- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
May 2012 Moms
MIL & mom... Grandparent time jealousy?
I have to admit that I saw this coming, but I thought I would have a little more time before the little green monster would make an appearance. I will try to be brief, but still give a little background.
My mom and I have a very close relationship. We talk nearly everyday about everything and anything. She also is able to visit us more often then MIL.
Now, MIL is a nice person.... But has a hard time dealing with change. She had a hard time dealing with the change in dynamic when H and I got married. In a weird way it was like she would "compete" for his attention only I wasn't competing? Does that make any sense? Anyway, there were growing pains. But she has somewhat adjusted. Anyway, she talks with H maybe one a week and it's kinda about little things... Weather, sports stuff, nothing super personal.
Now we are going to be moving closer to my mom and to them after LO is born. But more close to my mom. About an hour or so away from them.... Which is much closer than we are now. However, now MIL is starting to show signs of jealousy of how much time my mom will be spending with our son in comparison to her.
It is true that my mom will likely see our son more. But I don't feel like I need to change my relationship and the time I spend with my mom because MIL is feeling insecure. This is the first grandchild for both. My mom is really not concerned with what amount of time MIL gets. But MIL fishes for info trying to see how much time and how involved my mom is. She has already started saying things like "please don't discount us as grandparents" and it is really starting to get on my nervous. This whole checks and balances thing is not going to go over well with me.
I'm not out of my 2nd trimester yet, I just thought I would have more time.
Anyone else going through something similar? Suggestions how to shut this crap down now? I just don't want to blow my top because my patience lately has been less than par. MIL takes things way personal and really loves playing the victim.
My mom and I have a very close relationship. We talk nearly everyday about everything and anything. She also is able to visit us more often then MIL.
Now, MIL is a nice person.... But has a hard time dealing with change. She had a hard time dealing with the change in dynamic when H and I got married. In a weird way it was like she would "compete" for his attention only I wasn't competing? Does that make any sense? Anyway, there were growing pains. But she has somewhat adjusted. Anyway, she talks with H maybe one a week and it's kinda about little things... Weather, sports stuff, nothing super personal.
Now we are going to be moving closer to my mom and to them after LO is born. But more close to my mom. About an hour or so away from them.... Which is much closer than we are now. However, now MIL is starting to show signs of jealousy of how much time my mom will be spending with our son in comparison to her.
It is true that my mom will likely see our son more. But I don't feel like I need to change my relationship and the time I spend with my mom because MIL is feeling insecure. This is the first grandchild for both. My mom is really not concerned with what amount of time MIL gets. But MIL fishes for info trying to see how much time and how involved my mom is. She has already started saying things like "please don't discount us as grandparents" and it is really starting to get on my nervous. This whole checks and balances thing is not going to go over well with me.
I'm not out of my 2nd trimester yet, I just thought I would have more time.
Anyone else going through something similar? Suggestions how to shut this crap down now? I just don't want to blow my top because my patience lately has been less than par. MIL takes things way personal and really loves playing the victim.
Warning
No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
This discussion has been closed.
Re: MIL & mom... Grandparent time jealousy?
I could have wrote this entire post myself. We live in Florida and my parents live about 10 minutes from us. I am extremely close with my family, and DH has become quite close with them also. DHs family lives in California. So obviously we spend way more time with my family than we do his, but like you said...I'm not going to stop seeing my family because we can't see his.
So far, everything we have tried isn't working, and my patience is wearing very thin. So thin that the next time we get a "you have disowned your family" phone call, I might just lose it. I'm anxious to see what suggestions are posted, but I think in the end it will just come down to us trying to include MIL as much as possible and whatever issues she has with it will have to be worked out on her own.
The bottom line is that it isn't the qunatity of time a grandparent spends with a child but the QUALITY of the time! If your mil makes the best of the time she is able to spend with LO then she and LO will have their own special relationship that is different from LO and your mom.
My mil lives next door through the woods. my parents are about 45 minutes away. MIL sees DS more frequently than my parents do but in smaller spurts of time (b/c I can't stand her for very long at a time, lol!) When I go to my parents b/c it is 45 mins away and b/c usually many of my siblings and nieces/nephews are there, too, we tend to spend the day. Technically my parents probaby spend less time with DS but I think the quality is actually better b/c they are completely focused on him. so it balances out (at least I think so!)
Telling her that we are excited to do this and that with them when the baby is here. They have lots of parties on H's side and we are very excited to finally be able to go to more of them.
We don't talk about my mom with her, but she always asks specific questions...very nosy stuff... Like how long is your mom going to be visiting.... Will your mom be very involved in your pregnancy. I don't like to lie and so I tell her the truth... Which leads to the jealousy issue, I think. Its like she asks questions that she knows the answers will upset her. Then pulls this guilt trip thing on h which infuriates me.... Even more now since I'm hormonal.
I wish that she could see that while she may see my son less than my mom in quantity it will not be less in quality. That her time with LO is what she makes of it. You know....
I wish I had some advice, sounds like a tough situation.
FWIW, I grew up with one grandmother in the same town, and the other an hour away. I *may* have seen the in town one more then the out of town grandma, but like others have said, it's more quality than quanitity. I would go and spend a couple nights in a row with the out of town grandma when I was a kid. As opposed to never spending more than 1 night at a time with the in town grandma. They were very different people, and about 10-15 years apart in age as well.
Perhaps just try and stress, like others have said, it's about quality, not quantity. Each grandmother will develop their own traditions with the grandkids, and that's what the kids will remember. Not how much time.
Good luck!
Oh I hate this crap! We are going through the exact same thing. Maybe it's because I'm a girl, and we're close with my parents so I can't understand how my MIL is feeling but SERIOUSLY I mean come on, we are all adults. The last time my MIL brought this up it was because I called my Mom to tell her about an appointment and my DH didn't call her. She started to cry. We've been dealing with this since we got engaged 4 years ago, so needless to say I no longer have any patience with her. The last time it happened I told her that we would like her to be as involved as she wanted to be. If she wants to know more about how the pregnancy is going and would like to see us more (because in her mind it's not enough) then she needs to get off her butt and make an effort. My DH and I work full time jobs and my ILs are retired. It is MUCH easier for them to make the drive up then it is for us to make the drive down. It is not MY responsibility to make sure your happy.
Rant over. I hope there is some great advice for dealing with this because I am all ears.
Wow, I feel like you just wrote a passage from my life, however it is a little different for me. The first grandchild is actually my two year old daughter and I hate to say that not much has changed. I am now and will always be extremely close to my mother and naturally as the mother to my own daughter we all spend a lot of time together. Since my husband is not as close to his family as I am to mine we do spend an awful lot of time with my side. However with that being said my daughter loves both sides of our families quite equally, she has an absolutely wonderful bond with my MIL and completely different but wonderful bond with my mother. I will admit that I believe my MIL toned down a bit when she got to see first hand that all though my daughter may spend more time with my mom and less with her, whenever both families are together my daughter shows them equal attention if not more to my MIL since she sees her less.
I will admit it did take work from my end to do the best I could to incorporate my MIL as much as I could. I will always naturally call my mother first since she is my mother, but my hubby has really stepped up to let his mother in on things and to take my daughter over by her to visit.
Glad I'm not the only one dealing with this. My MIL is worried that she isn't getting enough babysitting time. The baby won't be here until May.
My SIL has 2 little girls that see her about 5 times a week, including at least one weekend day all day. So truthfully, she probably won't see our child as much. She lives about 45 minutes away and in the opposite direction of any of our friends or anywhere we would go. I mention this because she wants to babysit, but expects us to go way out of our way to drop our child off. My parents and 4 of my siblings all live with in 15 minutes of us and in a pinch we would ask one of them.
So no advice here...just complaining myself.
I, too, was expecting it, but was hoping that it could wait until at least the baby is born.
This is very close to how our family is, I talk to my Mom almost everyday and DH talks to his parents every other week. We do live within 30 mins of both parents.
Unfortunately my DS is 2 years old and MIL still plays the jealousy game, she gets very upset that we spend time with my Mom, never realizing my mom and I hung out before DS, he is just along for the ride.
Do what you can to make her happy but realize that no matter what you say or do it just may never be enough, I have learned to just let it be. She is going to be jealous and I am going to hang out with my mom. I attempt not to be rude and to include her where appropriate.
I feel like you and I are living identical lives! Only I have already been dealing with it for almost 2 years!
I mostly ignore it now. The reality is we put in more effort to make sure DH's parents see our DD then most people would who do not live right beside the grandparents. we are 40 minutes away and they see her usually around twice a week. I basically stopped worrying about it. Especially since the real issue was her wanting time with my DH, not so much me and DD.
My Blog on PPD and life in general**
I gotta say, I hate the line "please don't discount us as grandparents" simply because could totally hear my MIL saying it in a sad guilt trippy voice.
That being said, I have a similar situation, my parents are an hour away and my MIL is 3 hours away so I will be able to go to my parents house much more often with the baby and they will also come to us. MIL has a very different grandparent relationship, she doesn't put in as much effort, we can't go to her house because of the smoke and yet she is also pulling the same jealous stunt. "Oh well your parent's will be the babies favorite because they have more money to spend on him and they will always be bringing something by for him". While this is true, the only thing we can do is include her where we can.... I'm already having nightmares about it though.
This. I too don't have much advice because I could have written this post myself. When LO is about 4 months old (August) I will have to commute to my college (currently in online classes) for 6 weeks in order to take a couple classes to complete my degree. SO will be working full time and as my mom has always been a SAHM and lives a mile and half up the road she graciously offered to watch LO full time, free of charge. This seemed perfect until MIL heard about it and complained to SO that she will be pushed out of our lives and basically "be discounted as a grandparent" She wants equal babysitting time as my mom and blahhhh, ugh. My patience for this woman is wearing thin and my momma bear is about to break out on her. Anyway, there are plenty of reasons that her watching LO while I'm at school doesn't work: she lives 45 minutes out of the way, she smokes, she is going back to school herself (after being fired last spring!), she has no clue what her schedule will be come August (8 months away!!), and she has never respected me or my wishes so it makes it hard for me to think she will start when it comes to her first grandchild. There will be plenty of other opportunities for her to babysit throughout LOs childhood, I just don't see why this is a big deal already. It is just stressing me out even more.
Sorry I don't have any advice, but good luck! And hopefully someone will give us all some much needed guidance!
Similar situation here, only both sets of parents are on the other side of the country. We're finding ourselves having to long-distance manage their feelings and expectations about the first grandbaby on both sides!
I was confiding to a friend about this the other day, and she said she thought it was admirable that we were trying to be so considerate of their feelings. I thought about this for a minute and the next thing that came out of my mouth was:
"I'm gonna fail, aren't I?"
My MIL/Mom relationship is a little different, but still JUST as annoying.
My mom has been obsessing over EVERYTHING with my pregnancy. She is convinced that either because XYZ happened to her that XYZ will happen to me or it will be so much worse etc. She is convinced that the baby will be 10+LBs at birth (I wasn't just something she is fixated with) and that I will have to have a C-section and that I won't be able to BF and that I may be 1 month early or late (seriously who goes 1 month late) because she had a country dr who knew NOTHING about obstectrics and couldn't give her a due date. I am SO glad that she lives 4 states away in Missouri! However this makes her feel left out of the loop because she feels everyone knows more about what is going on (DR visits, bump size, etc) more than her. She mentioned yesterday that they could get GM discount tickets to a water park in Michigan (where my stepdad is from) and wants to be able to take our LO to Michigan with them (another 4 states away). Her husband is a sloppy alcoholic who can't even form a sentence half the time, but some how manages to keep his job, and smokes 2-3 packs of cigs a day, and Mother has mental health issues. The water park idea is just NOT going to happen, LO going to spend ANY unsupervised time there is NOT going to happen. My saving grace with them is that they won't remember that they wanted to do this insane idea, so I don't have to worry about making a fuss saying H3LL NO.
My MIL lives 3 hours away. She demanded that she gets to come down and take the baby back with her to stay one week per month. For one thing, who the heck takes away a newborn from their parents for a whole week at a time?! For another, while they are not alcoholics, nor do they smoke, their house looks like an episode of Hoarders! I am highly allergic to the smallest speck of dust so we keep our house pretty clean (vaccume twice a week), but when we visited for Christmas, I almost needed an Epi-pen just to get in the door and I am NOT exaggerating! My FIL is always complaining about the house (threatening to leave or bulldoze it) but he is never home. He travels a lot with his job. They can't even sleep in their beds because it is so junked up! When we were there for Christmas, my DH and I cleaned JUST the living room. It took 4 thirty-two gallon trashbags that looked like they might break from the strain, for that room only! When we moved the couch, there were at least enough empty water bottles to make a whole case, and roughly 38 empty and spilled soda cans! There were tool sets that hadn't even been opened under there, and countless electonic devices such as calculators, usb cords, etc. So no, MIL, you aren't taking our LO without supervision either! At least the FIL put his foot down on that one for me and DH.