agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Care and Feeding,

I had a fight with my mother, and I want to know who is wrong. (Good and petty opener, right?) My partner and I have a wonderful, spunky 19-month-old son. Last weekend, we invited my parents up to spend the day with him, as we had lots of errands to run and are trying to avoid taking him to public spaces that aren’t day care while the delta variant is raging all around us. His grandparents live about an hour and a half away and, although we try to see them at least twice a month, they don’t get a ton of alone time with their grandson as the logistics can get pretty hairy (car rides and nap times and snack times, oh my). Before leaving the house, I had given pretty clear instructions on what his daily schedule looks like—when he should eat, when he should go down for a nap, etc. He has a rigid schedule, but he needs one. It helps him feel secure during the day and cues him to what’s next. This is something I just really, really KNOW about my child. I am aware that it sounds like first-time-parent, uptight nonsense, but all our lives are better when we follow the routine.

When we got home from our errands, it was half an hour past his naptime and my son was totally wiped out. My mother was holding him, obviously enjoying his exhausted cuddliness, and he was pale, relieved to see me, and a complete shell of himself. I whisked him upstairs to bed, and he screamed and cried for a bit in his crib before collapsing into sleep. I watched his monitor for a good while to make sure he wasn’t going to catapult himself out of his crib. In the meantime, while I focused on the task at hand, my mother decided I was violently angry with her, started yelling at me about how she had tried to put him to sleep but “he didn’t want to go,” and then stormed out of my house to drive home with my dad.

Later, knowing she was upset, I sent her a text to smooth things out. I said I was sorry I hadn’t given her more detailed instructions, and I would plan better next time. She texted back that I am a total control freak who needs to let go of my grip on my son, that I was wrathful and cruel, that I drove her out of the house that afternoon. Honestly, I was shocked. I had barely said anything before she screamed at ME and stormed out of MY HOUSE! So, I told her I wasn’t going to discuss this matter with her any further as it obviously wasn’t going anywhere. I haven’t heard from her since.

What. The. Fuck. Happened.

Is my mom getting old? Was she embarrassed? Am I really expected to “loosen my grip” on my 1-YEAR-OLD? (By the way, he was a total mess for the next two days! That’s why the schedule is important!) I think she’s maybe trying to manipulate me into admitting fault (she’s been doing that to me my whole life, I think), but I badly do not want to be bullied into taking full blame for a conflict for which I strongly feel she is at fault. I am the one calling the shots for my family. Not her. What am I supposed to do here?

—Control Freak?

Dear Control Freak,

No one—least of all grandparents eager to spend time with their grandkids—will ever be nearly as invested in your kid’s routine as you are. That doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t generally listen and try to go along with your rules and routine when watching your kid. I’m also frustrated when my rules are blatantly ignored by other caregivers. It’s totally reasonable to expect that when you tell a grandparent or any caregiver, “Put him down for a nap at 1 p.m.,” they’ll respect that and do their best.

To be fair, though, your mom told you that she did try to get your son to nap—your child is used to either parents or day care providers putting him down for a nap, not his grandparents, right? So might that change in his usual routine, plus the excitement of being with his grandparents, have been enough to throw him off the nap that day, for the half-hour until you got home? I’m sure you remember from the time when you were attempting to establish a regular naptime just how tough it can be to force a kid to fall asleep when they are really fighting it. Maybe your mom should have tried harder, I don’t know, but it’s not as though she ignored your directive altogether.

As for who’s wrong here—since that was your question—I think a lot hinges on exactly what your reaction was when you got home. You said that you didn’t say much to your mother when you got home and “whisked” your kid upstairs, but sometimes looks, sighs, body language, and silence can be quite eloquent. If you were perfectly calm when you got home and later when you reached out via text, I truly don’t understand her reaction at all, and I think it was wrong and unnecessarily defensive to first storm out and then blow up at you. If you were somehow short-tempered or rude, especially after your parents drove all that way to do you the favor of babysitting, then I kind of understand her reaction (not that I think it’s a great way to communicate, regardless), and I think maybe you do bear some responsibility for the fallout. But in any case, I think you probably already know that whose fault it is isn’t so much the point now. The important thing is to talk with her, when you’re both ready and able, about how to make sure your parents’ next visit goes better.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/09/kid-online-bully-care-and-feeding.html

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First time parents of babies, toddlers, and preschoolers can be really uptight. It's a thing.

Nevertheless, LW's mother's reaction was so far out of line, no matter *how* LW acted when she came home, that it should have been the bulk of this answer, and for that, this is the only sentence in the original letter that matters:

I think she’s maybe trying to manipulate me into admitting fault (she’s been doing that to me my whole life, I think), but I badly do not want to be bullied into taking full blame for a conflict for which I strongly feel she is at fault.

LW doesn't need to figure out how to make the next visit go better. LW needs to get some therapy and determine how much contact she really wants her parents to have with her family.

I will admit that even with a later-in-life-only-child-made-by-science, I kind of sporfled at the "complete shell of himself" by being 30 minutes late on his nap. It's not like kids have little atomic clocks in their cribs. There's setting a schedule and there's thinking a kid's whole world was rocked for three days by one slightly late nap.

Don't get me wrong: grandma was clearly out of line, and should not be entrusted with the kid's sole care again, at least for a while. And it sounds like she is herself a terrible parent. But there were a lot of things in how LW described the incident, starting with "spunky" and ending with the way LW framed the day as graciously allowing the grandparents to spend time with their grandson as opposed to them doing her the favor of babysitting that doesn't quite settle for me.

Yeah, LW is being OTT in that special way that some people can be about their kids.

I'm wondering whether grandma completely overstimulated and wound up the kid.

At any rate, LW doesn't have to leave the kid with grandparents and it sounds like that is the best way forward for everyone, particularly if Grandma has these outbursts.

Yeah, I feel like there's some crucial undercurrent here. I'm wondering if their mother was so "laid back" that she made LW feel insecure, and the rigid schedule is as much about LW's own anxieties. Which could mean that the way LW describes their son could be a mixture of knowing their own kid and some projection about how lack of structure affected them as a child.

This is, as always, total conjecture, but Grandma's behavior makes me suspect LW had a chaotic childhood.

Maybe? But equally child could be autistic...

That is also possible, although I kind of feel like that's a thing LW would have mentioned. Unless kiddo is not old enough to have been diagnosed. I haven't really kept up with practices there.

Under 2 years is pretty young... and of course, first time parents have no meterstick for "normal". Even if they did, autism is highly hereditary which means parents of autistic children often have many relatives who are part of the broader autistic phenotype, which means that their ideas of normal child development are... well, not.

Kid is indeed not old enough (and probably also not traumatised enough) to be diagnosed yet!

I was wondering the same thing. I don't know much about the care of little humans, though. Maybe some babies do need a stricter routine than others? How much does it take to overstimulate a toddler, anyways?

Small children do benefit from a routine, and it can take very little to overstimulate a toddler - just being babysat by Grandma might have been enough to do it if Kiddo got hyped up enough - but usually a half-hour naptime offset is not enough to ruin the entire day, and certainly not the next two days. Kid's probably teething.

Thank you for the explanation 🧡

Mom's reaction was over the top. Was LW's as well? From the tone of the letter, it wouldn't surprise me. The real issue is the dynamic between these two. If their relationship has always been (verbally) violent, maybe the best solution is less contact.

The baby is largely a red herring. New parents are uptight (been there). Grandparents and sitters need to follow general advice, but parents also need to allow some leeway.

LW may resemble her mother more than she wants to admit.

I see two entirely plausible stories that happened here. One is this tale the way LW framed it. And the other is, well, this:

"My mother was holding him, obviously enjoying his exhausted cuddliness, and he was pale, relieved to see me, and a complete shell of himself.": I got home and overreacted to my child that I expected to be in bed sleepily cuddling with his grandmother.
"I whisked him upstairs to bed": I icily grabbed him from my mother, saying something cutting I believed was polite.
"In the meantime, while I focused on the task at hand": I ignored my mother, snapping that I had to put my son to bed according to his clear schedule, mother.
"my mother decided I was violently angry with her, started yelling at me about how she had tried to put him to sleep but “he didn’t want to go,” and then stormed out of my house to drive home with my dad.": My mother tried to have a conversation with me because I was clearly angry, I ignored her, so she decided it was fruitless to stay and went home.
"I said I was sorry I hadn’t given her more detailed instructions, and I would plan better next time.": I texted to her, "dear mom, I am could not attend to you as you left because I had to restore poor Alfred's still-disordered schedule, but I realize I couldn't expect you to be able to remember his very important schedule, so next time you come I will plan around your incompetence and not let you care for him at naptime."

Honestly I'd find either version equally likely from this letter.

Edited (formatting) 2021-10-29 02:38 (UTC)