It’s not uncommon for conflicts to arise in relationships with mothers-in-law, particularly when it comes to parenting decisions. Finding a balance between maintaining a respectful relationship while also asserting one’s own autonomy as a parent is essential for fostering harmony within the family.
A Reddit user recently experienced significant emotional distress because of a challenging situation with her mother-in-law’s interference and the lack of support from her husband.
She wrote:
“I have a 5-month-old daughter. My mother-in-law has been to our place easily 30+ times, and the ONLY thing she wants to ‘help’ with is either changing my daughter’s diaper or bottle-feeding her. We won’t let her change our daughter’s diaper, because the one time she did, she spent way too much time doing so. It really creeped me out. It doesn’t take 10 minutes to wipe a baby. So we made a rule. No one changes our daughter but us.
But now the bottle issue… I strictly breastfeed. I have a pump, but I do not use it. I have no reason to use it. She doesn’t need to bottle-feed my baby, but it really gets her irritated that I refuse.
I don’t plan to pump unless I need to. I currently do not need to. I work from home, so does my husband. When there comes a reason for me to pump, I will. Her wanting to bottle-feed my baby isn’t a valid reason for me.”
She went on sharing:
“So she came here yesterday afternoon while I was making dinner. My husband was watching the baby, who had been fussing for a good 5 minutes at this point, and he was trying to soothe her while I finished up dinner. My MIL says, ‘Here, I will take the baby while you finish dinner. Claire, can go pump real quick, so I can get the baby settled.’
I’m so tired of this argument with her, so in the heat of the moment, I slammed the spatula on the counter and said, ‘You’re not feeding my kid. I’m not pumping for you. Bring it up one more time, and you’ll have very little to do with your granddaughter’s life.’ I then take the baby, pass the spatula to my husband and walk in to the back room and lock myself away. I could hear her arguing with my husband in the kitchen and then a door slam.
I come out, and I see that she left, while my husband is angrily finishing dinner. He then turns and says aggressively, ‘Is it really that big of an issue for you to pump, so that my mother can feed her granddaughter?!’ He then slams my plate down in front of me, and storms off to his office and slams the door. And since his whole attitude has changed. He’s distant now…”
This isn’t the first time a mother-in-law has caused emotional turmoil to her daughter-in-law. Even the most compassionate among them may sometimes display behaviors that are hard to grasp.
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