Dealing with your baby's grandparents

Nicki

Bennifred wrote: »

Where did you get this idea? I, for one, was lucky enough to be a stay-at-home-mum until all my children went to school.

Me too. But I have to say that with a few very notable (and unforgivable) exceptions neither my MIL nor my mother ever interfered to the extent others have described on this thread, or in the way that some RL friends have experienced.

pollypenny

I, too, am not particularly referring to anyone on the thread.

However, it's the very negative attitude to grandparents which bothered me. And I would say that most people I know are regularly looking after grandkids in school holidays or, when younger, a couple of days a week.

I wonder whether we who followed Dr. Benjamin Spock were more laid back with kid-rearing.

pink68

I had a very overpowering ma-in-law when my children were little, she bought them rubbish every week and clothes i hated. I didnt like the way she spoke to them, held them, or tried ocassionally to discipline them. I hated it all.

conversely my mother tried to keep her distance when my first was born, she didnt visit for ten days because she didnt want to appear pushy or interfering. I was DESPERATE for help and support from her and too exhausted to ask for it. I wish she HAD been interfering because i needed someone to say they cared.

Now they are both gone and my DD and DS have No grandparents at all. How I wish they were both still here with their comments and opinions and silly plastic gifts. Because in losng all that we have also lost an awful lot of love in this family.

OP I think the way to handle it is to bite your tongue, smile and say thank you (then do what you want to do anyway). I for one am extremely jealous of your predicament!

KxMx

Maybe pollypenny you should be asking why people have this negative attitude, listening with an open mind, instead of painting everyone except granny knitting in the rocking chair as the villan?

Not all grandparents are happy, harmless smiling old folk who dote on their grandkids.

Spamfree_2

I think that what first time parents tend to forget is that the grandparents usually do have far more experience and knowledge with regards to kids than the first time parents want to admit!

pollypenny

KxMx wrote: »

Maybe pollypenny you should be asking why people have this negative attitude, listening with an open mind, instead of painting everyone except granny knitting in the rocking chair as the villan?

Not all grandparents are happy, harmless smiling old folk who dote on their grandkids.

My point exactly! The ones I know are busy bees, taking the grandchildren about and entertaining them.

Lara44

PP if you think about all the grandparents in the UK, that must be a huge number. All sorts of people, all styles of grandparenting - good and bad. Generalising about a group that size is obviously going to be pretty random. As another poster said, threads like this about difficult issues attract people with similar experiences. I don't think this thread is representative of public opinion in general.

It's worth remembering that the OP made this thread to ask for help with problems before they occur. She obviously cares a lot about her relationship with her MIL.

dizziblonde

I actually think a lot of what's been said about grandparents, particularly mothers-in-law here is vile.

Advice does not equal interfering... it's advice, hell, some of it might actually make life easier. If it's not helping, smile, say no thank you - job done. Going ballistic, screeching that "it's my child and you just overstepped the boundaries I shall cut you out of their life forever" is a bit much (have seen this suggested on other parenting forums).

And yes my baby's grandparents annoy me at times - but I grew up in a situation where I never knew if I'd see my grandmother or not depending on if she'd fallen out with my parents that week or not - I'd rather not end up in a similar kind of situation with my child.

I've cut a cousin out of my life - I don't want her having contact with my daughter and her being exposed to the melodramatic attention seeking (including sucide "attempts - never with any actual attempt at it) - that's the sort of reason I cool contact - not someone giving me advice or "helpful" comments about sleeping through the night incessantly (she'll do it when she's ready to).

I think some of the behaviour toward children's grandparents is appalling - people chucking tantrums because they won't constantly drop everything to babysit, going ballistic over advice being given, going nuts if a present is bought without suitable authorisation... yes some grandparents take it too far the other day - filling kids with crappy food and undermining parents but there are faults on both sides and a lot of women who view having a baby as free reign to behave like utterly unreasonable mumzillas.

Nicki

Wow dizziblonde. I didn't read any posts which suggested reacting in the way you describe. Nor can I recall anyone suggesting that the grandparents be cut out of their lives. Could you perhaps link to any of the posts on this thread which comes even close to that behaviour because I agree with you, as I suspect does every single other poster on this thread that that would be a wild overreaction.

Nicki

Spamfree wrote: »

I think that what first time parents tend to forget is that the grandparents usually do have far more experience and knowledge with regards to kids than the first time parents want to admit!

And I think what most grandparents tend to forget is that just because their babies survived to adulthood doesn't mean they didn't make some bad parenting decisions along the way and do some things which are now known to be dangerous.

My MIL for example was never all that keen on my breast-feeding her grandchildren and her bottle fed babies did survive into adulthood. But that doesn't mean breastfeedig was a bad choice on my part