Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is absolutely rude and I would also be pissed. If you visit a new mom within the first month (minimum) after birth, you should be helping in some way and you should treat the new mom with some deference as she's recovering from pregnancy and childbirth. Just from a practical standpoint, the new mom is dealing with massive hormonal swings that can make her emotionally tender and you should be thoughtful of that. But especially if it's a first child, she's also undergoing an identity change and deserves some extra TLC. So does the new dad. If you don't want to sign up for that and want it just to be about YOU meeting the baby... you can do that from a hotel via short visits. If you can't afford that, you can wait until the baby is older. Sorry.

I traveled TO my ILs home when my DC was 3 weeks old after much pressure was placed on me to do so because my FIL was ill and could not travel. I didn't feel ready to travel and was still bleeding. It was a 7 hour car ride both ways. I was not even offered hospitality while we were visiting -- they planned a party for a bunch of people to come over against my express wishes that it just be ILs and my husband's siblings and that I was not ready to see other people and didn't want to be passing my newborn around to a bunch of people I barely knew. No one except my DH made any effort to take care of my physically (like even just checking to see if I needed a drink while breastfeeding) and my MIL complained repeatedly that I was "hogging" the baby.

I repaired my relationship with them but never truly forgot this. I still think of them as fundamentally selfish people.

Omg I blacked out that my MIL pressured us into driving 4 hours to stay with them for the weekend when I was about 4 weeks post partum , for a cousins baby shower. I don’t know why we agreed to go!!!! Probably just totally clueless , as new parents, and not yet used to putting our foot down for our new nuclear family. (Because before the baby of course we’d have gone up for the shower- it didn’t cross my mind that after the baby I’m totally free to say no, I’m post partum and no). It was awful. I was so sleep deprived and the drive was still hard on my C section scar. I felt like I had to get dressed and be awake on time and be pleasant with relatives when I was hormonal and miserable and exhausted. Plus we were sleeping on a sofa bed which is what we always slept on when we visited and it hadn’t even occurred to me that this was horrid to do to new parents and their newborn.

I remember my MIL being like “I’m sure it was so hard for you to come but I really appreciate it” and that’s when I realized, I may be clueless about adjusting to being a new mom but she isn’t clueless at ALL and knew exactly what she was asking of me. This is the same MIL who came to stay with us and sat around holding the baby while I cooked and cleaned, announcing “I just want to hold the baby and not cook or clean”. Man I shouldn’t have read your post because the anger is coming flooding back at remembering this!!!

Reading these stories feels radicalizing.

One of the things that really hits me is how vulnerable new mothers are. It's like being an injured animal, in fact it makes me think of how animals give birth and how pregnant mammals will seek out a "safe place" to hole up specifically because they know that if a predator were to find them during this time, they and their infants would be defenseless. So that's why cats are always giving birth under porches where it's really hard to get them out -- that's the whole freaking point.

But people act like a woman giving birth (and human childbirth is much more harrowing than it is for a lot of other animals because of the size of the human head and the fact that humans walk upright) is like nothing, not even worth acknowledging, and we should all be popping out of the hospital like Princess Kate in new outfits with smiles on our face, ready to deliver our brand new babies to our MIL and pose for photos within hours.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that. Burn it all down.

I don’t think it needs to be this dramatic. This is how we learn boundaries and how to advocate. Driving to attend a baby shower, and sleeping on an uncomfortable bed, sucks, but is not some profound trauma. In fact, by the time you have your second kid it is the kind of thing that seems pretty doable. So certainly someone 30 years removed from postpartum could understandably forget what the first few weeks were like.

Nope. That was me, and her pushing me to drive 4 hours , attend some random cousins baby shower, be up and pleasant and dressed for all the aunts that wanted to admire my MILs first granddaughter, and sleep on the sofa bed in the living room while my MILs sister slept in the guest bedroom, was not “pretty doable”. I had a c section and I had terrible post partum anxiety and had barely slept in weeks. And my MIL told me specifically she knew it was hard for me to come up but she was grateful because she got to show off my baby. Maybe it wouldn’t have been a big deal to you but it actually was traumatizing to me. I was responding to a new mom who posted a similar story and that mom said she was signing off this thread because it was giving her bad flashbacks. For some women, the post partum period is absolutely traumatizing and grannies who conveniently forget that and try to commandeer the baby and in my case quite literally put the baby’s still bleeding mother on the F-ing couch for 2 nights, are selfish and deserve to be called out

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing. And this is really hard for some people, particularly women, but it's so important, and it's particularly important once you have children:

You have to advocate for what you (and your family) need.

Without apology, equivocation, or being open to interpretation.

If someone wants to stay with you the week after your baby is born, you think about what you want and if that's reasonable/doable. Okay, you only want someone who will be helpful (duh). Given who your MIL is and your history with her, if you tell her, "we would love to have you, but only if you can help with cooking, cleaning, and household tasks" will she do it? If no or maybe or if you're unwilling to ask and state your needs freely, then the answer is, "No, MIL, you cannot stay with us that week."

We told everyone (three sets of grandparents plus aunts and uncles) they were welcome to come when the baby was born but they needed to stay in hotels. And most of them did! (Some opted not to travel.) We invited only my mother and stepfather to come back and stay with us for week three, because we knew they'd be helpful if we asked. No one else was allowed to stay with us during the newborn stage.

Was my mother disappointed not to be able to stay with us that first week? Yup. But I knew what I needed that first week was some space and my husband. Was my dad disappointed to be staying in hotels the first six months after each of my kids were born? Yup. But he is not helpful (I'd call him neutral - makes about as much work as he saves) and that's not what I need postpartum.

For what it's worth, I have a great relationship with my parents, all three of them, and they visit frequently and we visit them and they're all close with the grandkids. But YOU need to advocate for YOUR family. No one else (except your husband, hopefully) is going to do that.

So stop focusing on what they did ("was it rude that they didn't help?") and start focusing on what you did ("You know what? I expected them to just jump in and help and I never said that. I need to remember next time to ask for help or not invite them")

The casual dismissal of reality here is really something.

This comment is basically saying women are not only responsible for everything, they’re also responsible for coaching men and relatives through acceptable behavior, even if those people are perfectly able-bodied adults with an equal amount of intelligence and much better functioning bodies. And it ignores how pregnant women are affected by the patriarchy and misogyny.

I have always been a very strong, capable, outspoken person. But from the second I got pregnant I was surprised by how many people attempted to or did bully me: medical professionals, relatives, and even friends. It was shocking to be as physically vulnerable as I’ve ever been and have people respond to it the way they did. I liked being pregnant and love my DC but in some ways was treated like an incubator for those 9 months and the 1-2 years after.

We don’t talk about how our society decides that pregnant women are their property and also somehow no longer capable of thinking for themselves.

As someone who advocated for myself and was branded controlling by my spineless DH who was afraid of everything postpartum, and a b-tch by my MIL, I am pretty sure that most women here already advocated for themselves or considered it and realized how ineffective it truly is.

+1

I just posted about being pressured/guilt tripped into traveling with my newborn way before I was ready so my ILs could meet the baby, and being treated really poorly on that trip and really resenting it.

Should I have said "no, I will not travel until I feel physically ready and the baby is older"? Yes. Was I actually capable of doing that while sleep deprived, stressed, dealing with massive hormone shifts, and just generally feeling overwhelmed and isolated, as many new moms do? No, I wasn't. In the first conversation about when we would visit them, I said "I'm not ready" (this was days after the baby was born). The second conversation was a week later and I still stated I wasn't ready but started getting heavy guilt trips, including from my DH. The thing was, he was also getting heavy guilt trips, and he didn't feel he could push back because his dad was sick. He was in a really challenging headspace as a new dad and, like me, struggled to push back. It was brought up again and again and eventually I just gave in and said okay. It was a horrible trip and remains an awful memory.

I did find my voice eventually, when my hormones had settled, I got treatment for PPD, and we settled into life as new parents. It took almost a year.

I believe the obligation in those first weeks and months is NOT on the new parents, who are just trying to figure it out. And especially not on the new mom who is undergoing a massive physical, mental, and emotional ordeal and should not be expected to be some superwoman who can self advocate at every moment or have to suffer the consequences. The obligation is on the people around the new parents to not be selfish jerks, to practice a smidge of empathy, and to have some patience and forbearance instead of thinking exclusively about how important it is that they get physical access to the baby.

Stop blaming the woman you just got out of the hospital, has raging hormones, and has gotten a max of 2-3 hours of consecutive sleep since the baby was born. That person is the only one who is blameless here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is absolutely rude and I would also be pissed. If you visit a new mom within the first month (minimum) after birth, you should be helping in some way and you should treat the new mom with some deference as she's recovering from pregnancy and childbirth. Just from a practical standpoint, the new mom is dealing with massive hormonal swings that can make her emotionally tender and you should be thoughtful of that. But especially if it's a first child, she's also undergoing an identity change and deserves some extra TLC. So does the new dad. If you don't want to sign up for that and want it just to be about YOU meeting the baby... you can do that from a hotel via short visits. If you can't afford that, you can wait until the baby is older. Sorry.

I traveled TO my ILs home when my DC was 3 weeks old after much pressure was placed on me to do so because my FIL was ill and could not travel. I didn't feel ready to travel and was still bleeding. It was a 7 hour car ride both ways. I was not even offered hospitality while we were visiting -- they planned a party for a bunch of people to come over against my express wishes that it just be ILs and my husband's siblings and that I was not ready to see other people and didn't want to be passing my newborn around to a bunch of people I barely knew. No one except my DH made any effort to take care of my physically (like even just checking to see if I needed a drink while breastfeeding) and my MIL complained repeatedly that I was "hogging" the baby.

I repaired my relationship with them but never truly forgot this. I still think of them as fundamentally selfish people.

Omg I blacked out that my MIL pressured us into driving 4 hours to stay with them for the weekend when I was about 4 weeks post partum , for a cousins baby shower. I don’t know why we agreed to go!!!! Probably just totally clueless , as new parents, and not yet used to putting our foot down for our new nuclear family. (Because before the baby of course we’d have gone up for the shower- it didn’t cross my mind that after the baby I’m totally free to say no, I’m post partum and no). It was awful. I was so sleep deprived and the drive was still hard on my C section scar. I felt like I had to get dressed and be awake on time and be pleasant with relatives when I was hormonal and miserable and exhausted. Plus we were sleeping on a sofa bed which is what we always slept on when we visited and it hadn’t even occurred to me that this was horrid to do to new parents and their newborn.

I remember my MIL being like “I’m sure it was so hard for you to come but I really appreciate it” and that’s when I realized, I may be clueless about adjusting to being a new mom but she isn’t clueless at ALL and knew exactly what she was asking of me. This is the same MIL who came to stay with us and sat around holding the baby while I cooked and cleaned, announcing “I just want to hold the baby and not cook or clean”. Man I shouldn’t have read your post because the anger is coming flooding back at remembering this!!!

Reading these stories feels radicalizing.

One of the things that really hits me is how vulnerable new mothers are. It's like being an injured animal, in fact it makes me think of how animals give birth and how pregnant mammals will seek out a "safe place" to hole up specifically because they know that if a predator were to find them during this time, they and their infants would be defenseless. So that's why cats are always giving birth under porches where it's really hard to get them out -- that's the whole freaking point.

But people act like a woman giving birth (and human childbirth is much more harrowing than it is for a lot of other animals because of the size of the human head and the fact that humans walk upright) is like nothing, not even worth acknowledging, and we should all be popping out of the hospital like Princess Kate in new outfits with smiles on our face, ready to deliver our brand new babies to our MIL and pose for photos within hours.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that. Burn it all down.

I don’t think it needs to be this dramatic. This is how we learn boundaries and how to advocate. Driving to attend a baby shower, and sleeping on an uncomfortable bed, sucks, but is not some profound trauma. In fact, by the time you have your second kid it is the kind of thing that seems pretty doable. So certainly someone 30 years removed from postpartum could understandably forget what the first few weeks were like.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is absolutely rude and I would also be pissed. If you visit a new mom within the first month (minimum) after birth, you should be helping in some way and you should treat the new mom with some deference as she's recovering from pregnancy and childbirth. Just from a practical standpoint, the new mom is dealing with massive hormonal swings that can make her emotionally tender and you should be thoughtful of that. But especially if it's a first child, she's also undergoing an identity change and deserves some extra TLC. So does the new dad. If you don't want to sign up for that and want it just to be about YOU meeting the baby... you can do that from a hotel via short visits. If you can't afford that, you can wait until the baby is older. Sorry.

I traveled TO my ILs home when my DC was 3 weeks old after much pressure was placed on me to do so because my FIL was ill and could not travel. I didn't feel ready to travel and was still bleeding. It was a 7 hour car ride both ways. I was not even offered hospitality while we were visiting -- they planned a party for a bunch of people to come over against my express wishes that it just be ILs and my husband's siblings and that I was not ready to see other people and didn't want to be passing my newborn around to a bunch of people I barely knew. No one except my DH made any effort to take care of my physically (like even just checking to see if I needed a drink while breastfeeding) and my MIL complained repeatedly that I was "hogging" the baby.

I repaired my relationship with them but never truly forgot this. I still think of them as fundamentally selfish people.

Omg I blacked out that my MIL pressured us into driving 4 hours to stay with them for the weekend when I was about 4 weeks post partum , for a cousins baby shower. I don’t know why we agreed to go!!!! Probably just totally clueless , as new parents, and not yet used to putting our foot down for our new nuclear family. (Because before the baby of course we’d have gone up for the shower- it didn’t cross my mind that after the baby I’m totally free to say no, I’m post partum and no). It was awful. I was so sleep deprived and the drive was still hard on my C section scar. I felt like I had to get dressed and be awake on time and be pleasant with relatives when I was hormonal and miserable and exhausted. Plus we were sleeping on a sofa bed which is what we always slept on when we visited and it hadn’t even occurred to me that this was horrid to do to new parents and their newborn.

I remember my MIL being like “I’m sure it was so hard for you to come but I really appreciate it” and that’s when I realized, I may be clueless about adjusting to being a new mom but she isn’t clueless at ALL and knew exactly what she was asking of me. This is the same MIL who came to stay with us and sat around holding the baby while I cooked and cleaned, announcing “I just want to hold the baby and not cook or clean”. Man I shouldn’t have read your post because the anger is coming flooding back at remembering this!!!

Reading these stories feels radicalizing.

One of the things that really hits me is how vulnerable new mothers are. It's like being an injured animal, in fact it makes me think of how animals give birth and how pregnant mammals will seek out a "safe place" to hole up specifically because they know that if a predator were to find them during this time, they and their infants would be defenseless. So that's why cats are always giving birth under porches where it's really hard to get them out -- that's the whole freaking point.

But people act like a woman giving birth (and human childbirth is much more harrowing than it is for a lot of other animals because of the size of the human head and the fact that humans walk upright) is like nothing, not even worth acknowledging, and we should all be popping out of the hospital like Princess Kate in new outfits with smiles on our face, ready to deliver our brand new babies to our MIL and pose for photos within hours.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that. Burn it all down.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s too bad she isn’t more helpful, but try to just accept that she is who she is. I can tell you that many of her generation do not see or understand why they would help. Eg, if you ask my parents, they will tell you they broke their backs raising 4 kids who are now self sufficient and they are done taking care of others. They want to enjoy their golden years. We expect zero help from them, no babysitting, etc. But we have plenty of visits where they enjoy seeing and interacting with the kids. I dictate the terms that work for us in terms of schedule and plans and it works just fine. (My MIL is actually the far more helpful and considerate grandparent and we are grateful for her for sure.)

Feel free to stand up for yourself as well, just don’t let yourself become bitter over unmet expectations. Eg “no, MIL, there is no dinner plan, would you be willing to order something while I feed the baby?” Or whatever.

That’s fine if that’s your relationship but then that’s not the sort of person you’d have come stay in your house after you’ve had major surgery like a C section and are sleep deprived and hormonal. You’d just ask them to come visit in a few weeks and stay in a hotel. And that should be fine. If they ask to come as soon as you’re discharged and ask to stay as a houseguest, they need to help you recover or they’re just terrible people , period

Anonymous wrote:Your first mistake was hosting MIL that soon after giving birth.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she cook for herself, clean up after herself and generally not cause you any additional work? If so then I think that’s within the realm of reasonable. Your spouse should be the one caring for you.

No, she expected meals to be provided by us for her, that’s why she said she was tired of takeout and wanted homecooked meals.

Is she normally helpful and kind? What's your relationship been like? If this is a new dynamic, I'd be worried that something is wrong with her, maybe cognitive decline. If this is her typical MO I'm not sure why you would expect anything different.

“Normally” OP isn’t recovering from a major trauma at the same time that neither she and her husband are sleeping for more than two hours at a time, while taking care of a brand new human being who is completely helpless.

What is wrong with you????? Why are you so committed to figuring out how to make this OPs fault?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is absolutely rude and I would also be pissed. If you visit a new mom within the first month (minimum) after birth, you should be helping in some way and you should treat the new mom with some deference as she's recovering from pregnancy and childbirth. Just from a practical standpoint, the new mom is dealing with massive hormonal swings that can make her emotionally tender and you should be thoughtful of that. But especially if it's a first child, she's also undergoing an identity change and deserves some extra TLC. So does the new dad. If you don't want to sign up for that and want it just to be about YOU meeting the baby... you can do that from a hotel via short visits. If you can't afford that, you can wait until the baby is older. Sorry.

I traveled TO my ILs home when my DC was 3 weeks old after much pressure was placed on me to do so because my FIL was ill and could not travel. I didn't feel ready to travel and was still bleeding. It was a 7 hour car ride both ways. I was not even offered hospitality while we were visiting -- they planned a party for a bunch of people to come over against my express wishes that it just be ILs and my husband's siblings and that I was not ready to see other people and didn't want to be passing my newborn around to a bunch of people I barely knew. No one except my DH made any effort to take care of my physically (like even just checking to see if I needed a drink while breastfeeding) and my MIL complained repeatedly that I was "hogging" the baby.

I repaired my relationship with them but never truly forgot this. I still think of them as fundamentally selfish people.

Omg I blacked out that my MIL pressured us into driving 4 hours to stay with them for the weekend when I was about 4 weeks post partum , for a cousins baby shower. I don’t know why we agreed to go!!!! Probably just totally clueless , as new parents, and not yet used to putting our foot down for our new nuclear family. (Because before the baby of course we’d have gone up for the shower- it didn’t cross my mind that after the baby I’m totally free to say no, I’m post partum and no). It was awful. I was so sleep deprived and the drive was still hard on my C section scar. I felt like I had to get dressed and be awake on time and be pleasant with relatives when I was hormonal and miserable and exhausted. Plus we were sleeping on a sofa bed which is what we always slept on when we visited and it hadn’t even occurred to me that this was horrid to do to new parents and their newborn.

I remember my MIL being like “I’m sure it was so hard for you to come but I really appreciate it” and that’s when I realized, I may be clueless about adjusting to being a new mom but she isn’t clueless at ALL and knew exactly what she was asking of me. This is the same MIL who came to stay with us and sat around holding the baby while I cooked and cleaned, announcing “I just want to hold the baby and not cook or clean”. Man I shouldn’t have read your post because the anger is coming flooding back at remembering this!!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you think if a family member asks to stay at a new mom’s house in the week post partum she’s required to help in some way?

I’m asking because MIL stayed for a week a day after I had our baby and didn’t get me a glass of water, didn’t cook a single meal or help in any way and I thought it was really rude.

Oh Jesus can we go for five minutes without bashing a mother in law? Does anyone have any new material?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom informed me "I'm not coming over to cook and clean when you have an able bodied husband sitting there who can do all that. I just want to see the baby." I guess she has a point but I was swimming in PPD and just needed help.

As if the baby’s father doesn’t want to also bond with the baby during what is probably a one week unpaid parental leave? What a B.

Anonymous wrote:It is absolutely rude and I would also be pissed. If you visit a new mom within the first month (minimum) after birth, you should be helping in some way and you should treat the new mom with some deference as she's recovering from pregnancy and childbirth. Just from a practical standpoint, the new mom is dealing with massive hormonal swings that can make her emotionally tender and you should be thoughtful of that. But especially if it's a first child, she's also undergoing an identity change and deserves some extra TLC. So does the new dad. If you don't want to sign up for that and want it just to be about YOU meeting the baby... you can do that from a hotel via short visits. If you can't afford that, you can wait until the baby is older. Sorry.

I traveled TO my ILs home when my DC was 3 weeks old after much pressure was placed on me to do so because my FIL was ill and could not travel. I didn't feel ready to travel and was still bleeding. It was a 7 hour car ride both ways. I was not even offered hospitality while we were visiting -- they planned a party for a bunch of people to come over against my express wishes that it just be ILs and my husband's siblings and that I was not ready to see other people and didn't want to be passing my newborn around to a bunch of people I barely knew. No one except my DH made any effort to take care of my physically (like even just checking to see if I needed a drink while breastfeeding) and my MIL complained repeatedly that I was "hogging" the baby.

I repaired my relationship with them but never truly forgot this. I still think of them as fundamentally selfish people.

Anonymous wrote:I’m the PP with the baby snatcher MIL. Like many couples, we try to have major communications with ILs come from my husband. So I was not present at the conversation where he told them that they needed to stay in a hotel. So when they showed up with suitcases and started making themselves at home my sleep deprived brain was really struggling. Had he not actually told them that they needed to stay at a hotel? Had he somehow implied he didn’t really mean it like they said? Who knows, I honestly still don’t understand the level of entitlement they were projecting! I/we did what we could prior to the birth but people have to be decent. Also how are you supposed to know what you’re going to need beforehand? I sure as sh*t was not expecting to be destroyed to the extent I was by my birth experience. I have never felt as battered and exhausted as I did at that moment in time and I’ve spent significant time in the ICU with a life threatening illness. I think there is a lot of white washing of the experience of pregnancy and child birth and a lack of understanding that it can be fine or it can kill you and it can be anything in between. So if you are going to show up in someone’s life at that time you should be ready to be helpful or at ASK what they need or you should wait until they recover.