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Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My wife and I (both women) welcomed our first child together last year. Her parents live locally, and since this is their first grandchild, they are very excited to be so involved in his life. We are excited, too, but we are having a hard time managing their anxieties around the baby. Every time he cries they think something bad has happened. Every time he’s the least bit fussy or doesn’t eat, they assume the worst, and they will text us or ask us what has happened to him. For the record, they both are anxious people, but my MIL is much more vocal about her anxieties.
Our son started daycare (a decision his grandmother has been vocally upset about on several occasions) two months ago and he got sick with COVID. He is fine now, but had to be on antibiotics for 10 days to manage a secondary infection. We were in regular contact with our pediatrician throughout and followed the doctor’s orders. During the height of his illness, when we were all sick and sleep-deprived, my MIL was upset that her grandson wasn’t progressing the way she thought he should be, blamed our doctor, and accused us of “not taking this seriously.” After our son recovered, we took him back to daycare, and my MIL put my wife on the spot by asking her, in a group chat, “what was more important to her as a mother: that her baby be looked after in the comfort of the home with grandparents, or that he go back to daycare for the sake of his ‘social progress’?” The implication here being that she/we are making the wrong decision for our son.
I am livid, and my wife is pretty fed up too. This is just the tip of the iceberg with my MIL—she has a lifetime of anxiety that she will never work through, but it is really impacting us. My wife and I have a strong relationship built on solid communication, and we are on the same page and agree that one of the hardest parts of parenting so far has been dealing with her parents and their overreactions to normal baby stuff. I now dread any interaction with them and am constantly feeling like I need to be on the defensive to stick up for our decisions as parents. We also acknowledge that these are the only grandparents our son will have (my mom died when I was young and my dad isn’t in the picture), so I very much want to have them in our lives. How do we navigate this? What sort of boundaries are reasonable for people who are being unreasonable?
—Back Off Gaga and Pop Pop
Dear Back Off,
It’s good that your wife is also aggrieved by her parents’ interference, because the two of you need to be on the same page when it comes to addressing it. Your in-laws need to hear that while you appreciate their support and concern, they have been a bit overbearing and that you both feel offended by how they are challenging your parenting choices. One or both of you must let them know that things cannot continue to go this way, as the dynamic is creating anxiety and frustration for the two of you as you try and navigate new parenthood. Whoever has the conversation with them should let them know that you and your wife will start keeping information to yourselves—such as when your child gets sick—if they are not able to stop overreacting and stressing you guys out further. It may be best if you both talk to them, but you and your wife would know if they’d handle this message better coming from just her.
Either way, they need to hear that your parenting decisions are not up for group discussion and that you need them to trust the two of you to do what’s best for their grandson. Remind them that he’s happy, healthy, and thriving. If they attempt to offer unsolicited criticism in the future, let them know immediately that you’re uninterested in hearing it and that if they want to continue to have an active relationship with your child, they will have to defer to how you feel he should be raised. Acknowledge that your MIL lives with significant anxiety and that you realize she only wants what’s best for your son, but let her know that it’s up to you all to raise him as you see fit.
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Dear Care and Feeding,
My 17-year-old daughters are twins. Even though we tried to make sure they were in different classes and provide support for different interests and sports, we live in a small town and there aren’t that many other kids, so they do share a friend group. They’ve always gotten along well, but this year my older daughter has been pushing hard for separation and distance, going so far as to join different activities, seemingly trying to push her sister out of their friend group, and generally being pretty mean. My younger daughter has been clinging to how things were last year, and is confused and upset. Obviously, we were strict about the clear mean stuff, but I know there’s more going on under the surface and I don’t know how to handle this as a parent. I can’t force them to be friends, but they do have to live together here, and our younger daughter is suffering.
—Mom of Two
Dear Mom of Two,
Despite how you may have tried to foster individuality in your girls, they have spent their lives as a unit, being immediately associated with one another and sharing most of their experiences.
It isn’t surprising that your elder daughter is trying to carve out an identity for herself outside of her sister. Talk to her and acknowledge her need to be independent, but remind her that there aren’t many kids around, so it just isn’t right to try and ice her sister out of their friend group. Encourage her to explore activities on her own while also emphasizing how much her sister loves her and how fortunate she is to have someone with whom to share their special bond. You may consider family therapy, where both girls can vent their frustrations and have an open dialogue about their relationship. Let your younger daughter know that her sister still loves her, but she is trying to figure out who she is as an individual and that she needs to give her the space to do that. Remind your eldest that she needs to remain respectful and loving to her sister as she undergoes this journey of self-discovery; you must continue to hold her accountable when she falls short. Be mindful of ways in which you may treat them as a single entity instead of two very different people with different needs, different perspectives and different opinions. Try to spend time with each of them one-on-one so that you’re able to nurture your respective relationships with them and view them as individuals.
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Dear Care and Feeding,
I have four kids, all homeschooled. They are all straight-A students, very involved in various activities or passions, and the lights of our lives. Academics have always been very important to us, especially my husband. It’s not about the grades or the prestige of being able to tell the other parents “my kid’s a doctor!”, it’s about seeing them succeed and be financially independent from us. Our educational method worked! Our kids are happy and successful so far. The oldest two, “Caeden” (20M) and “Aimee” (18F) are in college, studying to be a surgeon and a criminal lawyer respectively. Our youngest two, “Brooklyn” (15F), and “Erin” (13F) are still figuring out what they want to do with their lives.
For Brooklyn’s freshman year, I encouraged her to look at degree plans, take community college classes, and check out internships for fields she might want to go into. I know there are a lot of things open to high schoolers in our state, and I wanted her to take full advantage. She is taking a plethora of community college courses right now, and she has plans to intern with a psychologist and a nurse practitioner next summer. She wants to potentially be a psychiatric nurse practitioner, which makes my husband very happy. He places a large amount of respect on the medical, engineering, and law fields. He’s now turning to Erin to see how we can help her figure out her passion. Erin has always been very advanced for her age, far beyond the normal 13-year-olds. She’s taking two community college courses right now! We haven’t pushed her into this, she is just naturally motivated to get after it. I love this about her. She’s always had an interest in art that went beyond a love of drawing, and after taking her first summer art class at the community college, she now wants to be an artist.
I love that she discovered this about herself at a young age, but my husband isn’t so happy. He says that art is a hobby, not a job. He thinks that you cannot make a career out of art. Huh? The entire reason we’re homeschooling our kids this way is so they can pursue ANY passion of theirs, not just what they feel like they have to do. Unfortunately, my husband thinks that Erin will grow out of her “phase.” Erin stubbornly insists that she wants to do art, and I’ve been backing her. He doesn’t understand that people can do jobs outside of nursing or law, and he has started bullying Brooklyn into telling her sister “what a real job looks like.” Brooklyn has panic attacks regularly because he’s been cornering her and yelling at her. I’ve had numerous talks with my husband, but nothing seems to get through. How can I help my husband realize that Erin’s passion is worth our acceptance and respect?
—Art Is a Career!
Dear Art Is a Career,
Remind your husband that there are many highly successful professional artists who earn an impressive living via their work, but also that there are other ways in which artists can support themselves while pursuing their passion. For example, many artists teach to keep the lights on. Point out how stressed out his approach makes Brooklyn feel. Explain that you all can talk to Erin about the challenges of supporting oneself as an artist and encourage her to think about ways she can both pursue her artistic passions while preparing herself for a life of financial independence; for example, she can double major in college and have a career that allows her to do art in her spare time. Erin is still young enough to change her mind about what she wants to do a few times before she even has to apply to college, so there is no need to put tremendous pressure on her to decide what she wants to do with the rest of her life. Continue encouraging her in spite of your husband’s criticism and let her know that ultimately, her path is in her own hands and that she will be the one to decide on her future career.
Dear Care and Feeding,
I am an elite sports coach in my late twenties. A few months ago, a student approached me and confessed that due to her mother’s severe and untreated mental health problems, she’d have to move in with her estranged and previously abusive father, who would isolate her and not allow her to continue participating in the sport. After learning more details of the situation and the severity of the situation with her father, I offered to allow her to move in with me. By all accounts, things have gone great. She is thriving at her new school, succeeding in her sport, and seems very content. However, I am struggling with my transition into being somewhat of a parent. I am obviously not her mom; that is the person who raised her for the last many years and she has a complicated relationship with. However, I spend a significant amount of my time attending to her needs, and I emotionally and financially support her. My mom and my partner are supportive, but I’m not sure that they grasp how fully this has impacted me. My life has totally changed, and while I am grateful I am able to help her and hopefully keep her life on a positive trajectory, I am grappling with my identity changing from living alone and childfree, to being a guardian and being responsible for another human’s well-being. How do I handle my own mental health in this transition?
—Not a Mom, But Not Not a Mom
Dear Not Not a Mom,
You are doing important and noble work, and I hope that you are proud of yourself. I think it would be helpful for you to talk to a therapist about how you’re feeling. Few people feel as though they are truly ready for parenthood when it happens, but most of us had more time than you had to prepare for the change. Parenthood fell into your lap with little warning and while you’ve stepped up to the challenge, that doesn’t negate how difficult it is and how it impacts your sense of self. A therapist can help you work through your complicated emotions and help you to figure out ways to cope with your new normal. In the meantime, try to connect to parts of yourself that you may have neglected while focusing on caring for this young lady. Take yourself out for a massage, grab dinner with some of your girlfriends, buy a bottle of that special wine that you like. Be sure not to forget self-care as you devote much of your life to this child. Also, take stock of the things that you find fulfilling about parenting: how good it feels when she does well at a sports event, how happy she seems to be in a stable, healthy environment. Remind yourself from time to time why you chose to take this challenge on. You realized that this girl needed you and you did something a lot of people wouldn’t have had the character to do. Focus on the positive aspects of your new life. Things—and you—may be different, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Remember that you very well may have saved someone’s life.
—Jamilah
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