let's talk grandparents

[taramoon13]

ok, so i grew up in a very quiet non-confrontational household(yes, it had it's problems), dh grew up with his parents bickering & yelling quite a bit, that's just the way his family communicates a lot of times. since we've been together (& before that) he's come to realize that he doesn't like living that way. we try to have a fairly low-key household. since this is our first lo i'm just wondering how far do you go in telling your parents/in-laws how to treat your lo? my in laws are caring people, they can just be very coarse & loud at times. i've also noticed my fil being way too controlling with ds. examples: we were all at the playground & ds started peacefully playing with woodchips & right away fil says no, we don't play with those. i'm thinking come on, 9 out of 10 kids must play with woodchips at the playground!?!? i just spoke up & said it's fine for him to play with woodchips (obviously as long as he's not throwing them) and the conversation was over, secondly, fil seems to think that ds is going to just sit and play with designated toy or read designated book, well HA, he's on the move constantly and as long as it's not dangerous i'm ok with that. it just concerns me how they will be around him when we aren't there to monitor. whenever we are all together dh sometimes has to tell them to stop bickering & quiet down, we can't even hear what poor ds is trying to say. they also just bought a carseat so they could take ds even though i had already told them they might as well wait a while as he is still bf'ing with no plans to quit & we haven't left him for more than 3 hours yet. now i feel under pressure to send him off with them even though i don't feel comfortable with it at all. they already know that they can come watch him at our house, i really don't know why they had to rush out and get the carseat. ok, sorry for the rambling. just needed to vent and get some opinions! ds is 19 mo by the way.

[pinksprklybarefoot]

I think that you have to choose your battles. The grandparents in DS' life know the things that are most important to me (vegan food only, no spanking), but I am not going to fight them on every little parenting issue. Once you feel that your DS is old enough to spend time with them alone, I would be vocal about what is truly important and let go things like playing with wood chips. It might not be how *you* would do it, but in the long run it is pretty harmless and not going to make a long-lasting impact compared to the years of parenting influence that you will have over your child.

That said, if they are truly bickering/fighting enough to make the situation uncomfortable, I would be hesitant to leave a small child there alone. As a small child, adults bickering can look more scary than it does to adults.

[New_Natural_Mom]

I love my parents, but not how *they* parent. I am not so fond of the ILs. My DS will not be doing overnights for a long time, perhaps ever. It's just how I choose to do things. If we actually wanted a date night I would consider hiring one of his dc providers before asking family. I know they will do as I ask and DS is comfortable with them. My family gets offended when I ask them to respect our ways. So I choose not to engage that and keep my lo close to home. I personally feel grandparents don't have any automatic right to be with their grandchildren. Says who? My kid is my kid and no one has any "claim" to him other than myself or my husband.