Latest / The Birth Lounge Podcast / Ep. 471: Mother in Law or Monster in Law with Mom Mom Maria

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Ep. 471: Mother in Law or Monster in Law with Mom Mom Maria · The Birth Lounge Podcast

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I'll talk to a young mom and she'll say, "You know, my mom or my mother-in-law wanted to see my baby, you know, every Friday.
They, she wanted to come over and see the baby, and I just said, you know, 'How about two Fridays a month?'" And now she's saying, telling everyone who will listen that I'm keeping the baby from her.
Because it didn't, doesn't fit her agenda or how she wants things, so you're keeping the baby from her.
Like, that's what I hear a lot of.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Birth Lounge Podcast.
Let me ask you something.
Do you have a monster-in-law in your life? Maybe your mother is the monster-in-law.
I don't know.
Uh, we all have different situations here, but one thing I can tell you is if you are having babies right now, and you are in my generation, I'm a '91 baby, I'm 35 years old, just had my first baby, Saggy Boy.
Woof, did it bring out some different dynamics that I was not expecting in myself, in people in our lives, in our family, in our friends.
I shared on a recent episode about the mom fucks that...
The mom fucks.
The mind fucks in motherhood that I had, and one of those was how different friends have either shown up for me or not shown up for me in motherhood.
It was totally different than what I thought it was gonna be, and the same can be said about so many of us and our relationships with our moms and our mother-in-laws Every single day I have so many DMs from you guys talking about the relationships with your own moms or your mother-in-laws and how these women are showing up for you.
And every now and then I'll get a message and it's like, you know, my mother's showing up for me in such a great way or I have a fantastic mother-in-law.
But for the most part, the overwhelming amount of messages has to do with how do I set boundaries with my mom or my mother-in-law? How do I tell my mom that I don't like what she is doing? How do I tell my mother-in-law that she is violating my boundaries? And or it is I've had these discussions with either my mom or my mother-in-law and they're not listening.
The conversations do not do any good.
They just get mad.
I'm still having my boundaries violated and I don't know where to turn.
Well, one thing I'll tell you is I'm not the girl to turn to, but I did seek out a expert in this and I don't know that she would self-proclaim as an expert, but I'm so excited to be joined by Mom Mom Maria on Instagram.
She is a grandmother of children who are our age and her children are now having children and her entire Instagram is helping people of our age.
So you and me who are having babies learn how to navigate these relationships with our own moms and our mother-in-laws.
It can be so hard and defeating to have the people that you love and you want to have a relationship with your baby constantly telling you, "Well, I did this when you were kids," or, "No, don't do it that way," or, "Our pediatrician when you were little..."
or, "You know what? I hear you, but I'm just gonna do it my way."
Or maybe they just don't say anything.
They just simply post your child online after you've made it very clear that you don't want your child posted online.
Maybe they tell people that you're pregnant even though you told them, "This is not something we're sharing right now.
You're the only person that knows."
And they take your good news, and they share it widely as if it was their good news.
There's so many ways that people in our life can violate boundaries, and I was very unprepared at how pregnancy and having a baby was going to bring this up in my own life.
And so I wanted to have Mom Mom Maria on to share how she navigates this as a grandmother In today's episode, we're gonna dive into communication skills.
How do you actually say the things that you want to say? Plus, why is it so hard as a new mom to actually speak up for yourself? I wanna hear Mom Mom's opinion on the idea that your husband handles his family, and you handle your family.
But then we are gonna also talk about things like holding your mom and your mother-in-law, or parents-in-law in general, accountable.
How does that entitlement that grandparents feel impact the relationship with you, but also your baby? I wanna know, is it nitpicky to always be asking them to do things certain ways? But then again, it's like, well, this is my baby, so of course I want things done a certain way.
Like, where's that line in the sand where now you're just being a demanding new mom versus, "No, I have a very intentional way of doing things with my baby"? And then finally, we're gonna dive into the topic of is it appropriate to have different boundaries and different rules for different family members? Being a new parent is so overwhelming, and exhausting, and exhilarating, and joyful.
But to add on the stressor of having either a mom or a mother-in-law that is not respecting you, that's violating your boundaries, and that is treating you disrespectfully is just so out of this world that I knew I wanted to have Mom Mom Maria on to help us navigate this.
So many of you come to me, and I don't always know the right answers, but I know today's episode is going to be insanely helpful in helping you start to set those boundaries, regain the boundaries that might have been broken, and then be more confident going forward.
One quick disclaimer before we dive into today's episode.
Towards the end of the episode, my mom Maria is going to share an experience that she had as a preteen, and it does mention infant loss.
So if this is something that you are not in a space to receive, just be mindful of where you are in the timing and listening of this episode All right, you guys, without further ado, Mom Mom Maria, welcome to the show Hello.
How are you? Doing so well.
You have no idea how excited I am for this episode.
You know, my, my followers kind of know my life, and I was sharing with you before we got started that I I have two different relationships with the maternal figures in my life.
My relationship with my own mom is kind of strained, and my relationship with my mother-in-law is fantastic.
I have a, a absolutely fantastic mother-in-law.
And I found out I was pregnant, and I think one of the things that I was really, really unprepared for was how much things were going to change when you had a baby with everyone in your family.
And I think I expected this with weddings when we got married, because everyone tells you, "Oh, getting married brings out the worst in people.
It just brings out the worst in people.
You're gonna see the biggest fights."
Well, my husband and I made it through the wedding p- process, the planning process, and we didn't have a single...
He and I didn't have a fight.
We didn't have fights with our parents.
That's good.
Our parents didn't fight with anybody.
I mean, our wedding really went off without a hitch, the planning process and the wedding itself.
And- That's great so I got to having a baby and I thought, "Well, this is gonna be easy.
Like, I'm a doula.
I know what I'm doing.
My husband is in the healthcare field.
He knows what he's doing.
We're gonna have a home birth.
This is just gonna be great."
And now that I am about eight months out, it has really...
Just having a baby brings out sides of people that I think maybe they aren't even aware of.
Do you agree with that statement? I do.
I do.
And not so much brings it out, I feel like it just reveals what's already there.
Mm.
But it just pulls back the curtain and you get to see.
And people are at their basest.
I, I always say, a lot of times families feel like entitlement, and they feel like the baby is like a shared family object, where they don't have to ask permission to do things, or they're entitled to certain things, and that causes friction.
Totally.
Okay, grandparents can be especially guilty of this, right? Well, that's my grandbaby.
Mm-hmm.
I know that one of the things I was really irked about that I didn't think I was gonna be irked about is when people call Saggy, that's my son, my baby.
When they say like, "Oh, that's my baby," I'm like, "No, that's my baby.
Like, that's your grandbaby, or that's your nephew, or that's your...
That's like- Yep your best friend's baby.
That's not your baby.
That's my baby."
Why do you think that happens? I get that all the time.
I get all the time.
I don't know, but it happened with me and my own daughter.
So my, me and my daughter, my daughter's 34.
Um, she has a three-year-old, a just turned three-year-old, and a two-month-old baby.
And when my granddaughter, Prue, was first born, maybe for the first six months of her life, and I see my daughter almost every day- I would come through her back door and every now and then I would say, "There's Mom Mom's baby.
There she is."
And I never thought a thing about it.
I just never even occurred to me.
And then one of my followers said something about her mother does it, and she hates it, and it really bothers her.
So I thought, "Hmm, this doesn't bother my daughter," but I asked my daughter Elizabeth about it, and it turned out it did bother her.
And, and we're really close, and I said, "Why didn't you tell me? Like, we talk every day.
Why didn't you tell me that it bothered you?" And for her, it w- she thought that it was a little too nitpicky, because sh- that wasn't the hill she was gonna die on.
And so she didn't say anything.
But it, and she goes, "It doesn't bother me that much, but it do- it kinda does."
And so I never did it again, because I don't want, you know, I respect her feelings.
And I get that question at least once a week from people.
Like, "Well, what do I do? They're sh- my, my mother or my mother-in-law is saying, you know, she's calling her baby, and I, it really bothers me."
And I say, "You just, you have to tell her.
And then you don't have to say it, like, sit down and have a big discussion or whatever, but correct it in the moment.
So the next time she does it, just say, 'Oh, Grandmom's baby,' or whatever you call her or whatever, or, 'No, that's Mommy's baby,' or just however you wanna do it, bring it up as it's happening."
Because sometimes if you sit somebody down to talk to them about something, it comes off to them as a criticism.
Mm-hmm.
But if you do it in the moment, it's just life.
It just, you're living your life, and you're just doing it in the moment, and it's received a little bit better sometimes.
Depends on the person.
No, that's really helpful, because, you know, I, um, it's kinda funny.
I, I think a lot at night as I'm putting Saggy down to sleep is kinda my time to debrief the day, and something that's continuously come up for me is, you know, I teach boundaries.
That's my entire shtick.
I am the boundaries doula.
I teach you how to hold boundaries- how to set boundaries, how to talk to your providers in labor when you're in this really intense moment, how to even have disagreements with your provider when maybe they're suggesting something that you don't want for your birth process.
Yet, in motherhood, it has been incredibly hard for me to speak up for myself and my child when it comes to other people's boundaries.
My default has been to just almost, like, get through that moment, and then once I get through that moment, I'll just figure out how to never get us back into that, that situation again.
Like, I will just think, "How do I avoid that situation in the future, like, at all cost?" And so something within myself that continues to come up is just how hard it can be to actually speak up in the moment as a new postpartum mom, and I say that as someone who, I mean, that started happening at seven days postpartum for me when we first let people in our home to see our new baby, and it's still happening now and we're right around that eight-month mark.
So I would have thought, like, oh yeah, it's, it's gonna get easier, but it actually hasn't.
Why do you think that happens? Why is it so hard as a new mom to just say how you want people to do with your baby? Because this is something you obviously know.
Like, it's, it's very instinctual.
I know how I want people to feed my baby.
I know how my baby wants to be held.
Why do I feel uncomfortable saying like, "Oh, just hold him up a little bit more upright and he'll probably be a little bit more comfortable"? Why do I feel so much I don't know, like, discomfort trying to speak up? Well, first of all, that will change because once your child gets older, maybe two, three, and they really, like, can understand everything that's going on, you're gonna going to be much more forward about how you want things around your child.
That just comes instinctually.
It doesn't, it takes a while to get there, especially with your first.
You won't be like this with your second.
But with your first baby I find that a lot of women are like that.
I was like that.
My daughter was like that with Prue a little bit.
Not, she's not anymore with the new baby.
And it just it's, it's a new role, and I think that a lot of times as women, even if we're not people pleasers, there's a part of us that is.
And, you know, we, we want to be generous to, uh, people that are coming to see our baby, and we want them, you know, to love the baby and to have an experience, but it shouldn't be at the cost of our comfort and what we're, we're comfortable with.
So, you know, as a grandmother, it's the same thing.
You have to grow into your role.
I didn't know how to be a grandmother.
I've changed since Prue was born.
It, it, it's, it could, you could start out as one thing, but if you really want to be a g- a better grandmother or, you know, have a good relationship with your adult child and their child, you evolve.
And I think it's the same with, with motherhood.
I think by this time next year you will not feel like that anymore.
Aw, I hope you're right.
You know, it's really, it's funny to hear you talk about that evolution because I obviously have grown as a new mom, right? I've gotten better at the things I've done, and I've gotten better at speaking up, and I've gotten better at setting boundaries and holding those boundaries.
It was really, really hard in the beginning, especially, I think I struggled a lot more mentally because, um, because I did have that voice in my head that was like, "Come on, HeHe, you teach people how to do this every day.
Why are you struggling with this?" Right? It was like an additional layer of almost shame or, like, self-inflicted like, you can do this.
You should know how to do this.
And, and it was really hard.
What about parents who just are not able to respect boundaries? And I, and I'll give a little anecdote.
So when my son was born, he was born at home, and my audience knows, you guys know this, we, we had to go to the ER about three days after he was born, and we were in the ER for about five days.
So that brought us home on day seven.
And we invited people to our home on the next day.
So we got home from the hospital, and we invited people to our home on the next day, and we had opened up our home for the next seven days.
And we said, "If you are in this group of people," it was our parents, our grandparents, both of our sisters, and then our sisters' spouses.
And those people had gotten a special invite to come to our home, but only for the next seven days.
And you could come and visit us all of those seven days.
You could choose one day.
You could choose three days.
We didn't care, but we had just gotten out of the hospital.
We were also still learning life with a newborn, and we had said, "These are the dates that we are welcoming visitors in our life, and also, please don't bring anyone else.
It's just our immediate family."
Well, my own mom was very offended by that, and she, for some reason, had her own plan.
I don't know how this came about, because we had spent months while I was pregnant speaking about, we're gonna have the baby, we're gonna have a few days to ourselves, and then we're gonna open up our house for visitors.
And do you know that my son came pretty much on the day that I had predicted him to come? So in everyone's calendar, this should have been the exact timeline.
Well, she was very, very miffed about this, and she actually refused to come and visit us altogether.
And then she didn't come for another six to eight weeks because she was so angry that my husband and I had put boundaries around when we were going to allow visitors.
But I really wanna set the stage for anyone who's thinking, like, "Wow, how could you have done that?" You guys, when you have a baby, you have so much going on around you, and when it's your first, and I don't know how it is with your second, third, fourth, but you just wanna sit and, like, relish in your baby.
You don't wanna have to entertain.
You don't wanna have to answer people's questions about, you know, can I unload the dishwasher, or where do I put this, or do you wash your clothes on this, w- you know, cold or hot? You just wanna sit and be with your baby, even though those people are being super helpful.
And this was, for me, just such a deep cut.
I mean, it really wounded me.
It really did.
It hurt me so badly that my own mother was so hell-bent and stuck to her plan that she wasn't willing to be flexible, that she refused to come and see my brand-new baby right after I had had him, and then she didn't even see him again until he was almost two months old.
What are your thoughts for people who are walking something similarly? Because when I share this online, I get hundreds of messages- Mm-hmm of people who are in a similar boat, but also even have it worse, and my heart just breaks for those people so deeply.
It is heartbreaking.
It really is.
I personally can't relate because I would've, you know, anything to be, to see my new granddaughter when, when either one of them, both of them, when they were born.
But I mean, that happens.
They don't, they don't know how to behave.
That's punishment.
Your mother did that as punishment.
I'm, I can't do exactly whatever I want, then I'm gonna remove myself and then see how she likes it.
So there's a lot of grandparents like that.
There's also, like my own mother, when I had my son, I have a son and a daughter, they're both in their 30s.
When I had my son, Vincent, a nurse had to come into my hospital room and throw my mother out because she was holding my newborn and screaming at me.
So it was, and I was 20.
I was 20 years old.
So it's, it brings out or reveals a bad side of some grandmothers.
Now, you can recover.
I was never like that.
I'm, I, I promised myself I wouldn't be like that, but I was not, I had to evolve, too.
And the entitlement that you feel as a grandparent, it's overwhelming sometimes.
When my second granddaughter, Lola, was just born, and I, I remember just looking at her in the hospital, and the sense of entitlement, this baby is attached to me genetically.
This baby is my baby's.
She looked like my daughter and my son-in-law, but, you know, you just see it, the entitlement is real.
It really is, and I had to, like, forcibly take a deep breath and back up from that because I don't wanna be like that.
And so to your mother, it was probably, well, how dare you limit her? She should be exempt from all rules, first of all, as far as she's concerned, probably.
But how dare you? That's not, you're taking something away from her that already belongs to her, is, I think that's the mindset of some of the, the grandparents.
That's how my mother felt.
So i- I just tell people that write to me or message me about it, just like, listen, it is not selfish to want to spend time.
You are a new family unit.
I don't care if it's your first or your fifth.
You're a new family unit.
You need to get used to each other.
You need to bond with each other.
It's not, that's not selfish.
It's normal.
So talk to us a little bit more about that entitlement, 'cause I'm obviously not a grandmother, and most of my listeners are not grandmothers.
People who listen to this particular episode might have tuned in because they're a grandmother.
But- I just, I guess I'm, I'm...
I don't know.
Because I'm not a grandmother, maybe I can't understand it.
The entitlement comes i- in what form? Like, I need to be able to co-parent this baby, or I want to be able to have a say in this baby, or, or I think- A lot of times- that, that I deserve this baby, or what? Yeah, a lot of times.
Now, think about how you feel about your baby right now.
It's your baby.
Yeah.
You can do whatever you want with him, pick him up, feed...
That's how grandparents feel sometimes, or just a little piece of that.
Just imagine just a little piece of that.
Well, that's my grand- You know, do you ever hear them say, "Well, I'm the grandmother," or, "That's my grandchild"? That's, they feel like that entitles them to certain things and It's a rude awakening when they h- are corrected by the daughter or daughter-in-law.
Like, "Hey, no, I, this is how we want things."
Now, I don't have a big ego, and I'm, plus I'm really, really close to my kids and their spouses.
I, I love their spouse.
They're both married.
And so it was a little bit easier.
I think if you have a strained relationship to begin with, that makes, that just exacerbates everything and makes it harder.
But the entitlement is, like I'll give you an example, and this was not my finest moment.
I thought I was beyond stuff like this.
But when my daughter had Prue, I was in the room.
She wanted me in there to advocate for her.
She had no idea what to expect.
She wanted her husband focused on her, and I'm like a pit bull.
She was like, "Well, Mom, if something happens and you know that's not what I want, you can basically just advocate for me."
So that's what I- so I was there, and it was wonderful, and it was beautiful, and I tr- I'll treasure that always.
Now, fast-forward, she just had my granddaughter, Lola, and my husband and I stayed with Prue at their house.
Like, we were watching her, and so we weren't there.
And my husband's a little bit...
He's- we've been together for 41 years, but we feed off of each other, sometimes in a not-so-great way.
So we're sitting there, and then it's like 1:00 in the morning, and she still hadn't been born, and we were about to go to sleep, and then my son-in-law texted us, "She's here," and with exclamation points and the whole bit.
And I was like, "Oh my God, are they okay? Is, is everyone okay?" "Yes."
"Fine."
An hour later, so it's 2:00 in the morning, my daughter texts us her weight and just that she's beautiful.
And I said s- "Well, send a picture."
And she said, "Matt was just, we, Matt were just talking about that, and we, we thought maybe we could ju- you could just see her in person.
It would be more special if you came tomorrow and saw her in person."
And I don't know what happened to me, but in my brain I was like, "What do you mean I can't see an effing picture?" Like, I've been waiting.
As my husband's like, "What?" And he's elbowing me.
And I was just like, "Oh, we didn't ta- like, I thought you were gonna send a picture."
Like, and for a second, like, my mind was like, I wanted...
Like, if we were on the phone, I would've maybe been angry.
I'm not sure.
But after I recovered from that, I was like, "Oh, why did, why would I, did I do that?" Because I thought I was entitled to that picture, and I was waiting for that picture.
And instead of taking her thoughts and feelings into consideration, like, "We thought it would be more special if you come tomo- like, it's to bring Prue," and I, the first thought in my head was, Send me the picture.
I deser-" Like, I was owed that picture as far as I was concerned.
And you really have to, it's okay to have those thoughts as a grandparent.
It's gonna, it's gonna happen.
But it's what you do after that that matters.
Are you gonna double down? Are you gonna...
You know, are you going to take a step back and think, "Okay.
All right.
This is what they want.
It's their baby.
This is her experience.
It has nothing to do with me as far as, you know, anything like that."
And then just take a deep breath and regroup.
And I think a lot of times grandparents have to learn how to do that.
And I thought I was, like, way past that So, so I was not, that gave me a good, like, reality check in that time.
Like, hey, you, you know, you're not past that.
You have to keep a handle on it.
And I think that's what I'm trying to teach grandparents.
Like, not, I'm just trying to let them know, like, "Hey, this is not okay.
If this is happening, that's not okay.
Or if this is happening, that's not okay."
Now, I thought when I started this that I would have a lot of grandparents following me, and I don't.
I have some grandparents following me.
It's mostly young moms.
Yeah, which I love, which I absolutely love.
Well, let me tell you why that happens, my mom, is because our parents are not out there doing the work.
Because what I continue to hear you talk about is actually emotional intelligence.
What you just described just then was that you felt something, and instead of acting on it right then, you took a moment to think, "All right, this is what I'm feeling, and now I need to consider how everybody else in the circle is feeling."
And you realize yes, I'm feeling this way.
No, it's not wrong, but someone in the circle is more important to me right now."
And I think that is what so many of our parents do not have.
And I hope I don't offend you here, but do you think that maybe is how your generation was raised? Do you think that your parents maybe acted this way with you guys as children, or is this something that maybe, you know, wasn't talked about in your homes growing up? How did we get to a generation of women my age, and I'm, I'm 35, everybody and all of our parents collectively.
Now you've got some, you've got some outliers like you and my mother-in-law, a- and my father-in-law.
I mean, he's great, too.
But for the most part, collectively, this is like an entire generational wound for people my age, is that our parents just lack emotional intelligence to be able to show up for us in a way that is safe and secure and helpful and doesn't put their needs above ours, even though we're the ones who are birthing babies.
Why do you think that is? How did we get here? Well, I was raised by, my mom's a Boomer.
I'm Gen X, an old Gen X, but I'm still a little liar.
And- Part of it, I really think, is that we were raised hearing, "You're not my equal.
You're not..."
You know, like, our parents raised us as we had to respect them, we had to respect our elders no matter what.
No matter what they did, no matter what the kind of person they were, it doesn't matter.
Just simply because of their age, they deserved respect.
And so for me, and, grandmothers that are my age, I think that it's one of two things.
Like, we either just go down that same road, or we stop and realize that's not healthy.
That's not, like, a healthy way of thinking of things.
But, yeah I also think that, at least in my case, we were raised to be self-sufficient and not so much...
Like, I, I did, I raised my kids differently than I was raised.
And You know, I, we had a kind of relationship that I took care of them more than I was taken care of.
You know, like we were, uh, we were all latchkey kids for the most part.
We were, you know, just...
I, I mean, I just, the things that I think about that I was allowed to do when I was younger, I would, I'd never let my kids do.
Or your grandkids.
Yeah, or my g- oh my God forbid.
Don't even.
So I, I think that has a lot to do with it.
It, it's the mindset that...
And plus the internet.
I, I know that sounds weird, but when I was younger and having kids in the late '80s, early '90s, there was no internet.
There was no social media.
There was no anything.
So I had no choice but to...
I mean, there was books and our pediatrician, but besides that, it, it was our moms and our grandmothers.
Now it's supposed to be our turn, but it isn't our turn.
A- and that's a hard pill to swallow for some people.
They wanna be, they want to, uh, share their wisdom, or they want to...
Well, wisdom, you know, in quotes.
And they want, or they want to, but there's no, that doesn't happen anymore.
Like, my daughter, before she even had Prue, had done all of her research and knew what kind of car seat she wanted, and h- you know, how she wanted to do every- everything.
And that's kind of like, oh, I, you know, she asks me my opinion sometimes, and we just potty trained Prue a couple months ago, and she, I've potty trained, like, 10 kids in my life, so she asked me for tips and we, you know, did it together.
But for the most part she doesn't need to ask me because of the internet.
And so I think some mothers can't deal with that.
Okay, so I can definitely, I can definitely understand how that's hard, right? As, as a, a grandmother, you are feeling like you have all this knowledge, and you- Mm-hmm want to share it with the generation below you.
That has never dawned on me before, that, you know, that separation of passing down wisdom is being interrupted.
Mm-hmm.
I've definitely experienced it where- Yeah you know, people in my life are just sharing, like, what they did with their children or that they think what I'm doing maybe isn't right, or maybe they're just giving their opinion.
And, you know, I'm I'm a incredibly strong personality person.
I have a lot of boundaries.
I know who I am.
I am very confident.
And so for me, it always, or I, I guess always in the last eight months, it has felt as if- It was almost a critique.
Like, "Oh, well you must not think I'm doing something right because you won't stop putting in your opinion."
But it's really helpful to hear that maybe this is the way it has always been.
100%.
And because of the internet, these grandmothers are actually losing out on part of, like, the grandmother rite of passage.
Mm-hmm.
That's part of it, definitely.
It's just how you deal with it e- is the issue, 'cause some people don't cope well Mm with it.
So that's the issue.
I, I get so many messages, and they're different, but they're all the same i- in s- in some ways.
And it's, it's how you deal w- the grandparents that do not know how to deal with what they perceive as rejection or, you know, how of them not listening to them or taking their advice.
But I always say, you can give your advice But they don't have to take it.
Mm-hmm.
Like, nobody's saying you can't give your advice.
I do.
I mean, once, though.
You can't just keep driving...
don't say it 20 times.
They heard you the first time.
I say that to my husband all the time.
Uh, with naming, they were g- they were throwing out names.
They had a little list of names for Lola, and one of them we both did not like at all.
And, um, he was like, "I don't like that name."
And so I said, "Me neither."
So my daughter asked me, "What do you think? Rank the names that I just gave you from one to five.
Like, I'm curious."
So I ranked them, and I was like, "We don't like this one at all.
We don't like..."
It was Selma.
And I was like, "I am not a fan of it, and neither is Daddy."
And, um, and so we talked about it, and then we let it go.
I let it go because I, she asked me my opinion, I gave it.
And then my husband's like, "Did you tell her we didn't like that name?" And I said, "Yeah, I told her."
And he was like, "Tell her again."
And I said, "Why? Do you think she didn't hear me? She heard me.
And if she names her baby that, that's her right.
We named our kids.
It's her turn."
So i- it's, that...
It's, it's just like, you can give your advice, or you can give your opinion, but I always say just one time.
The, it's, that's all that they heard you.
Yeah.
That is super, super, super helpful.
Okay.
Uh, uh, sorry to anyone out there named Selma.
Yeah, sorry.
I said it.
It's just personally we didn't...
It was our least favorite out of the five.
Oh my gosh, that's so funny.
You know, naming, naming is a really funny thing.
Um, my husband and I held the name until our baby was born, and so our families met this baby already having a name.
We didn't give anyone, uh, a chance to hear them.
We didn't get anyone's- Okay opinion.
Um- That's smart.
And- That's smart.
Well, for us, we also waited to find out the gender, so we didn't know the gender- Oh until Saggy was born.
And so, you know, when he was born, it was late at night, and we had a home birth.
And so it was just us and our home birth team that, that learned that he was a boy and that his name was Saggy.
And, uh, the next morning we FaceTimed our family, and we just introduced him as, "This is Saggy."
And, um- That's smart, yeah you know, it, it really It insulated us from a lot of opinions because at that point nobody was worried about his name being Saggy.
Everybody was like, "Oh my God, this cute baby is here."
And so I actually don't know how everybody feels about his name, and I love it that way because- Yeah I love his name.
I chose his name specifically.
And so yeah.
Okay.
You had said something that I wanted to circle back to, but it has left my brain.
Maybe you'll hit on it.
Um, maybe you'll hit on it again.
Hmm.
It was about the opinions and sticking in your opinions.
I really wanted to hit on it because it is something that constantly comes up.
I don't know, maybe it'll come up, so I'm just I'll just move on to our next to the next thing that's on my mind.
You've got so many things running through my mind and it's so helpful to know that this is, you know, a universal experience that, that all moms and grandmothers have to learn- Mm-hmm how to be a new mom, and you're learning how to be a grandmother, and you're learning how to be a grandmother to your daughter, but also your son-in-law that's not your child, and your son, and also your daughter-in-law who's not your child.
And those dynamics are very different.
One thing nobody really tells you before becoming a mom is how much your environment impacts you when you are postpartum.
You spend so much time at home, probably in your primary bedroom, in your bed, feeding, recovering, contact napping, figuring out your new rhythm.
And suddenly your home isn't just where you live anymore.
Well, it's your sanctuary at that point.
And I've realized being newly postpartum that the little things matter more than they ever did.
Well, they did for me in this season, at least.
Natural light became a must-have every single morning.
Soft textures also were something that I gravitated towards.
Feeling calm in your space was a non-negotiable.
Creating an environment that feels peaceful instead of over-simulating is going to be the key to making sure that you can feel supported in postpartum.
That's actually why I became obsessed with the curtains from Two Pages.
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And honestly, it made those middle of the night feeds and slow postpartum days feel so much gentler because I could rest assured that the curtains that were in our rooms of the air that we were breathing in every single day, including my newborn, were not filled with polyester and harsh chemicals.
The curtains that I decided to go with are cotton and linen blend.
I also love how customizable they are.
You get to customize everything from length and color, duh, but also the hanging style, how many panels you want, the width of the panels, the lining of the panels, and the tie-back options.
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So talk to us about setting boundaries.
Something I often hear is, and I'll, I'll say we do this a little bit in our family.
Well, not really a little bit.
This is kind of how it has naturally I don't know, uh, tran- uh, transpired in our family.
It's naturally happened this way.
But my husband takes care of boundaries and communication with his family, and I take care of boundaries and communication with my family.
Now, both of us are really close to his family, so if I need to set a boundary, I can.
And I certainly do communicate with his family.
I text his mom and his dad all the time.
We all are in a family group chat with both of our families.
But when it comes to something serious, we typically sit our families down together and do it, you know, both of us together with that one family, and then we'll go to the other family and we'll do it together.
Do you see any difference in how young couples are handling setting boundaries with their family? Do you think it's better to do it together? Do you think it's better, you know, that, that young moms are having these discussions with their mother-in-laws? Is it Dad takes care of his side, Mom takes care of her side? Or do you think it really all comes down to the dynamics of those relationships? Well, it's a little bit of both, but I very strongly advocate you're doing it the right way, for you both to sit down with the family if it's something serious.
Because what happens if it's just one person, the parents that don't want to hear whatever it is that they're saying blames it on the, in their mind it's like they're making them do this, you know? A- and, and I think that when you're together and you, they can see a united front, it changes the dynamic a little bit, um, and it helps them realize that, uh, they're both on the same page and not just like she's just coming to me to say this, and, you know, she's...
You know, I lost count of how many women have told me and I always say your mom or your mother-in-law in my videos.
Your mom or your mother-in-law, because think about it, every, for every bad mother-in-law, like, she's somebody's mother too.
So it's it's, it's like they're both.
So I always include that.
But I lost count of how many times I hear "My mother-in-law thinks that I'm controlling my husband."
because, like bec- if she speaks up by herself.
And it, but if they're there together or, you know, I do think though that for non-serious things it's fine for the husband to deal with his family and for you to deal with your family.
But on those, anything that's even a little bit serious or a boundary that's in stone, then y- you should be together doing it.
Because it, you'll have it's practice too for when your kids are old.
You cannot, you have to be a united front with your kids when they're older.
You can't like just one of them, unless it's in the moment and you have to.
But like as a serious punishment, you both have to sit down with them.
Because then they try to think maybe I can work that other person a little bit.
Maybe they don't feel exactly the same way."
So yeah, my husband and I learned that over the years, that it, you have to be a united front even if you don't agree.
If I hear, if I like heard him saying something when my kids were teenagers or whatever, and I didn't quite like, like it or think he was going about it the right way, I would wait and then later on when we were together alone say, "Listen, I don't think you should've said that," or whatever.
But in the mo- you have to be a united front.
Yeah.
Any tips on communication? Because for a lot of couples You know, especially if you made it through the wedding process without any hiccups and/or maybe the wedding process was just hellacious.
I mean, maybe it just brought out the worst sides, and now you've got a lot of anxiety of like, "Oh my God, what's it gonna be like having a baby?" Or if you're like us, and you're like, "Well, that went off without a hitch.
This is gonna go off without a hitch."
Do you have any tips for communicating boundaries with our parents? I, I mean, I do.
I always tell people, like, I get a lot of pregnant women that message me too, and I say before the baby comes.
Because they don't realize how vulnerable they're going to be right after they have a baby, and how I lost count of how many women say, "This, this, and this happened to me, and I wish I had spoken up," you know, when I was, like, newly postpartum.
And so I tell them, set your boundaries if possible.
Like, if you're still pregnant, set them now before you even give birth, like you did with the week and whatever.
It's better and easier to manage.
But if you have a problem afterwards, like if you're telling your mom and they just lose control, they start screaming at you, or they start...
You know, a common thing is they'll just bring up something you did that they didn't like.
And that shifts the focus away from what you're saying to now you're defending yourself.
So I always tell them, stay on track.
No matter what it is that you're saying, do not let them take you off track.
Just say, "Well, we can discuss that later.
We're discussing this first."
And, and stay on track, because that is such a common tactic, and they all do it.
And I think somebody asked me, "Why do they all sound the same? Why do all these grandparents that are, like, acting like this, they all sound the same?" And in my opinion, they're all trying to dodge accountability.
That's, that's what it comes down to.
And so they are using the same, like, manipulation tactics to do that.
And it's the same thing with boundaries.
They are, they don't want the boundary to apply to them, so they all do the same thing.
"Well, I'm gonna look over here.
See this shiny thing? Let's talk about this instead."
And so that's my biggest piece of advice is just stay on track.
Be calm, firm.
Don't get drawn into a debate, and don't get sidetracked.
Yeah.
Woof, that's so hard.
You know? It's really, really hard.
I also love the phrase "If you can't be respectful of me in this conversation, then we'll just end this conversation right now, and we can come back to it later when you're feeling calmer and when you're able to speak to me with respect."
You know, don't let people yell at you guys.
Um, if you're pregnant out there, you know that your stress levels are super important.
We want to keep those really low.
And you know, I hope sharing my own story of how my own mother treated me freshly postpartum is I, I hope it's helpful.
I hope that you can see that even if you set boundaries with people in your life, you still may encounter a time where someone is still violating your boundaries.
And, you know, at that point it was nice for me because I was able to handle my own mom and my dad and, and I just told them like, "No, you guys cannot come up.
That the, the dates that you're wanting to come up, our home is not open for visitors.
Here are the t- the times that we're open for visitors."
And my husband was so great because he, he helped me stay strong in that.
Because of course you're a new mom, you've got all these hormones, you're leaking from all your orifices.
If this is your first baby, then you don't know what you're doing.
You're just kinda winging it.
You wake up every day and like hope you make it to the end of the day that day.
And, you know, it's, it can be really hard to set and hold boundaries even when you've previously set them.
And I found myself, you know, looking at my husband saying things like, "I feel bad, but I really don't want them to come during the dates that they want to come."
Like I, I know myself.
I know I will be ready for a quiet house.
And, you know, he was so great and he just said like, "Haley Elise we set these boundaries before the baby was born.
Nothing has changed on our end.
This is your parents trying to bend the rules.
And, and so if you want to let them h- in, totally, I support that.
But if you feel like you want to stick to the boundaries that we had originally set, then I support that too."
And that was such a pivotal moment for me because, you know, it would've been so easy for him to say, "Oh, just let them come on the dates that they wanna come."
Mm-hmm.
And then I would've had two weeks of hosting people after- Yes I had just had a baby, and that would've been really- That was smart of him.
That was smart of him, 'cause then also if they pressure you and you cave, that's just showing them that that's w- that works, and they'll never stop.
So that was really smart of him to do that.
Talk to us a little bit more about that, because, you know, there's a fine line there of being that nitpicky that your h- your daughter talked about, like, "Ugh, is this really the hill I wanna die on?" Versus like- Okay, but I really need to hold this boundary with you so that you can learn.
And it's also, it feels awkward to have to be the child that's teaching your parents a lesson.
So can we dive into that a little bit? I mean, there's just so much- Yeah coming up for me right now.
It is, and a- a lot of us were parentified growing up.
Like, a lot of us were given that, um, role to take care of.
I remember when my mom got remarried, and thank God my stepfather, he was, like, a blessing.
He was a good thing in our lives.
And when she got remarried, my first thought was, "Oh, I don't have to worry about her now when I go away to school.
I don't have to worry about my little brother.
I don't have to wo-" Like, that's, like, our, a mindset a lot of times.
And so then they turn around and do it to their own kids.
They parentify them, and sometimes I said to my husband, with my own mother before she moved, I s- I remember saying to him, "I feel like I'm dealing with a toddler," because it's temper tantrums and, or, you know, just i- it's, it's really hard to deal with that as an adult, to deal with your own parent acting like a child or, you know, doing all the same things that, at the time I had teenagers, doing all the same things my teenagers were doing as well, and I was just like, "I don't want to deal with this anymore."
But yeah, so The boundaries that you set, you know, like that was an important boundary that you had.
That was a very important boundary, and it was a reasonable boundary, and it was for a reason.
So whenever you have boundaries like that it's very important to hold that line because somebody just doesn't wanna agree with it for no reason, an arbitrary reason, just because this would work out better for them.
You cannot, you can't give in to stuff like that because then that, that is, does show them like, "Okay, well she's gonna cave," or, "She's, you know, it's a debate now.
I can debate her and maybe get my way."
I mean, there are times to you give a little grace or you can, you know, bend your boundary a little bit, but not in those kind of times.
I mean, I always say you can give somebody some grace for a mistake, but patterns have to have consequences.
So, you know, before it even gets to that point though, you wanna say, "This is important to us."
If it's that important to you, then hold your line.
There's, and there's no reason.
If there was like, "Oh, you know, your mother was in the hospital and, but she, we can only see him in this little teeny window of time.
Can't you please accommodate us?" That's different.
But if it's, "This works better for us.
I'm sorry, but I'm gonna stick to what we already previously have put in place," that's how I look at it.
Like it's not, it's not like you can never, ever, you know, give a little bit or whatever, but it, there's a time and place, and in the beginning especially, it teaches them that, you know, if they pressure you enough, they'll get their way.
Or if you hold the boundary, it teaches them, hey, these parents are serious- Mm-hmm with what they say, and when they set- Yes a boundary, I'm either going to follow that boundary or I'm not gonna have access- Yeah to that baby.
They have a choice at that point.
I always tell grandparents, "You have a choice.
Here's your choice.
I'm going to respect their boundaries and as a consequence be trusted more and spend more time with my grandchild, or I'm not going to, and as a consequence I'm gonna be pushed away a little bit and I'm not gonna have a r- the relationship I want with my grandchild, so choose."
I mean, it's really comes down to that in the end.
And you know, there's no child out there that intentionally, like, wants to deliberately keep their child from their grandparent.
And so when I see grandparents or I hear grandparents saying, like, They won't let me see my grandbaby," or, "They're keeping that grandbaby from me," I automatically know that that grandparent is the problem by that one sentence alone.
Because your child did not just up and at 'em one day out of the blue say, "You know what would be fun? I think I'm never gonna let my parents see my child."
That doesn't happen.
Exactly.
That doesn't happen.
And a lot of times I hear, uh, like I'll talk to a young mom and she'll say, "You know, my mom or my mother-in-law wanted to see my baby, you know, every Friday.
They, she wanted to come over and see the baby, and I just said, you know, 'How about two Fridays a month?'" And now she's saying, telling everyone who will listen that I'm keeping the baby from her.
Because it didn't, doesn't fit her agenda or how she wants things, so you're keeping the baby from her.
Like, that's what I hear a lot of.
That, that kind of scenario.
Mm-hmm.
Not like you can never see your grandchild.
That doesn't happen.
It really doesn't.
And nobody wants to cut off their parent Nobody does.
I- I- it's out of necessity sometimes because you also don't want...
Now, wait till your kid gets a little bit older.
If your mother is going to scream this close to your face obscenities at you in front of your kid, now do you want your kid around her as much? No, you don't.
But do you think that to other family members she's gonna say that? No.
She's gonna say, "She won't let me see my grandchildren," not the fact that I screamed obscenities about their mother in front of them.
My mom told me once in front of my kids that she wished she had put me up for adoption, in front of my then preteen kids.
So, that's when I started really pulling back because, of course, then she backpedaled.
She was like, "That's not what I meant.
I meant because you would've been better off with a, a better mother."
And that's not what she meant.
But y- these things start, if when I had to pull my eight-year-old daughter into another room and look her in the eye and say, "All right, how Grandmom just acted just then, that's not okay.
That's not normal."
Like, I wanted to let her know, "Listen, this is not how people are supposed to act."
Like, I didn't want her to think that was normal.
And then I thought, oh, wow, I gotta do something because this is not good for my kids.
Now- So, yeah do, do you, um...
Well, first I wanna, I wanna just validate anyone out there who is living this experience.
You know, when I set those boundaries around coming to visit Saggy right after birth, that was the narrative spun about me, is that I had told my mom that she wasn't allowed to come up.
Mm-hmm.
And that in some fashion that was true.
I did say, "You're not allowed to come up on the days that you are choosing," but we had opened up our home for seven days for the visitors that we had chosen that were very close to us, and she chose not to come in those days.
And so that's, that's a narrative that I have since set straight with, Friends and family and, and the extended family that narrative got sold to, but do you think that repairing with your children is the next move? It, uh, you know, y- I love how you say it.
It never dawned on me, I think 'cause I've not been in this situation before, but when your child does see a grandparent violate a boundary or treat you disrespectfully, I guess I'm looking for tips on how to tactfully handle that.
A- and I guess it would be different if you say, you know, "Don't give my child candy," and your mom gives your child a Jolly Rancher while you're not looking, I don't I- is that something you would go to your child for and say, like, "You shouldn't have done that," or do you just handle that with the grandmother? I guess I'm looking for just tips on how to tactfully navigate this.
Well, it's, yeah, it's age, it, it's, the, the age matters of the child.
Like, it's age appropriateness matters.
Like, if it's a five-year-old and she gives him candy, I'm not gonna g- say to my five-year-old, "You shouldn't have taken that candy," because then that puts it on him and not the grandparent.
I, I would talk to the grandparent.
And listen, with my mom, I had to be very, very firm.
So I got hit a lot when I was growing up, and I did not want my kids to get hit, and I made that clear.
"Do not lay your hand on my children.
That's not going to happen."
And if she had, that would've been it.
I would've not allowed her to be alone with them.
That's the consequence.
You can't be alone with my kids anymore because I can't trust you.
So, I wouldn't say to my kids, "Why'd you let her hit you?" You know? Like, that, that, but that's different, little bit bigger than a Jolly Rancher.
But if a grandparent is that toxic or that emotionally dysregulated, I don't think parents should let them be alone with their kids in the first place.
Now, I did let my mom, w- when my stepfather was alive, my mother was a, was different.
For that chunk of time, I think it was like 18 years that they were married that she was different because he was there to keep her in line.
Once he died, I didn't realize that it was gonna backslide the way it did, and my kids were, you know, like nine and 14 maybe.
They're five years apart, four and a half years apart.
So once that started happening and I started realizing what was going on At that point she was gonna move to England, so I held on.
It was really hard 'cause she went there for six months, came back for six months, went there for six months until she could get her visa to get married over there, and then she stayed over there, and that's been 20- that was 20 years ago.
So little by little my kids have started telling me things.
'Cause I always say my biggest regret in life is, is letting her have access to my kids alone.
Because, like, with the hitting thing, she never hit them, but I just found, I found out when my daughter was in her 20s that she used to threaten to hit her.
She would say, "Do you want me to put you over my knee? Do you want...
I'm gonna spank you."
And my heart broke.
Like, I had no idea.
And I trusted her to, foolishly I'm I'm assuming, but I, I trusted her to not do that, and the fact that she did and the fact that my daughter, like, remembers it, you know, like, "I'm gonna put you over my knee," and stuff, that's heartbreaking for me 'cause I didn't want that for my kids.
So, like, the threat of violence is, is almost the same as the violence itself as far as I'm concerned.
So I just always say, look, if they're that unstable, if they're that disregulated, if they are gonna do it in front of you, if she- they're gonna scream at your kids in front of you, what do you think they're doing when you're not there? So I just...
i'm not saying keep your kids away from their grandparents.
I'm a grandmother.
It's everything to me.
But I'm saying you have to be smart about it as far as, like, whether they get time alone or not And what do you think about having different boundaries and rules for the different in-laws? So, you know, I, I think you and I are a great example.
We, our families have a set of in-laws that we have a great relationship with, and we have a ton of trust with, and then we have a set of in-laws that we don't have a great relationship with.
It's a little bit more strained, and that can sometimes cause that trust to be a little eroded.
Do you think that it's appropriate to have different set of boundaries and rules for each of those in-laws? Yeah, because think about it, like, think about it as, in terms of your, a job.
If you have two employees and one is always on time, listens to instructions and just is a model employee, and the other one is always late, doesn't listen to a thing you say, and it's time to promote somebody, who are you gonna promote? You're gonna promote the one that shows up on time and listens to instructions.
Is it fair? Yes.
Is it equal? No.
It's not equal, because fair and equal are two different things.
And if you have one set of parents that are going to listen to everything you say about your child, they are going to be respectful, they're going to, you know, just enjoy the experience of being a grandparent, but yet under your umbrella, then that's...
It's fine to treat them one way, like, more trusted.
And if you have another set of parents that is not doing that, that disregards what you say about your own child and stuff, then obviously they're going to get less access, and I think that that is fair.
Okay, and what about, um, now I just have a couple of things that I constantly hear online or I see online and it's a lot of people in my DMs.
What about mothers or mother-in-laws who are constantly saying, "No, but we did it this way.
We did it this way when, when you were growing up."
And you know, a lot of what I hear from friends and people in my audience are like, "Okay, well, I'm 30 years old," "Well, I'm 35 years old.
That was a long time ago.
We do things differently now."
How does a daughter or a daughter-in-law handle that with her mother or mother-in-law? Well, just like we listened to the guidelines that were in place, like in 1987 when I had my son, you know, I listened to everything.
And by the time I had my daughter four and a half years later, that was obsolete, a lot of them.
I mean, and my daughter, I put my kids in a crib with bumpers around the corner, a blanket, a pillow on their stomach, because that's what the guidelines were, that's what we were told.
Well, my son was on his stomach.
By the time I had my daughter, it was their side, and we were supposed to roll up a receiving blanket and stick it on, like, behind them.
So I always just say that, listen, it's, everything's different.
I mean, my mom brought me home from the hospital, there was no seat belts.
I sat in, uh, they, so they put me in a car bed and sitting in the back seat.
You know, is that what you wanna do, drive around? No, of course you evolve as, as the time evolves.
So there are some things, yeah, you can still use the potty training stuff.
Yeah, you can still do that when you're...
But then there are other...
My Grandma Viola rubbed whiskey on my son's gums when he was teething.
I mean, it's ju- I was dumb.
I was, like, 20, and I didn't think about it.
Later, I was horrified by it.
I was like, "Oh, my God."
But it's just things change so much that it's just better to, we listen to our pediatrician and the guidelines, and now they're listening to their pediatrician and the guidelines.
And we shouldn't get...
It's not personal.
P- the whole problem comes 'cause it's, they take it personal.
Mm.
Like, they take it like it's a dig against them.
It's not.
It has nothing to do with you.
It's just this is how they wanna do it.
That is so helpful to hear.
I, I do think that, um- I think the more I think about, like, the internet being such an interrupter or that disrupter in that line of wisdom being able to be passed down, it can feel personal, right? Because as a grandmother, you, you probably have dreamed about, like, "Oh, I can't wait to tell my kids one day how to do X, Y, and Z," and now- Mm-hmm our age people don't really need that.
Yeah.
They're gonna come to me for things.
They're gonna come to me.
They don't have to come to you anymore.
So that is hard.
I think that is hard.
Uh, I mean, it was a little bit for me.
I kind of knew it was coming, you know, because my daughter...
And we talked when she was pregnant, she laid everything down about how she wanted things, and then I saw that she was in a lot of mommy groups and that she was, like, watching, like, watching a lot of people like you, and which is great, and I was thankful for that.
But then there is a small, there was a small part of me that was like, "Oh, well, she doesn't really need me for that kind of stuff so I'm gonna take a step back."
But they need you for other things.
She needed me for support.
She needed me to be in her corner.
She need- I mean, how great is it when you see somebody look at your child and just love them so much? I mean, that's a great thing, you know? And she appreciates that.
And so as a grandparent, if they don't take your advice, so what? You know, you, they're sharing their child with you.
This is the most precious thing they have in life, and they're sharing this child with you.
Act right.
Like, you have to act right.
Yeah.
Oh, man, what a, what a interesting dynamic to navigate.
All right.
I do have one last question, and it is something that I continue to see pop up on social media, and so many people have shared in, in DMs with me about this experience, and I just wanna get your opinion on it.
This is when a mother or a mother-in-law wants to sleep with the baby, and they will say things like, "Oh, just let them have a sleepover in my bed," or, "Come let them have a sleepover at my house."
And they're talking about a baby that's less than one year old, right, that is supposed to be with their mom.
And we're not talking about that the parents are going on vacation or the parents are, you know, needing a night away or that, you know, they have some sort of situation where they need childcare.
We're talking about just, like, moms and mother-in-laws who are saying, like, "Let the baby sleep with me."
What is this phenomena, and how do young mothers address this with their moms and their mother-in-laws if that is very uncomfortable? Yeah.
Um, I do hear this a lot, and I think a lot of it has to do with control.
I know that there are some grandparents that don't have nefarious, you know, intentions.
I mean, I don't.
But for something like that, it's the pushback that it tells you whether it's control.
So if they ask you, "Hey, you know, I just want the baby at my house," or, "I wanna sleep, you know, we wanna have a sleepover, we wanna bond," whatever.
And then you say, "I'm not comfortable with that right now," and they say, "Okay, fine."
But if they give pushback, that's control.
That's all they want is control.
They want to take your child away from where you are so that you can't modify their behavior.
So if they, you know what I mean? If they, you can't watch what they're doing.
And that is, I mean, I don't like that at all.
Like, we have Prue sometimes.
I mean, I babysit her a lot before work and after work.
I change my schedule around 'cause my daughter works from home.
And She has never slept at my house.
And we've had her overnight.
Like, sh- they went on a babymoon, and we had her.
And at night, I brought her back to her house to go to sleep, just because it, I thought it would be better for her.
And then there's the baby monitor, like, above her, you know, bed, so my daughter could see her at night.
And it was just, I just thought that there was no reason for me to have her here at my house, and I don't think, I didn't think it would be comfortable for either one of us.
So I think a lot of that has to do with control.
I always say you can bond with your grandchild with the parents there.
You can.
You don't need to have them alone by yourself to do that.
And you certainly don't need...
And as far as sleeping, like, I, the, the whole sleeping in the same bed bothers me just because I have a very, I have, like, trauma w- from that.
When I was about 12, I was sitting on the front steps with one of my friends, and her mother came running out of their house with her dead baby in her arms.
Mm.
Because she she rolled over on him when they were asleep, when they were taking a nap, and that affected me.
Like, you know, that's an impressionable age.
And so I never, I mean, even when my kids were, like, old, I never let them come into bed with us.
I was just like, "No, because Mommy's a heavy sleeper, and I don't wanna, you know, bother you."
So that's a whole different thing for me.
I can't really speak on that part of it.
Because I know people co-sleep, and they co-sleep safely.
Um, but I just don't even wanna touch that part with a 10-foot pole just because of the trauma that it...
I just have a immediate visceral response to that when I hear people say, you know, sleep in the same bed.
I'm just like, "No."
But as far as sleeping over their house, I just feel like you, there shouldn't be pushback.
Yeah.
So if you say, "Not right now," or, "Maybe we'll address it again maybe when they're older.
I don't want my baby away from me," and they're like, "Okay," good.
If they push back on it, then it's really just, it's not really about them sleeping over.
It's about control.
Yeah.
I've heard all sorts of opinions online, obviously, of, of people saying, you know, it's, they're trying to kinda like weasel their way into co-parenting with me, or they, they want to be able to make the rules for my baby, or they view my baby as their own baby.
And I think for, I think for people it can be a lot of different things.
I think for some people it is the bonding.
Um, it is a weird phenomena.
I've never seen anything like it before.
Um, and so when it started to come into my realm and people started to ask, like, "Are you experiencing this? My mother-in-law said this," or like, "You're never gonna believe what my mom said," or like, "My husband's mom said this."
And- Like, it's so weird yeah, it happened before.
It was like that before, but with, we didn't have internet, so no one knew.
Or like, you, only your circle knew.
My mother was like that.
She was very entitled, and I know a lot of my friends that had mothers or mothers-in-law like that.
So it's, I don't feel like it's new.
I feel like there's a light shone on it now.
Like, you, we, some, we're shining a light on it, and that it's not okay.
Wow.
So that's like a common grandma thing.
I, I had no idea.
That is so crazy.
Oh my gosh.
Mom Mom Maria, you are such a phenomenal guest.
Thank you- Thank you so much for all your wisdom, for helping us, you know, understand how to set boundaries and hold our parents accountable and have these conversations because they are really important conversations, but they can also be equally really uncomfortable.
And the newer postpartum you are, and if this is your first baby and, and you've never done this before, it can be even more uncomfortable even downright anxiety-provoking in some scenarios.
Um, I wanna give you guys some of my little tips.
I rely on my husband a lot.
I will talk to him about what I'm feeling, and then he's really good about helping me talk these things out.
He's really good about helping me understand if this is, like, a me problem.
Is this something I'm feeling, or is this, does this mean that one of my boundaries have been violated? Is this a conversation that we want to take to one of our sets of parents? And you know, we, we do a lot of talking in our family about if we do this now, how is this going to impact us down the road? Is it better to go ahead and set a boundary now that's gonna live out, or is this boundary okay now for now, and then later we will change it as Saggy grows, as he- Mm-hmm becomes mobile, as, you know, kinda like you mentioned, he can understand words and understand what's going on around him and interact with the world around him as we have more children.
And so I think all these situations are obviously so individualized, and I know that they're really tough to navigate, and we all wanna do it tactfully.
We all wanna do it respectfully.
No one sets out to disrespect their parents or disrespect their parent-in-laws.
But that's hard.
I mean, that's just, that's really hard.
Do you have any lasting advice for grandparents who might be listening? Not parents my age.
I feel like this whole episode has been for them, but if there are grandparents who are listening who are struggling with boundaries that their children are setting, what advice do you have to those grandparents? My advice is you have to first, as I said before, think about it in terms of what do you want to get out of this? If your end goal is to having a relationship with your grandchildren, a good relationship with your grandchildren, a trusted relationship with your grandchildren, then you need to keep that in mind when you're navigating the relationship with your adult child.
And also, don't expect to have a good relationship or a close relationship with your grandchildren if you can't have that with your daughter or daughter-in-law.
You need to cultivate that relationship first in order to have a relationship.
That's their child.
Like, you can't bypass them, and you, you, you have to have, like, at least a civil, somewhat nice relationship with them in order for them to l- allow you, 'cause that's what it is.
They'll allow you.
The only relationship you get to have with your grandchildren is what they allow you to have.
So why would you not wanna cultivate that relationship as well in order to have a good relationship with your grandchildren? Th- that happens a lot.
"Oh, I don't...
they don't let me.
That bitch doesn't let me see him."
Right.
And you're like, "Well, let's start with not calling her names.
How about that?" So yeah, that's my biggest piece of advice, is you need to have a good relationship with your adult children and their spouse in order to have the kind of relationship like that I have with Prue and Lola because I'm trusted, because I've shown I can be trusted, and I've shown that I respect their role as parents.
How do you expect them to respect your role as a grandparent if you can't respect them as a parent? Their role is first, and if you give them respect as a parent, they're gonna give it back to you as a grandparent.
You can't, but you have to give that.
This is a new role for them.
You have to give them...
They're the primary role.
You have to give them respect as the parents first, then you'll get respect back as a grandparent, or you won't have a role as a grandparent.
Like, which do you want? Oh my gosh, that is such good advice.
And you know, the more that you try and bypass your child or their spouse, the further you're going to find yourself from that baby because I, I just can't even...
I, I could have never imagined how strong my instinct is to protect Saggy.
Mm-hmm.
And that means in every thought that I have, every word that comes out of my mouth, every single person that he is even within 50 feet of, the places that we take him, the books that we read, the music that's playing in the car, the shows that are on the TV in the background, the podcast that I listen to.
Like, there is nothing that happens around my child that I am not thinking about how is this impacting him? And I will do anything in my power to make sure that he's safe, and if that means removing people from my life, then I- Mm-hmm will absolutely do that, and I know that that is not unique to me.
And so for parents out there, I want you to know that what you're feeling is super normal.
It's very valid.
It's very biological, and you are a good parent.
The people in your life who are giving you pushback, I want you to just reevaluate your relationship with that person, and depending on your dynamics with that person, it may mean cutting them out of your life, it may mean just going low contact, or it may mean that you just need to have a conversation with them and be upfront about how it's making you feel.
And hopefully, you're surrounded by people who love you and care for you and support you and will receive that information and say, "I'm so sorry, that was never my intent.
I had no idea that's how it was coming across.
How do you want me to support you? How do you want me to call your child if you don't want me to call them, you know, Mimi's baby? What would make you feel better about, you know, the things that I do in your home or how I help feed your baby or hold your baby?" That is, that's idyllic.
A lot of us, I just wanna recognize we don't have that relationship with our parents, and for a lot of us, that's not our relationship with our parent-in-laws.
Family dynamics are really, they're, they're, they're difficult.
They're something, they are something else.
They really are.
And so no matter what your relationship with, uh, your parents or your parent-in-laws, I just want you to hear today that you're doing a good job, and you love your baby, and I know that you are doing your best to make the best decision for your baby to keep that baby loved and safe.
And it doesn't always feel like that, but at the end of the day, I trust you to make the decisions that are best for your baby and your family.
Ugh, Mama Maria, you've got me all in my feels.
If people wanted to learn more from you, you have an incredible Instagram.
I first stumbled upon you when you had, like, probably less than 2,000 or 3,000 followers, and I have followed you up all the way.
Now you have more than 25,000 followers- Yes and I'm just, like, cheering you on.
How can people learn from you and connect with you on social media? So I'm on all three platforms, like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram.
I do answer private messages.
I get a lot of them, but, and I'll take the time to answer every single one of them.
I just started a Facebook group called Mom Mom Maria's Village, and, um, it's a private group, so people can Feel free to say what they want to say.
And a lot of- we get a lot of anonymous posts too because even in a private group they don't feel that safe.
And but I will, I will definitely, it might take me a week, but I will answer you if you, if, like, if any messages that...
My daughter's like, "You can't answer everybody."
I'm like, "Yeah, I can.
I can.
As long...
For now, I can.
I don't know how manageable it's gonna be later, but I can't ign- Like, I'm gonna answer every single person."
And what is your handle? Momom, well, momom.maria.
That is my handle on TikTok, and I think on all three of them it's momom.maria.
Yeah, my daughter made me change my, when I got that one, I had viral videos, but they weren't about, but when I had the one about the baby it blew up to, like, millions of views, and she said, "You gotta..."
It was my last name.
It was our last name.
She goes, "You gotta change your name."
And so I said, "Change it to what?" And she said, "Mom mom maria."
Because that's what I am, I'm mom mom.
And that's a Philly thing, by the way.
Everyone in Philly and South Jersey has a mom mom and a pop pop.
So people say to me all the time, "How dare you call yourself Mom mom," and I was like, "Everybody has a momom here."
It's not just me.
That is hilarious.
That is so funny.
I also have loved learning what different grandma names and grandpa names are across our nation, and just in other cultures.
It's so much fun.
Oh, my gosh.
Well, Mom mom, thank you for being here.
And listeners- Thank you.
Yeah, of course.
Listeners, I will see you in the next episode.
Be sure to follow Mommommaria on social media, and you can find me at tranquilitybyhehe and at the.birth.lounge.
Until next time, head to your app store and download The Birth Lounge app for evidence-based childbirth education and data-driven postpartum support delivered straight to your phone.
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