Am I being ridiculous?

marthah05

I am pregnant with my first child and my husband and I could not be more excited, and happy. His family is over the moon just as we are, but parts of my family are less than excited.

My parents have six biological grandchildren not including our LO, and two step grandchildren that have been in our lives since they were 18 months and 6 months.

This is old hat to them, and it shows my father could careless about our little guy and has even said it doesn't matter what we name him, he will just call him Boy.

My parents got a kitten for Christmas (a $1700 pure bred Siberian hypoallergenic cat) and it seems they are more excited about the kitten than their new grandson. I am hurt by this, especially since I saw how adorable my parents were when my sister was pregnant with her first child.

Am I being ridiculous or just jealous and hormonal?

CoozieInMyPurse

I agree, I bet your parents will be more excited with LO is actually here. My parents have three other grandkids and they are definitely more involved with them right now because they are already here, but I know they are happy about this baby, even if it's not quite to levels of excitement when the first grandchild was gestating. I totally get it; I can't describe how excited I was about sharing Christmas with my nephew and nieces. They are such cool people (and my nieces are over the moon about the baby, which helps).

DragonflyDreaming

Your feelings seem understandable, but don't let that stand in the way of being totally excited (and also remember that excitement is contagious). As others mentioned, the grandparents will probably become much more involved once LO is around.

mermaid1113

Your feelings are understandable. I too have discovered certain people who I thought would be over the moon about this baby have been almost cold to me. I get it, you expect certain reactions from certain people and when its not that way it is more surprising than anything else. 

I hope things get better once your LO is born!

Skrittens

I understand. My parents aren't excited at all for us - even though we struggled to get pg and this will be the first grandson.

They said they are already busy enough with their 4 granddaughters and prefer girls anyway and just aren't really that interested (talk about blunt...). Anyway - they have started to show a marginal amount of interest - although no excitement. My mom mailed me a box of clothes from goodwill and said they might come visit sometime after the baby is born - won't stay but will visit for an afternoon (they live a 2.5 hr flight or 15 hr drive away). Quite a difference from building a house down the street from my sister, seeing her girls every day, and visiting my brothers daughter frequently.

I'm sorry you feel this way. It hurts. You can't control your feelings. Every baby is special - and you are special too. Maybe the one thing would be to not let your child feel the same way...

Skrittens

@Darbie914‌ - thanks - sorry that I talk about this too much....

I actually have a decent relationship with my parents but learned years ago that they will never be there in the way I want them to - or maybe even need them to. They will be there in the way they want to be - and sometimes that's enough but sometimes that hurts more than them not being there at all.

lisap0924

I think your feelings are understandable. No one is excited as you about the baby and it's hard when someone close, like parents don't show as much excitement.
My parents are excited but they don't show it a lot, but I know they will love this baby as much as my niece.

I am a step mom to an 8yo boy whom my parents also love, but in any "step" relationship you try not to cross boundaries because the child isn't "yours" (if that makes any sense lol)
My parents are very cautious and don't want to step on my husbands toes.
But I had a conversation with them recently that I'm sure they will want to spend time with the baby, but they can't forget SS either. They can't take the baby over night and never take SS. That would hurt him.
And they are not mean people like that, it's just hard being a "step"

marthah05

@Skrittens‌ I am the youngest child and second daughter with a brother in between my sister and me. I live 2hrs away and have for the last 11 years. I was the one my parents relied on for everything, when my grandmother was alive and had Alzheimer's, I was the one who took care of her so that my father and his brothers didn't have to put her in a nursing home which would eat up their inheritance. We have a decent relationship, I am the child who supports their decisions and helps them out when needed. My sister has one daughter and three some and so does my brother. My parents have voiced their lack of excitement since we aren't having a little girl. So I feel our son is less important, and old hat.

@empirerecords‌ I understand what you are saying. Maybe I should have mentioned that I almost died from complications to the flu, was hospitalized for three months, was told that having children would cause me to go into renal failure and I would not make it through the pregnancy. As miracles have it I am 100% healthy and doing very well. So I guess I was hoping my parents would have been a little more excited than they are portraying. They have not asked once about doctor's appointments, lab work or anything else.

ngolimento

I am having the second grandchild for my parents, and I fully braced myself for them to be uninterested. With my sister's kid, they were very remote until she got to be about a year, then all the sudden she was fun and they wanted to be with her.

Would it be ideal for me if they fawned over my kid? Yep. Am I going to hang the stars and the moon on them being emotionally invested immediately? Nope.

wendyld

lisap0924 said:

I think your feelings are understandable. No one is excited as you about the baby and it's hard when someone close, like parents don't show as much excitement.
My parents are excited but they don't show it a lot, but I know they will love this baby as much as my niece.

I am a step mom to an 8yo boy whom my parents also love, but in any "step" relationship you try not to cross boundaries because the child isn't "yours" (if that makes any sense lol)
My parents are very cautious and don't want to step on my husbands toes.
But I had a conversation with them recently that I'm sure they will want to spend time with the baby, but they can't forget SS either. They can't take the baby over night and never take SS. That would hurt him.
And they are not mean people like that, it's just hard being a "step"

(Sorry for going off on a tangent here). Aw, one of the things I love about my relationship with my in-laws is that they've considered my son their grandson from the day they met him. I seriously can't say enough how much that means to me (and would hurt me if they did treat him differently). It makes me sad that your parents are afraid to embrace that.


@marthah05‌ I'm sorry that your parents don't seem excited, but it's possible you are overanalyzing their reactions, but I think being a little less vocal with the 9th grandchild is pretty normal. A lot of other factors come into play with grandparents and kids too, including how close you live and how much time you spend together. It's not always favortism.

lisap0924

wendyld said:

lisap0924 said:

I think your feelings are understandable. No one is excited as you about the baby and it's hard when someone close, like parents don't show as much excitement.
My parents are excited but they don't show it a lot, but I know they will love this baby as much as my niece.

I am a step mom to an 8yo boy whom my parents also love, but in any "step" relationship you try not to cross boundaries because the child isn't "yours" (if that makes any sense lol)
My parents are very cautious and don't want to step on my husbands toes.
But I had a conversation with them recently that I'm sure they will want to spend time with the baby, but they can't forget SS either. They can't take the baby over night and never take SS. That would hurt him.
And they are not mean people like that, it's just hard being a "step"

(Sorry for going off on a tangent here). Aw, one of the things I love about my relationship with my in-laws is that they've considered my son their grandson from the day they met him. I seriously can't say enough how much that means to me (and would hurt me if they did treat him differently). It makes me sad that your parents are afraid to embrace that.


@marthah05‌ I'm sorry that your parents don't seem excited, but it's possible you are overanalyzing their reactions, but I think being a little less vocal with the 9th grandchild is pretty normal. A lot of other factors come into play with grandparents and kids too, including how close you live and how much time you spend together. It's not always favortism.

It makes me sad too. Because they really are good great people and love my SS. I just wish they weren't so scared. I suggested they keep him for a sleep over and do something fun and they liked that idea, so did he
They had him for a night when we were on honeymoon in May and he loved it.

Bluebell0315

So totally not ridiculous. I'm an only child with a 6 year old daughter. My parents were so excited when I told them I'm pregnant again, but once I told them it's a boy it's like they couldn't care less. They have made it pretty clear how disappointed they are, and it's kinda sucky. I'm 29 weeks and they're still holding out hope he'll magically come out a girl. Maybe both of our parents will come around when our LOs are born. Until then, know you're not alone!

jnowosielski

I feel really horrible for everyone who has family members who are either disappointed in the sex or who don't have enough time for another lo. I can't imagine dealing with that.

wendyld

jnowosielski said:

I feel really horrible for everyone who has family members who are either disappointed in the sex or who don't have enough time for another lo. I can't imagine dealing with that.

Yes! Who are these shitty people who treat a child poorly because someone didn't have the sex of child they wanted?

bdazzld

I can understand how you feel

My Dad has been very disappointing about this grandchild but he has his own 9 year old daughter so the prospect of having a baby/toddler around isn't anything new or exciting for him. Hurts but he hasn't been able to be there for me as a dad in years. Too self absorbed and self involved to see outside of himself.

I'm sorry! Hopefully it gets better when LO is born!

Joon+

I have some of these feelings too... My mom and sis are really close and my sis has three kids, ages six to ten. Mom is super close/involved with the kids and has been since the beginning. I feel like all I've heard about for ten years are my nieces and nephew (whom I love), but now that they're school-age, it seems like my mom is kinda exasperated to start at the baby stage again with me. I don't think it's intentional and I don't think she realizes how much of our family life has revolved around my sister's kids all these years, but it still kinda hurts that now that it's my turn, it's more of a "here we go again" than a novel experience.

I'm just trying to count my blessings and embrace the bottom line that in the end, this LO will not be short on love from any part of his family, regardless of his timing. Hope that bottom line underlies you guys' situations too.

P.S. OP, I can feel your pain on the name thing too... For whatever reason, my FIL has said that no matter what we name him, he will be calling him "JAX" (of all things), and my MIL reminds me of this all the time. Like, WTF? I *hope* they're joking, but even so, it annoys the crap out of me. "Boy" is even worse - I'm sorry your dad thinks it's funny (at least I hope that's all he's thinking).

peeppeeppeep

Just want to send hugs to you all who are dealing with this b.s. - I hope things improve when your LOs arrive.