II notice that most of the overbearing threads are about grandmothers, and that they tend to say things like “set firm boundaries, be honest, and pick your battles.” My problem is this: I have done all of these things and it hasn’t worked. I am the mother of three children under the age of six and I feel like my father is trying to usurp my role as parent. Even as a child he was extremely controlling with me and I feel like he takes it as a given that he should be allowed to do whatever he wants.
It is a complicated situation as he has helped out me and my husband financially, but I do not feel that in itself entitles him to do whatever he wants with my children, which he has outright stated is the case.
My concerns are these: He has type 2 diabetes because he eats incredibly unhealthily with sodas and deserts in excess. Unfortunately, I have also recognized that he makes any fun activity revolve around food, which causes an unhealthy emotional “good -time” association with certain foods. For example, it’s not just about going to a movie, it’s about getting popcorn, soda, candy, and fast food afterwards. He raised me and my sister this way and to this day we have problems with obesity. I have vowed to stop the cycle and give my children healthy foods and snacks, with a very occasional treat.
He undermines this every chance I get. When I was pregnant with my first child he stated that he couldn’t wait to take him fishing and give him candy bars, to which I stated: “We aren’t planning on giving him candy when he’s little.” His response was: “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” It seems like his attitude from the start has been one of “It doesn’t matter what you want, I’ll do what I want.”
He also expects to see my children at least once every two weeks, but more like once a week if he can. My husband and I are both very busy, and the time we have off we are trying to devote towards renovating one of our rooms for our daughter, plus I am in full time school and my husband works. I do not like having to take a whole day out of our two days off per week to devote to him seeing them. Now, before anybody goes there, no I will not have him babysit while we work on the renovations as he is entirely unreliable in regards to safety.
He once let my son, who was one and a half at the time, play in the dirt of an old firepit in our backyard after my husband and I had first moved in. We hadn’t cleaned out the firepit yet and the previous owners had thrown things like broken beer bottled into their fires so there were broken glass shards sprinkled throughout that dirt. He didn’t notice any of the broken glass, however, and laughed about the fact that my son was covered head-to-toe in dirt and that I would have to give him a bath immediately before he could go back in the house.
A greater concern occurred, however, when I was at his house. His house has a finished basement and while we were visiting and watching a movie downstairs my father came downstairs, grabbed my son’s hand (he was about 2 at the time) and started taking him upstairs to play with him. On our previous visit when he had been upstairs he had wandered into my father and stepmother’s bedroom and was found playing with their shotgun (which was on the floor next to their bed for “protection”). Even though the safety was on this is still an incredibly dangerous situation. So this time, when he went to take him upstairs I told him that I didn’t want my son up there unless the gun was put up on a high shelf in their closet (not unreasonable I think).
He ignored me and continued to walk my son upstairs stating “oh, it’s fine, the door to our room is shut.” Now, the door had accidentally been left open on the last occasion by my stepmom (who is definitely scatterbrained) so I don’t trust to this precaution being sufficient. I told him that I still wanted it put up or I didn’t want my son upstairs and he more vehemently told me that it was fine. So finally I stated that I was serious, to which he yelled that he was serious too. Eventually he did put the gun up but he fought with me to do so. He also would slip my son cake (at a year and a half old) during family gatherings when things were more chaotic and I couldn’t keep an eye on him, and state that “oh, he must have snatched it off my plate and I didn’t notice.” To me this is a double insult as not only is he feeding my son crap, but he is teaching him to lie to me about it.
He wants the kids with him for every holiday, including Halloween, (which I have never associated with visits with grandparents) and gives them each an Easter basket from him as well, even though each child received one already from me and my husband. It seems that he wants his claws in every aspect of their lives and wants to be more important to them than either me or my husband. It’s even in the language he uses: “There’s my boy, yes, he Grandpa’s boy isn’t he?”
He has also randomly called me to tell me he is on his way for a visit (with no prior notice), will be there in 30 minutes and wants to take my two year old to the park (which I do not allow with him for safety concerns). When I told him he could not take him to the park by himself he hung up on me and showed up anyway.
Am I out of my mind here or is this overstepping? What should I do about it as being extremely firm with him even to the point of arguing seems to do nothing and softer approaches he just bullies his way through.