how do you handle your parents telling you what to do with your children?

[robinredbreast]

its kinda like being a kid again
also i have a few issues with how mum in particular raised me and i find her unsolicited "advice" extremley annoying

My mums ok, and only offers advice if asked for it. MIL can butt in at times, but I just ignore her and do it my way regardless. This is your chance to do things the way you see right by your children, so don't let her bother you. I have a friend who is very dominated by her mum and lets her tell her what to do with her kids. It drives me mad, its like my friend has never been allowed to grow up, and is still being treated like a child....

My father doesn't say a thing. My mother tries, but gets the same reply every time: "This is not a democracy. I am the mother and what I say goes."

Nod and smile. And carry on as I would have anyway.

Think about what they say, then do what I think is best.

Your kids, you (have to ) live with them, you know best imo

Smile sweetly and ignore.

I ignore it, then drive my poor dh to distraction by over analysing every comment they made to the nth degree.

My mother said (often) about my two:

"The trouble with them is that they are too comfortable. You need to traumatize them a bit".

yes thats just how my mum wants to treat me like im a kid and shes telling me what to do,heres an example,dd is only 20 weeks by the way !

dd bf on demand-much to mothers dissaproval!!
must admit v frequently,mum is always saying she doesnt need feeding again when i feed her when i know she does
the other day when i went to feed her, i said im think shes hungry [dd was crying at this point] mum goes no shes not she needs a nap and put her in her pram and tried to rock her to sleep when she put her in the pram she was already crying when she put her down so of course when she was put down she was crying even louder,as if shes just gonna fall asleep when shes already crying
so obv i picked her up and fed her

and then this week when we where on a walk and i was talking about how easy going she is she said i bet shes saving it all up for you when you get older, to give you hell like you gave me or words to that effect
when i really wasnt that bad and a lot of the problems i had as a teenage her 80% due to her anyway[she used to tell me she hated me put me down alot and genrally batter my self esteem]
i mean is she gonna say this sort of shit when dd is old enough to understand
how would you respond in this situation
shes trying to treat me like a child

My mother's advice is usually at the helpful end of the spectrum. After all, she has seen it all before

I say "shut up Mum, you couldn't even remember who many weeks a woman is pregnant for!" (true, she said to me "so it's 38 weeks right?" FFS woman, you've had a baby!)

how many, obviously

i wpoldnt mind if it was helpful but it isnt like say the mum putting baby down nap example i know shes not gonna go for a sleep when shes crying already
what would you say at that exact moment

robin, my mum is still like this... I am 44 and on my 5th baby If I don't know what I'm doing now I never will.

If you let her she will completely undermine your confidence. Practice saying "I've decided to do it like this" and ignore her (easier said than done).

(and yes she will still say it when your DD is old enough to understand )

I ignore them. Totally ignore them. In fact, I play music in my head when they speak.

"Hekete, I thought ......la la la lala hmmmm from the coalmines of kentucky to the california sun, always works"

Freedom's just another word......

Do we have the same mother??? Fortunately im headstrong enough to tell her to F off. Mood im in it wont take long to say the same to MIL!

well i feel like saying when shes going on about how i gave her hell as if ! well i hope me and dd will have a great relationship and she will want to be good because we will both love trust and respect each other

and when she tries to tell me what do do i feel like saying -how comes its the peoples opinions you would least respect or want are the ones you always hear
and the ones that alwways give the unsolicited advice are usually the ones that have made the biggest balls up of parenting ever

and when she just generally tries to boss me around i feel like say FUCK OFF

Chances are our mothers had to put up with the same sort of stuff as us. Get it off your chest ask her to stop telling you what to do I bit the bullet a while back and spoke to my MIL about all the things she did that made me feel like shit and she really has cut down on the things she does to annoy me. My mother called my baby 'chunky' today (shes not chunky she has these cute big cheeks!) trust me she will never do it again!

They don't.

mumbear how did you broach the subject?how did you word things?

think i need to say something really, but find it hard to find the words

can anyone give me any advice on how to raise these issues with her?

perhaps when your mum mentions your teenage years something like "you know mum that's such a hurtful thing for you to say"

telling you what you dd needs at that moment in time "Mum that is her hungry cry not her tired cry I know the difference as I'm with her 24/7"

any good?

MIL is the worst - hit the roof when we bought DD a baby walker - the most "unhelpful toy, which will make her bow legged and delay her development, if she doesn't fall down the stairs first!"

Like using it for 15 mins whilst I cooked and supervised, downstairs in a gated room, was going to be the end of the world... she even posted me all the internet articles she aould find as to why they were a bad idea!

I used to let myself be pulled along by my mother, I was young and clueless when I had dd and my mother is a very overpowering person. I learnt fast, by the time dd was a year old I was regularly and still bloody have to (dd is 6 1/2) say to my mum 'I'm the mum here not you' thats all I've ever had to say. It depends I suppose on what the intention behind the 'advice' is. My mum was only really ever trying to help, so that reminder was enough to let her know to stand back

Well she really pissed me off one day and I took the baby and stormed out (of my own bloody house!!!) and I didnt want there to be a probs bettween us cos id just get more and more angry and worked up. I just rang her and said I want you to be involved and I know im new to this but I generally know whats wrong with her when she cries and when u say or do things like that it makes me feel like shit. As for bringing up the past its up to you my mother was shit and yes I do snap at her a lot id love to shout "what the fuck do you know about bring ing up a baby you did a shit job!!!". But right now im happy just knowing im gonna be 10 times the mother she ever was. Good luck hun x

its not my mum , its my dad who thinks im terrible, ds2 has a habit of just walking and suddenly trips over freshair. so he has often a bruise on his shins or he headbuts the table from his highchair so had a redmark on his cheek. so i have to remind my dad of the time he left my brother in the garden unssupervised and he climbed over the edge of a skip and fell init and was taken to A&E with headinjuries, or the time he fell asleep looking after us while my mum was at work one eve, he soon shuts up

i tell ds1 to take no notice when grandad tells him he shouldnt be doing something that i have said he can do (like using scissors - ds2 is 9 in two weeks and i think he is perfectly capable of using a pait of scissors when he is cutting and gluing!!)