Am I being petty to go back to the level of contact I had with my parents that I had before I had a baby

[Getthatnoise]

AIBU to just stop replying and engaging with my parents? I’ve never really got on with them and so had very little contact,but last year when I announced I was pregnant they started to contact me a lot more and expressed they were sorry and wanted a fresh start.

They would ask how I was doing and what I was up to. Now baby is here, and it’s become clear they were just asking how I was doing to make sure grandbaby was ok. When baby was born my mother would stop round with foods for me- but things that I haven’t liked since my own childhood-but stuff that is good for the baby. Think egg salad, when I have never been able to stomach the smell, that kind of thing.

But what has really upset me is every day I get a message of “how is baby today?” No, how are you both, or asking after me, just every day how is baby.

I think if we had a good relationship I probably wouldn’t mind, but it just shows to me that this change from them isn’t an attempt to rebuild bridges with me, it’s purely about them wanting to see my baby.

It's not their first grandchild... SiL has complained about how they are with her DC.

I completely agree OP, there is no support there, just wanting to see the baby.
It may be a good idea to make your decision sooner rather than later tho, I can see this becoming a "its my right" situation if you allow contact to go on too long.

The egg salad isn’t an isdue when her parents KNOW she has NEVER enjoyed the eggs like this? And they expect her to eat it IN FRONT OF them?

Would you say the same if her parents had come with liver or pig heart saying it’s good fur her and she has to eat it in front of them???

Because the issue is exactly there - they have no care about she enjoys or not eating. They are giving her things that they know she will not eat. And yet expect her to est it in front of them, probably because they know it will go in the bin.
Come on surely yu can see where the isdue is even if you happen to enjoy egg salad….

I think it's difficult for other posters to understand your point of view. I think, but I don't know, that most people have reasonably supportive parents and a reasonably good relationship with their mothers. I think it is very hard for other posters to understand why you would cut off what they might see as an important relationship.

For those of us who don't, and I definitely don't have a good relationship with my mother, it is absolutely obvious that she is replaying your childhood with you own child and continuing to ignore you. This is painful because you are still being ignored, still being dominated and expected to like it, just as you had to as a child, when you are now an adult and a monther yourself. It is as if they believe you had a child solely for their benefit. Your mother doesn't see you or your babies as individuals, but as an extension of herself, which makes her feel entitled to do what she is doing.

More importantly, it interferes with how you want to bring up your child. Maybe you want to parent in a completely different way, probably because you don't want your child to feel as you did. And yet there they are, doing exactly the same thing to you as they have always done, and doing it all over again to your child, and you're expected to like it and acquiesce.

I would go back to what you had. It's easier and healthier for you.

With regards to the egg salad.
Yes, on the face of it this sounds like a lovely thing to bring. I mean, maybe they forgot that OP didn't like egg.

But, think about it ... if you were going to take food to a new mum I think you would probably take
-treat/celebration food like cake, biscuits, chocolates
-food for you all to have a meal together so she didn't have to cater for your visit
-food for her and her partner to have for dinner on another night so they didn't have to cook
-something that you knew was a special favourite of the new mum

I would be willing to bet that the number of people making a single portion of egg salad for a new mum, and then taking it round and insisting she eats it in front of them is ... well - vanishingly small.

it's good that people don't get it, in a way, but it also makes you feel even weirder when you explain this kind of relationship. Makes you feel aberrant in some way and obviously you're not but it's a very alien idea to some people.

I never get a text from my mum, I text her, unless she needs help with the internet. she asks how I am but in a "you don't need help, right? you're fine?" way. When I turned 18 she said she had done her job and got me to adulthood, and I know she sees it that way. I know she does love me deeply and I do her. But it's not emotionally close, and it never will be.

We are in a great place, actually, but it'll never be like many people I work with who live down the road from their mum, text her daily, go in and out of her house, go on holiday together. And I wouldn't want it to be that either, but somewhere in the middle would have been nice.

Op, friend of mine looked into this, and a
grandparent doesn't automatically have a legal right to contact with their grandchild.

If you stopped contact they’d have to apply for a child arrangement order. It’s not straight forward, and the court would have to decide whether contact should happen, they’d only do this if it’s in the best interests of the child.

You could try responding to the next few posts with "I'm fine thanks" and perhaps even ask how they are doing to see if the penny drops. If their tone remains focused upon baby alone, make it plain that you come as a package.

I would think about what you really want and how the future may look.
At the moment you are EBF so gp cannot babysit. Would you like them to babysit in the future? If yes i would set outclear boundaries and guidelines and explain, one meal is not much help. And no egg salad. Perhaps list what meals you do want, and say "we want these for 2 or none at all. And you may visit on Wednesdays and i will update you by text or 2 minute phone call on Mondays and Fridays."
Please tell them exactly and specifically what help you would like. Then if they comply that speaks volumes. As does if they dont.

Sadly it sounds as if they're still not interested.

Who knows how long they'll be interested in your baby?

Nothing happened. They just have no interest in me. Prior to the pregnancy I maybe saw them three times a year despite living within 20 minutes. Every suggestion of meeting up would be met with we’re playing golf or tennis or some such. There was no falling out we’re just different people, and where I am older my mum never expected my to have kids so just gave up on me really.

Now I’ll get messages three or four times a week saying “I’m just passing I’ll stop in”. If I say I am busy she’ll say I am withholding access and then just come anyway. I’ve taken to using some of those messages as a warning and occasionally going out when she sends them, but she usually gives me 10 minutes notice and getting out that quick with a baby can be tricky. She always has a meal with her so she could have given me more notice, but for some reason wont

OP has said that she wouldn't trust her parents to look after a pet gerbil.
So I do not think they are the helpful reasonable people you are portraying.

The fact your mother comes, with food, even when you’ve said no after giving 10 mins notice is appallingly rude. From everything you’ve said she sounds incredibly controlling and very, very firm boundaries are a very very good idea.

Does your home layout allow you the opportunity to easily ignore her when she turns up after being told no?

Agree. My mum did the same and to be fair, so did some friends in the first months. How is baby is natural.

"She could have given me more notice but for some reason doesn't".

She doesn't give you more notice because she doesn't want you to have enough time to go out

She is controlling and manipulative.

If she rings and asks to 'stop by' and you say no, I wouldn't answer the door to her if she still turned up.

Let her rant all she wants, your 'no' means no.

Honestly, she is only going to get worse. She will demand that you leave baby with her once you're not EBF.

I would go super low contact with her, and maybe, MAYBE, see her once or twice a year.

Ignore the drip fed bile of some of these posts. This is you child's life you are dealing with. Don't spoil what could be a lovely grandparents/child relationship. You may find that your own feelings change as this develops. Grandparents are really important these days, with so many split relationships and blended families. They can be the permanent relationship in a child's life, when parents/partners may move on and form different families.

I think when people talk about the lovely relationship that your child could have with your parents they overlook the fact that your mother has been a crappy mother and is a controlling bully. My kids had a brilliant relationship with my lovely, generous, funny and kind mum, but if she was the kind of mother you were unfortunate enough to have had, she wouldn't have been given the chance to fuck up their self esteem too.

I know it's all nuanced but a polite and distant relationship is the only reward you can offer her, if she shows any contrition.

Or for an alternative viewpoint, tell yourself that it's not fair to deprive your child of a lovely grandparents/child relationship, keep seeing them even though they have zero interest in you and treat you like dirt, and then watch them treat your children exactly the same way they treated you when they are too old to no longer be "cute".

No, this is not drip fed bile. This is what happened to me and my children. If I could have a time machine and go back and trust my instincts, rather than listneing to all the people blathering on about wonderful grandparent relationships, when my children were little I would do it like a shot. Not all grandparents are lovely people. And OP knows hers rather better than you do.

but now you have someone to protect from them. You've also said they aren't interested in you.

She sounds utterly unbearable. She couldn't make it any clearer that she doesn't give a fuck about you and never has but is desperate to get her own way with your baby.

You need to tell her that withholding access from a grandparent isn't a 'thing'. It isn't her baby and never will be and she has no automatic rights to see the baby. Tell her that you don't enjoy her company and that she is being really rude to turn up with her own food. She had years to built up a kind and loving relationship with you and she couldn't be bothered. She sounds totally thick-skinned and full of her own self-importance.

Don't answer the door if she just turns up.

I wouldn't be answering the door to someone so determined to disrespect me and impose on me.
Good parents do not behave like this.