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North Dakota Babies
lindeenwedding
member
Speaking of MIL's
lindeenwedding
member
Ok since everyone else shares their MIL stories I feel I have to share what kind of piece of work I am dealing with. My MIL has shown no interested toward Alexa since day one. She was her 1st grandchild with the second that came 3 months later. LONG, long, long, story short - Eric asked her the other day while we were all together why she doesn't like Alexa, MIL responded, "Because she doesn't like me." Yep she really said that. A 60 year old women believes that her precious little 10 month old grandaughter doesn't like her. WTF?
So MIL, at what point did you start to think this, birth? Because her attitude has not changed towards her since birth. Makes me sick. And she acted like it was perfectly normal to think and say this. This was two weeks ago there has been no contact since. What I would love to ask her and I wish I would have at the time but I was busy picking my jaw off of the floor is, what does the other grandchild do to show his love because he obviously shows his love to grandma in ways that Alexa does not
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Speaking of MIL's
All of our MILs should be friends... that's so freakin' sad...
One day she'll regret it I'm sure.
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That's awful!
I'm very interested to see how my in laws will react to this baby. I could write a novel on this so I'm going to start a new thread and not hijack this one!
Kim, your MIL is BSC!!
Sorry this is a long rant but I can't figure out how to cut it right now.
I'm a granddaughter of one of those women. My dad's mom didn't see me until I was over a year old and she drove near my parents house every day on her way to work. I was the first grandchild in the family on that side and I'm not exactly sure what the deal was other than my grandmother (MIL) and my mother (her DIL) didn't get along. My grandmother and my parents lived about 40 min from each other one way so it wasn't as if the distance was all that long and my grandmother was a school teacher in the city where my parents lived. Interestingly the woman never had time for me even when I was older and would actually question me (like when I was 8 or 10) why I didn't come and visit her more often. I remember asking my parents on the way home why she would even ask me that since I wasn't old enough to get myself from place A to place B and they couldn't give me a good answer. Basically told me that sometimes adults are silly about the comments that they make and that it wasn't my fault that she didn't see me more often. And the part that takes the cake is the fact that when my step-cousin was born, she went out of her way to call my mom and tell her that my grandmother was proud to announce she FINALLY had a granddaughter. BTW I was 7 at the time. As you can guess that went over well. My parents were good enough about it not to mention that to me until I was older. I was allowed to cut off contact when I was 18, in part because I demanded it. I do still see her but it's about once a year.
Funny thing is that once I graduated high school and went off to college she wanted to see me every waking moment I was in town. Which honestly shocked me based on her previous behavior. She still thinks I should drive down there (5 hours now) specifically to come see her and she hardly ever asks now how I am, just talks about herself. If it was in a "let me tell you a bit about my life so you know me better" way I'd be more appreciative of it. But it's not, it's the aches and pains and how she's alone (even though she lives with her step daughter, has 2 sons from her first marriage and in total 4 step children plus about 8 grandkids). As far as I know, she doesn't even know I'm pregnant right now. I didn't want to invite her to my wedding reception, and as far as I'm concerned I have no interest in her meeting my little one when he arrives. (My dad made sure that she didn't come to the wedding reception.) It feels cruel in some ways in part because she's the only grandparent that either DH or I have living but at the same time, there's a lot of history there that I don't want repeating itself. When little one's a baby, it won't be as big of a deal but when little one gets old enough to have an idea of what's going on, there's no more being polite and both of my parents know it.
My parents tried to do their best with the situation. It's really hard when the kids are very young for the parents to cut off contact with their parents regarding the little kids. I know I'd have problems doing it. But once the kids get older (like 5 or so) when they understand that the grandparent is acting weird/not caring at all, I think you have to severely limit the time with that grandparent and in some ways I wish my parents had stood up to her and done that. Easier said than done.
At the same time I learned a lot from the experiences. I did have "good" grandparents that loved me unconditionally. Even my great grandparents (the difficult woman's parents) were caring. I never felt like I was without love in that sense. The material things bugged me a bit (like I'd ask for nintendo when I was 9 and she'd give it to my 4 year old step cousin instead) but also taught me that there's more to love than gifts. I think it helped me learn that you can't expect people to like you just because of who you know or who you are. My parents also reminded me that it was her loss that she didn't get to know me better. And my dad did let me know on more than one occasion that he was upset with how she treated me but she never saw that she was treating me differently. I'm not sure how much they discussed it if you want to know the truth. I know it's been discussed since I've been an adult but she doesn't remember things as everyone else does, which makes things more difficult (she does have early signs of dementia).
My point since I've rambled too long is don't push the relationship. If the woman wants to be part of the kids life then she will be. If she's not, then you will eventually get questions from your little ones of why she's not a "traditional" grandma that you'll have to deal with. All you can do is invite her to do X or Y and go from there. If she doesn't want to be involved then she doesn't want to be involved. Your kids will be fine in part because that's all they know from that person.
Thanks for your input. I definitely wont push the relationship. If it were up to me I would have cut the ties a long time ago. I do not want my daughter to have to be around any family members that don't think the world of her. The favoritism between the two grand kids is downright disgusting and I do not want her to see that when she is old enough to realize what is going on.
~Kimberly & Eric~ April 21, 2008 ~Tensing Pen ~ Negril, Jamaica ~ My Blog: One Sunset at a Time
K+S 9.18.9 | DD #1 age 2 | PG # 5 EDD 9.17.12
I wish I was. You would think a "healthy, sane" person when asked why they don't like a baby would say something along the lines of, "What do you mean, of course I love her, etc" Not, "because she doesn't like me."
~Kimberly & Eric~ April 21, 2008 ~Tensing Pen ~ Negril, Jamaica ~ My Blog: One Sunset at a Time
I STILL don't understand who says such things. I mean, even if she doesn't like Alexa (which is just assinine), what Grandparent tells their child they don't like their grandchild? Who DOES that????
I don't know how you handle it Kimberly.
Katy and Brett ~ Runaway Bay, Jamaica ~ October 4, 2008