Grandma coaxes toddler to demand siblings, leading to isolation from fed up parents. AITA?
"AITA for no longer allowing my mother to see my son because she was trying to involve him in her campaign to make my wife and I have another child?"
My wife (32f) and I (33m) have a 4 year old son together and we are a one and done family. This was a decision that was unexpected for us. We always imagined ourselves having two or possibly three kids. But it was a decision that felt correct for us.
I'll explain why so you can better understand why some of the comments made led us to the decision we did. My wife had a very easy pregnancy with our son but once he was born we had 14 months of hell with him. He was an extremely "fussy" baby.
He would cry for hours for no reason. It wasn't teething, colic or reflux. It wasn't anything a doctor ever diagnosed. And we went to the ER with him twice and urgent care several times in hopes they'd find something.
We saw our primary care doctor and we saw two pediatricians. Nothing was ever found. We tried different formulas, we tried all sorts of things. Nothing was ever found and there wasn't any specific change that made a difference.
Sometimes he'd only stop if one of us was holding him, but we had to have him in our arms and a baby carrier did not work, nor did swaddling or something with a heartbeat. It had to be him in our arms.
But then he'd want to be put down and he'd scream and scream until he'd basically been left alone for a couple of hours. But he'd only get a small window of no crying before we'd have to pick him back up again.
Around 8 months after our son was born my wife was diagnosed with depression and she struggled significantly. She admitted to having thoughts of s*icide and feeling like the worst mother in the world because she could not help our son.
She was put on medication and saw a therapist but it was incredibly rough for her. And I struggled myself. There were nights I broke down in the shower because the constant crying and sleepless nights got to me. I had to take time off work because I was unable to perform my job adequately with everything going on.
Anyone who attempted to help gave up fast when they found our son hard to manage. My mother was one of them. At most she'd be able to do 20 minutes. Even if she offered to babysit she'd call us to come and take him because she couldn't cope.
My sister who lives nearby was the same and babysitters from a local service also didn't stay. So we could never go and unwind together. I gave my wife as much time away as I could. I knew it was essential to stop her slipping and doing something that couldn't be taken back. But we never got a perfect solution or answers. And we really did try to find out a solution.
When he was 14 months old it started getting better. That's when things started to look up but he was almost 2 before things had gotten better enough that our quality of life across the board improved.
At that point my wife started to recover more as well. But she told me at the time she could not do that again. We admitted having another child was not going to happen anytime soon. But the more time that passed, the more we both felt done.
And then my wife and I agreed we were done done. I booked a vasectomy and made sure we protected ourselves. My wife is also looking at tubal ligation to doubly secure us for no more kids.
When our son was 2.5 my mother started questioning us on having more kids. We told her we were likely one and done. She pushed for us to reconsider and said every child should have a sibling or siblings.
She said we had a rough time with our son but the next one would be better and we knew how to handle it better next time. I pointed out we didn't know how to do better the second time around. I said we didn't even find out how to do better the first time.
She told us we were borrowing trouble and I told her that our mental health was important too because our son deserved us to be able to give him the time and attention he needs and we could not do that if our second child was the same.
She didn't give up and even involved my sister who lives nearby. My sister had more kids than she wanted because our mother pressured her and she said it was better than dealing with mom's nagging.
I asked her to put herself in our shoes and she backed off but she still gave off the vibe that she was mentally telling me to do what mom said. My wife tried having a heart to heart with my mom and spoke abut how depressed and close she was at times to s*icide when our son was a baby but that wasn't enough for my mom to stop either.
I told my mother to stop and I ignored her when she mentioned it. We stopped responding to the question. I thought she would eventually get the message. But then she tried to use our son and coached him to say he wanted a sibling and how he didn't want to be a lonely child.
I gave my mother one warning that if she did it again we were done. She did it again and worse. She said to our son that we were selfish for denying him a sibling and were acting like we regretted having him or like he was a bad kid/burden.
She didn't get to finish because I told her there was going to be no more contact between her and my son anymore and she would not be seeing him again. She's lashing out because of this and demanding I stop this. She even has my sister saying I'm going too far and need to handle it like an adult and not a child throwing a tantrum. AITA?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Handle it like an adult? Like telling a 4 year old his parents don't want him? Mom can gfto.
NTA! Your mother is a narcissist parent, as someone with a narcissistic mother, I can assure you she won’t change. They believe that are in the right and it’s always their way or the highway. Narcissistic parents have a hard time admitting they're wrong, and it's often not because they can't see their mistakes, but because they refuse to acknowledge them.
When confronted, they will usually change the subject to avoid the issue, play the victim to shift the blame, or claim, 'I don't remember saying that,' as if the conversation never happened.
They'll do anything to protect their image and avoid taking responsibility. In the end, no matter how much you try to have an honest conversation, you'll be left with everything but the one thing you need most-accountability. It’s best to go Low or No contact.
NTA. Cut your mother off completely. Quite frankly, there is no valid reason for why you haven't done so already. Let her scream into the void. Protect your family from her. She's an active threat. And warn anyone who tries to bully you into letting her back in that you can and will immediately cut them off too. And then, follow through.
As for your son, occasionally, kids are like that. It's nothing you or your wife did wrong. You weren't bad parents who didn't learn. Some babies are overly fussy, and some are extremely calm. There's no rhyme or reason to it.
I'm sorry you went through it, but it's awesome that you made it out the other side, and now you can really enjoy your little family, especially without your awful mother trying to destroy it.
It's time to stop contact with both your mom and sister. Misery loves company. Your sister allowed your mother to bully her into having kids she can't adequately care for, she wants to see you and your wife in the same dumpster fire that your mother set ablaze.
Your mom needs to be put in a 6 months timeout. No communication, no phone so, no texts, not allowed into your home. Make it clear to her that nothing is going to change until she stops her BS. If she doubles down after the timeout, extend it to 12 months.
Every time... If she wants more kids, she can go and apply to be a foster mom or adopt kids for herself. She is an AH for telling your son that you don't want or love him. NTA.
Why does she want so many grandkids? Also, why don’t you just tell her that you had a vasectomy & wife had tubes tied just to shut her up? NTA - sorry if you just found out that your mother is an AH.
When grandparents manipulate a grandchild to get their own way, or drive a wedge between people, or badmouth parents, or whatever, they've forfeited any chance of involvement in grandchild's life. She's not gonna change OP. Cut her out.