s right. You don’t respect their boundaries do you?

then she said she doesnt trust me alone with baby because she thinks id ignore their rules if i disagreed with them.

I don’t blame her. You have already proved you ignore their rules. So is on you that she doesn’t trust you alone with the baby. Your actions have led to this.

“never thought my own son would speak to me like this.”

I guess he never thought his mum would be so disrespectful to post a picture on social media after he asked her not to.

i have a pattern of doing what i want and then acting innocent after.

She's not wrong is she?

then she said she doesnt trust me alone with baby because she thinks id ignore their rules if i disagreed with them.

More than likely!

She has your measure & you don't like it!

You absolutely don’t kiss baby’s you can Google why, you can give it rvs or herpies virus. with their immune system so low your risking the baby’s life they are all given this information and told not to let people kiss the baby in the hospitals now along with washing hands and sanitizers. You had already been told.
They don’t want you posting pictures you may know who your friends are but they don’t know them all or where the pictures are ending up just don’t do it.
and also don’t call it your baby it’s extremely possessive and hard to understand as a new mum with all the hormones it’s not your baby it’s their baby. And not picking him up they are trying to see if he’s actually ready to wake up and teaching him to resettle through sleep patterns, not sleep training. Sounds like they have done reasonable research on sleep.
Have some basic respect and do as your told or don’t visit the baby your making their life difficult right now and not listening to the boundaries that they have set for good reasons.
If you continue to act like this they will distance themselves from you, If this is not a reverse you sound a nightmare.

to be honest i think some people on here are being unbelievably nasty and deliberately twisting everything into something sinister.

apparently now offering help means i am manipulative and toxic. god help any older woman reading this who actually cares enough to be involved.

yes i made mistakes. ive admitted that repeatedly and told dil i was in the wrong. but the way some of you are talking you’d think i was putting the baby in danger rather than just doing normal things a grandmother would!

what really hurts is this attitude now where grandparents are expected to have zero opinions, zero emotional attachment and just sit quietly waiting to be granted permission to exist around their own family.

and honestly i do think younger parents sometimes weaponise boundaries so nobody can ever question them or disagree with them about anything without it becoming some huge betrayal. and obviously an apology isnt good enough

i apologised sincerely and instead got back a list of everything apparently wrong with my personality and parenting. im sorry but that was cruel. i will remember this when being asked for favours in a few years as we all know how hard toddlers are!

No you didn't "apologize sincerely".
You did a "sorry you got offended" self serving "apology".

Wonder if there's some more back story for the DILs perspective. My MIL was quite overbearing when my first was born, and she did lots of relatively "small" things which cumulatively felt really disrespectful over time. And I certainly became more snappy and less tolerant the 10th time she called my baby by the name she'd decided on (a "family" name) rather than the name we had chosen, or after a day of her grabbing the baby and running off to another part of the house, etc. These are probably things I would have just laughed or shrugged off if our relationship had been better and there had been a basis of warmth and mutual trust and respect, but there wasn't. Our relationship is now very arms length, and I still get very irritated by her undermining me now my kid is a preschooler.

I will also say that I had terrible PPA and my MILs presence made that much worse, but it probably fed into how reactive I was.

Perhaps you had a great relationship before the baby came along, and this is just a bit of a blip. The post partum time is seriously exhausting and intense and probably they will relax over time. I think if I were a grandparent I would focus very much on supporting the parents and less on the baby. There's plenty of time and that closeness between you and your grandchild will come, provided that your relationship with the parents remains good.

18mths in and its lasting. One child who when he cries will only be comforted by mum or dad. I get they have a right to do this, but they need to recognise the harm in the bigger picture.

I'm talking the childs confidence in others, lack of opportunity to bond, explore other people and their different relationship styles and not to be forgotten, the effect on our relationship with our daughter, which ,whilst we still have a relationship which is good in some quarters, it is irretrievably damaged in others as we feel rejected. 18mths and I have kissed him once on the head, he has not been kissed by his uncle and aunties or cousins (well officially anyway - kids are kids as you can't always control what they do).

Just gone too far, their decision, we don't want to risk the relationship so mouth is firmly buttoned but I totally get the posters stance. If asked I would tell them but trying to sit on the fence and the spikes are sticking in my bum!

“you’d think i was putting the baby in danger rather than just doing normal things a grandmother would!”

they believe that you are putting the baby in danger by kissing him, just as health guidance says. Posting photos of children online can also run the risk of being dangerous.

“zero emotional attachment”

no one expects that, but emotional attachment doesn’t give you an excuse to go against what they’ve asked.

“will remember this when being asked for favours in a few years as we all know how hard toddlers are”

unlikely they will be asking you for favours when you clearly don’t respect how they wish things to be done around their child.

actually i said “i realise i have made mistakes and should not have posted him online or gave him a kiss and i am sorry if i have upset you, that was not my intention” !

i think that is sincere enough!

“will remember this when being asked for favours in a few years as we all know how hard toddlers are!”

What exactly do you mean by this? You’ll refuse and play tit for tat? That would just be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

You’re really not getting it, are you?
Take a step away from this thread and just REFLECT.

I had never heard of a grandparent referring to their grandchild as their baby until I started using MN and read about women doing that. I never thought I would read a post from a woman actually admitting to doing that. You don't seem to understand how weird it is and say that as it's a baby and part of your family it follows that it is your baby.

Following that logic, as your husband is a husband and now part of your DIL's family it would be ok if she referred to him as her husband.
Just accept you don't have a baby. The baby you had is now a grown man and respect his wishes.

I totally agree. The OP sounds a nightmare tbh and I’m with the son and DIL on this one.

the “my baby” is just really rude and huge no no to post a photo online.

Apparently you and I are “plonkers” for thinking this way. 🤷🏻‍♀️

You obviously don’t mean your apology, as when she has said what you have done wrong, you are acting like it’s no big deal.

And she is right. It took a long time to trust my in-laws alone with my bay because they constantly overstepped, didn’t listen. And when they did have her ignored things. Even put her in danger in the car seat because “they knew best” but was hiding it from us because they knew it wasn’t what we would want.

They are just like you, forever the victim and nothing they do wrong is their fault.

apparently now offering help means i am manipulative and toxic.

Does it?

I think offering help is fine.

Surely refusing it is also fine?

But you knew that you had upset her.

There was no need for the "if"!

A child in my town died from strep B contracted from being kissed my relatives. Does that make you see why they are being strict on it? Sorry but kisses can be dangerous and why do people need to kiss babies?

Posting online is not just crossing a line but taking a running jump over it as you were told not to. Try to understand they are the parents and what they want is law basically.