'AITA for telling my MIL off for her comment regarding my 5-day-old?'
"AITA for telling my MIL off for her comment about my 5-day-old?"
My husband’s mom called to ask how the baby was doing, and he told her that she was good and was currently taking a nap on him. (She was extremely supportive during the entire pregnancy and was even there for the birth, so her calls were welcomed.) She responded by saying that it’s not good to let her sleep on us. An annoying comment, but whatever.
My husband tells her that there’s nothing wrong with it and we love letting her sleep on us. Then she proceeded to say, “Don’t build bad habits with my baby." That one got to me. Ignoring the "my baby," I said, “You can’t build habits with a newborn.” In a sarcastically cheerful tone, she says “Yes you can, I’ve raised three children!” I matched her tone and said, “Actually, no you can’t! It’s science!” Then she hung up.
After that she sends me a VERY long message about how she has never been able to tell how I feel about her and how she hopes one day we can be close, which was news to me because I felt closer with her then any of my own family.
She also said she feels like I don’t want to hear anything she has to say when it comes to the baby, and she wants to be able to give advice and make suggestions. (This was referencing the phone call as well as a couple other things she had suggested previously. I had told her we wouldn’t be doing those things because we already looked into it and decided to do something else.)
I responded by telling her I had no idea where all this was coming from, as I felt we already had a close relationship, and I apologized for if I ever acted in a way to make her think differently. I also said that while I didn’t want to invalidate her experience as a mother, I didn’t really want advice unless I ask for it.
I said I’m glad that what she did worked for her, but all babies are different and I’m constantly doing research and making decisions based on that. I finished off my saying that if I want advice that I will absolutely come to her and I want her to be a HUGE part of our daughter’s life.
She then said that invalidating her experience as a mother was exactly what I was doing and she was sad that I was being so closed off. Our relationship has been rocky ever since, and sometimes I wonder if I should have just kept my mouth shut and just smiled and nodded instead. So, AITA?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
Senior_Parking6305 said:
NTA- you had me at her saying “my baby”...I’m a gen X mom, have recently obtained some grandkids… the audacity…When the parents want advice they ask, when they don’t, I STFU.
I was not a perfect parent, they won’t be either, but they will do their best, and short of something truly harmful like abuse, how they choose to raise their child is just something I get to watch from the sidelines...Grandkids are not a “redo”...hey are a gift that we get for surviving parenting (as our granddogs and grandcats).
perfidious_snatch said:
NTA, and you’re right. She gave advice that was both unsolicited and wrong. You handled it well. Hopefully MIL will chill out, because she sounds… difficult based on this situation.
perfidious_snatch said:
NTA, and you’re right. She gave advice that was both unsolicited and wrong. You handled it well. Hopefully MIL will chill out, because she sounds…difficult based on this situation.
Shadow4summer said:
NTA. Better to stop this behavior now before it continues for years. You’re right she raised her kids, now you get to raise yours. And that is not her baby.
MangoAngelesque said:
NTA. Your baby, your rules. And nip that “my baby” crap in the bud quick, fast, and in a hurry. She’s gonna insist on her grandma name being “Mom-mom” before you know it.
Extreme-Pirate1903 said:
NTA. And frankly, there are only two things you need to be spending any mental energy on right now: caring for your baby and caring for yourself. If she had more recent memories of new motherhood, she would know that questioning you, making long term predictions about how the baby will behave in the long term, and offering any unsolicited advice at 5! days post partum is completely untoward.