Friend Feels Treated Poorly While Babysitting Grandson (personalities, wife, father)
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That's clearly not these grandparents discussed in the OP. Just the opposite. They take outlandish, insulting instructions without complaint, and provide hours of inconvenient babysitting, and even babysit so the baby's father can do his hobbies. These are clearly compliant, easy-to-get-along-with grandparents, who suffer insults all for the sake of participating in their grandchild's life. "Don't go into the nursery" without explaining why is ridiculous. Might as well say, "You two are too dirty for my baby....it's enough we're letting you touch the baby in the living room." I mean, really.
There's a way out of it without insulting the DIL (as usual in these stories, the son is MIA). Just create a reason they can't do daily babysitting, so the young couple has to pay for a babysitter. The grandparents can then be available to fill in or babysit on the occasional weekend. New parents being overprotective is normal, but these particular ones are more than that. Imagine being couped up all day, not even being allowed to leave for lunch, not allowed to walk into the baby's room, now allowed to do this or that. Wanna bet there's a security camera aimed at that room so the young couple can verify the grandparents aren't breaking the rules?
The only hope is that the young couple will become normal with time. I wonder why the grandparents want to be so confined as to their time. This would be a huge imposition for most people. All day, five days a week is a lot. Do they not have something else to do? No hobbies? No lunches with friends, trips to the gym, walking, trips out of town? Maybe that's part of this scenario.
One thing that I've learned is that there are always two sides to a story.
I find it very hard to believe that all of these odd rules came out of nowhere. I can't imagine treating "compliant, easy-to-get-along with" grandparents like that. The parent(s) of that little baby would be either brutally rude or extremely OCD to the point of being unreasonable. But if that is true, then one would think that there would have been other instances of these young people being sort of cray cray well before the baby came along.
My guess is that there is more on the grandparents end than we are hearing about. They wouldn't be the first grandparents to undermine their adult children's parenting while presenting themselves as innocent, compliant and completely blameless - especially when rules get laid down like a hammer.
Usually, the less you trust someone the shorter the leash you give them. This whole business of "we're trapped in the house with no food and only one bottle of water over a 7 hour time span" seems very dramatic to me. If I showed up to my son's house once a week to watch a grandchild while he and his wife worked, and they forgot to offer me water or food, I would drink tap water and bring my own lunch the next time. If they started to put weird restrictions on me and I really had no clue as to why, I would take my son aside and ask him what the heck was up.
The fact that these people haven't asked their own son what was up tells me that they already have an idea as to why those rules are in place.
Last edited by springfieldva; 07-12-2023 at 08:06 AM..
We are also the preferred grandparents and my son and DIL have told us about many things the other grandparents do that make them less capable. One grandpa is so interested in what's on TV that he doesn't pay attention at all to what the kids are doing. The other grandma absentmindedly stands next to the cradle with her hot coffee over the baby. She tries to be helpful by emptying in the dishwasher but then they can't find anything and no matter how many times they ask her not to do it, she does it over and over again. She'll feed the babies foods they can choke on, they say it's like she forgot what babies can do.
I also think it's bad to let the baby nap on the grandparents' chests at this age. He should be in his crib for a long nap. I wonder if they are afraid he'll start crying and disrupt their work.
It's really hard to say -- info is so limited and we are getting it third-hand. As I mentioned up thread, my granddaughter's nursery is located upstairs, long angled hardwood stairs so I think it is hazardous to be carrying an infant up and down stairs.
They have a pack and play set up downstairs but that takes some bending strength and/or kneeling to get baby in and out of. Baby is not much of a napper anyway.
I would guess perhaps she is concerned about "crib death." Whenever my daughter puts the baby in the crib, she gives me a monitor for viewing and hearing the baby. As you state, we just don't know their capabilities; perhaps they are hearing impaired. My husband is; he would not hear a crying baby upstairs or the monitor. This is why it takes two of us. (Although he would say he is fine alone.) Someone mentioned each parent taking turns --not possible in a lot of cases.
Last edited by Maddie104; 07-12-2023 at 08:35 AM..
We are also the preferred grandparents and my son and DIL have told us about many things the other grandparents do that make them less capable. One grandpa is so interested in what's on TV that he doesn't pay attention at all to what the kids are doing. The other grandma absentmindedly stands next to the cradle with her hot coffee over the baby. She tries to be helpful by emptying in the dishwasher but then they can't find anything and no matter how many times they ask her not to do it, she does it over and over again. She'll feed the babies foods they can choke on, they say it's like she forgot what babies can do.
I also think it's bad to let the baby nap on the grandparents' chests at this age. He should be in his crib for a long nap. I wonder if they are afraid he'll start crying and disrupt their work.
Some MILs are in competition with their DILs for being "Top Mom". That business about emptying the dishwasher to "help" but rearranging the entire kitchen in the process and doing it over and over again even after being asked to NOT do it could be early dementia but it also could be MIL's passive aggressive way of asserting dominance over her DIL.
I gave an example earlier of the MIL showing up and rewashing and reorganizing a nursery that her DIL had put together for her new baby. Oftentimes, something like that would fly right over the heads of men. "Mom washed baby clothes? So what." But women know that it was more than that. Same deal with "helping" by going through her DIL's nightstand and rearranging her DIL's personal possessions.
Whatever that mentality is in some women is pretty toxic and in no way innocent or helpful.
This whole business of "we're trapped in the house with no food and only one bottle of water over a 7 hour time span" seems very dramatic to me. If I showed up to my son's house once a week to watch a grandchild while he and his wife worked, and they forgot to offer me water or food, I would drink tap water and bring my own lunch the next time.
And it's so simple to get food delivered now using an app or just calling. That's why I don't even understand why the OP's friend would even make the comment about no food. Seems helpless.
Oh, my Lord. The cost does not outweigh the benefits here.
I'd be inclined to be done with this arrangement. Way too many rules, and the grands are being treated like the hired help.
And it's so simple to get food delivered now using an app or just calling. That's why I don't even understand why the OP's friend would even make the comment about no food. Seems helpless.
I find it very hard to believe that all of these odd rules came out of nowhere.
You have a good point here, springfield, and perhaps these odd rules didn't come out of nowhere. But I've been thinking about this thread and I think that these odd rules may have come from somewhere else...
I wonder if the grandparents have been kind of putting up with being treated poorly by son and dil for some time and not doing anything about it. (under the guise of "cutting them some slack bc it's tough out there... they're busy... it's OK, things will improve eventually") and now this somewhat disrespectful treatment has become par for the course. Or perhaps even gotten worse with the new baby. We show people what we consider acceptable treatment by our response.
Anyway, the OP's post just makes me so sad and an honest conversation with parents of baby is clearly in order. No need for anger or implied criticism.. and yes, that's the hard part.
Personally, the fact that this baby is not being vaccinated would lead me to just not engage at all.. I would not be willing to put myself in the position of the baby possibly becoming ill as a result of exposure to me and not being vaccinated. That's just being smart on my part. And that puts the onus of two less loving people in the baby's life where it belongs - on the parents who decided against vaccination.
Yet again we're not being given enough information to know what the real story is. A lot of new parents go crazy with rules and yes it's true that some grandparents need supervision.
I simply think that not allowing a grandparent in the nursery ever is very very strange. Telling them to take a shower before they come over, give us a break. Not saying hey there's some food in the kitchen for you we really appreciate your helping us out.
There is none of that so I'm very suspect of this situation and I think that the new parents are just as guilty in this situation as other people think the grandparents are.
There are a lot of concerns for me for the development of this baby. The baby needs the stimulation of different environments for his brain to grow optimally. To hear different sounds, see different sites, feel different textures and breathe in fresh air. Staying indoors all day is not good for his lungs. Even daycares are mandated to have the children outdoors at least one hour a day. Now I imagine some posters will ding me for this, but there is such a thing as indoor air pollution. In addition, his immune system will be weakened as well.
My concern here also would be the grandpa who is a two time cancer survivor. IMO, these conditions are very stressful now. I can not imagine running around with a toddler who would challenge a marathon runner in training.
I would suggest backing out now. The thread says the grands feel mistreated. This is how THEY feel. Their feelings are valid to them. Some feel that the grands are at fault for not speaking up. Uh...knowing the rigidity of the DIL we can all predict what would happen if the grands (no matter how diplomatically)stated their case. Maybe they are being pushed out the door in a passive aggressive way by the DIL.
Last edited by Shallow Hal; 07-12-2023 at 09:27 AM..
Seeing as how they're not allowed in the nursery, which is utterly ridiculous, they're probably not allowed to go in the kitchen let alone use it.
They get to change the baby on the kitchen table. Ugh!
I'd be so grateful for free babysitting that you can bet there would be food and drink provided. As long as my spouse didn't have harrowing tales of growing up and the grandparents weren't drunks or abusive, had common sense, it would be up to them how they wanted to entertain the baby.
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