![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
LW, as always, you do not have an inlaw problem. You have a husband problem.
Dear Care and Feeding,
We had our second baby about a month ago. I’m breastfeeding and it is going really well, except for one thing. If I’m feeding the baby and my in-laws are present (as they often are), my MIL will turn away and make sure she keeps her back to me until we’re done (and if she forgets for a second while talking to me and accidentally turns around, she stammers and sputters and whips her head back fast). My FIL gets visibly flustered as I set us up for nursing, then leaves the room until he checks with someone to make sure we’re done. I assure you, I’m being pretty modest—there’s really nothing to be seen—but even if I weren’t covering up, my feeling is that this is my home and it’s my right to feed my baby when, where, and how I want to.
Recently my in-laws seem to have stepped things up: they must have talked to my husband directly about how uncomfortable this makes them, because he brought it up when we were alone. I told him what I’ve just told you, but my husband’s feeling is that if something makes his parents, as guests in our home, uncomfortable, we should respect that and accommodate them. He suggested that I go into another room when I feed the baby and they’re there. I said if my nursing our baby in their presence was that big an issue for them, they could choose to not be at the house when I’m doing it. We never came to an agreement about this, and a week later, as I got ready to feed the baby one evening when they had come over to dinner, my MIL asked when I was going to start pumping for this baby (as I had for our first). I said I had no plans to start pumping anytime in the near future, that I had pumped and bottle-fed our first baby for a year only because she couldn’t successfully breastfeed. My MIL’s response was that if I pumped (when they’re not present, obviously), I could then bottle-feed the baby when they were visiting. I told her that I would continue breastfeeding when and where I found it appropriate to do so and asked her to please not bring it up again. After dinner, I saw my in-laws talking to my husband in hushed voices before they left. And when they did, he repeated his mother’s suggestion! I let him know how much it hurt me that he wouldn’t back me up on this.
I think everyone is surprised by me standing up for myself so strongly (even I am!), as I’m normally a people-pleaser, but I feel like this is a fight worth fighting. However, it has made the main person in my life upset with me—mostly, I think, because he’s now “caught” between his authoritarian parents, whom he’s used to pleasing, and me, whom I know he loves deeply and committedly. Is there a way I can “recruit” him to my side and see that standing up for me isn’t a matter of being disrespectful?
—Just Feeding My Baby, Not Filming Girls Gone Wild
Dear JFMBNFGGW,
Let me say at the outset that I believe that nursing mothers should be able to feed their babies whenever and wherever necessary, both in and outside their homes. And also that your in-laws are making me mad. But might I note that they are coming over way too often? Particularly if they don’t like to see a mother breastfeeding her baby? You had this baby a month ago. Nobody with a month-old baby needs that much company. Why are they coming over for dinner when you have a newborn? Whose bad idea is this?
And given that the baby is a month old and you are exclusively breastfeeding, it seems to me that your suggesting to your husband that his parents not come over when you’re nursing is tantamount to saying they should not come at all (I hasten to say that I don’t blame you, but let’s call a spade a spade)—unless they live around the corner and the plan would be that the very instant you are done with one feeding, you call and say Quick, come over right now! We don’t have much time! Which sounds bananas to me anyway.
You are engaged in a power struggle with your in-laws. Good for you for standing up to them, particularly if standing up for yourself has been difficult for you in the past. But this is a no-win situation if you don’t end this particular war right now. These people are never going to relax about your breastfeeding and accept that it’s a normal, healthy part of ordinary life that they have no reason to be grossed out by. They are never going to stop bugging you about it and making outrageous demands disguised as suggestions. They are never going to stop complaining to their son about it (about you). And your husband is not suddenly going to become a different sort of son and tell them to mind their own business, as I know you wish he would (I wish he would, too). But it’s time for you to make clear to him that his parents are far too involved in his and your life.
They cannot continue to come over so often. The two of you need to set ground rules. Your husband needs to grow up. It’s quite possible, even likely, that you and your pulled-in-two-directions husband are going to have a fight about this. Don’t be afraid of that. Sometimes arguments between spouses are necessary. Just don’t waste your breath on battling the in-laws.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/10/breastfeeding-in-laws-uncomfortable.html
We had our second baby about a month ago. I’m breastfeeding and it is going really well, except for one thing. If I’m feeding the baby and my in-laws are present (as they often are), my MIL will turn away and make sure she keeps her back to me until we’re done (and if she forgets for a second while talking to me and accidentally turns around, she stammers and sputters and whips her head back fast). My FIL gets visibly flustered as I set us up for nursing, then leaves the room until he checks with someone to make sure we’re done. I assure you, I’m being pretty modest—there’s really nothing to be seen—but even if I weren’t covering up, my feeling is that this is my home and it’s my right to feed my baby when, where, and how I want to.
Recently my in-laws seem to have stepped things up: they must have talked to my husband directly about how uncomfortable this makes them, because he brought it up when we were alone. I told him what I’ve just told you, but my husband’s feeling is that if something makes his parents, as guests in our home, uncomfortable, we should respect that and accommodate them. He suggested that I go into another room when I feed the baby and they’re there. I said if my nursing our baby in their presence was that big an issue for them, they could choose to not be at the house when I’m doing it. We never came to an agreement about this, and a week later, as I got ready to feed the baby one evening when they had come over to dinner, my MIL asked when I was going to start pumping for this baby (as I had for our first). I said I had no plans to start pumping anytime in the near future, that I had pumped and bottle-fed our first baby for a year only because she couldn’t successfully breastfeed. My MIL’s response was that if I pumped (when they’re not present, obviously), I could then bottle-feed the baby when they were visiting. I told her that I would continue breastfeeding when and where I found it appropriate to do so and asked her to please not bring it up again. After dinner, I saw my in-laws talking to my husband in hushed voices before they left. And when they did, he repeated his mother’s suggestion! I let him know how much it hurt me that he wouldn’t back me up on this.
I think everyone is surprised by me standing up for myself so strongly (even I am!), as I’m normally a people-pleaser, but I feel like this is a fight worth fighting. However, it has made the main person in my life upset with me—mostly, I think, because he’s now “caught” between his authoritarian parents, whom he’s used to pleasing, and me, whom I know he loves deeply and committedly. Is there a way I can “recruit” him to my side and see that standing up for me isn’t a matter of being disrespectful?
—Just Feeding My Baby, Not Filming Girls Gone Wild
Dear JFMBNFGGW,
Let me say at the outset that I believe that nursing mothers should be able to feed their babies whenever and wherever necessary, both in and outside their homes. And also that your in-laws are making me mad. But might I note that they are coming over way too often? Particularly if they don’t like to see a mother breastfeeding her baby? You had this baby a month ago. Nobody with a month-old baby needs that much company. Why are they coming over for dinner when you have a newborn? Whose bad idea is this?
And given that the baby is a month old and you are exclusively breastfeeding, it seems to me that your suggesting to your husband that his parents not come over when you’re nursing is tantamount to saying they should not come at all (I hasten to say that I don’t blame you, but let’s call a spade a spade)—unless they live around the corner and the plan would be that the very instant you are done with one feeding, you call and say Quick, come over right now! We don’t have much time! Which sounds bananas to me anyway.
You are engaged in a power struggle with your in-laws. Good for you for standing up to them, particularly if standing up for yourself has been difficult for you in the past. But this is a no-win situation if you don’t end this particular war right now. These people are never going to relax about your breastfeeding and accept that it’s a normal, healthy part of ordinary life that they have no reason to be grossed out by. They are never going to stop bugging you about it and making outrageous demands disguised as suggestions. They are never going to stop complaining to their son about it (about you). And your husband is not suddenly going to become a different sort of son and tell them to mind their own business, as I know you wish he would (I wish he would, too). But it’s time for you to make clear to him that his parents are far too involved in his and your life.
They cannot continue to come over so often. The two of you need to set ground rules. Your husband needs to grow up. It’s quite possible, even likely, that you and your pulled-in-two-directions husband are going to have a fight about this. Don’t be afraid of that. Sometimes arguments between spouses are necessary. Just don’t waste your breath on battling the in-laws.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/10/breastfeeding-in-laws-uncomfortable.html
no subject
But that's not what's going on here. They're dropping in and then demanding she follow their rules in her own house.
LW's husband needs to back her up, like, yesterday.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject