'AITA for not wanting my MIL around my daughter after she called her an 'oopsie baby' to her face?'
"AITA for deciding not to invite my husband’s family to my kid’s birthday party after they called her a mistake?"
Muted-Percentage9948 writes:
Me (25F) and my husband (26M) have been together for five years. We had our daughter pretty early on (she’s 4 now), and yeah, she wasn’t planned, but we were happy, and I have no regrets at ALL. His family, not so much. They’ve always been kind of cold toward me, and honestly, I've noticed that they don’t treat our daughter the same as the other grandkids.
Last weekend, we were at his mom’s house for a late dinner, and she and my FIL were talking about my husband as a teenager. My mother-in-law then proceeded to joke in front of my daughter, saying how he used to be so carefree and go with the flow "before he had to settle down so fast." Then she added, "I bet he wishes he had more time before jumping into the dad life with an oopsie baby."
I was pissed. We ended up leaving soon after that since it was getting late anyway, and that night, as I tucked my daughter into bed, she asked me what an oopsie baby was. I felt heartbroken for her and basically explained that sometimes people have kids by accident, but that doesn't make her any less special.
After I put her to bed, I ranted to my husband, saying I don't want his mom around our daughter if she's going to be saying stuff like that. The last thing I want is for my baby girl to be questioning whether or not she's wanted.
I said I don't want my in-laws at her fifth birthday party next month, and I won't be sending them an invite until they apologize for making things awkward. My husband says I'm overreacting over a small comment and that I need to relax and not make this a thing. He argued that I shouldn't overreact to a comment she made when she was tired. He told me I'm not allowed to uninvite his family, especially over this.
Am I overreacting? Should I just suck it up and let them come to the party and risk my daughter hearing more harmful things? I'm honestly really upset, but I feel like I'm the only person who's mad, so I don't know what to do. AITA?
Here are the top rated comments with OP's responses.
butterflygurl88 says:
NTA, If this isn’t the first comment they have made, they will continue to make more if you let this slide, do you want to spend the next few years of your life constantly trying to explain to your daughter and defuse a situation that they have caused? At some point she will be old enough to understand and then what is your husband going to do? Tell his daughter not to be so sensitive? This needs to stop now, before it gets worse.
OP responded:
He really does love our girl. I think it's more of him being blind about his parents because he grew up with constantly being critiqued and had stuff like this said to him, so he doesn't see it as a huge deal while I grew up completely differently. I just don't want this to be something my daughter feels insecure about or have her feel less because of it.
Cupcakesmj says:
NTA. You don’t have an in-law problem, you have a husband problem. Why isn’t he standing up for your daughter? Either he is oblivious to the different treatment or he doesn’t care, I’m not sure which is worse. You need to have a serious talk with him about setting boundaries and not allowing your daughter to be singled out.
OP responded:
I've been trying to talk since it happened last weekend. He's a doctor and works all the time. I work a lot too, but my job offers me a lot more free time. By the time he's home, he's always exhausted. I just don't know what else I can say or do to try to make him see what I see.