Family and AP
My parents practiced aping so I never got any flack from them. I have a VERY non-ap sister and she acts like she humors me. "Silly Julie, but who wants to listen to her rant?" kind of attitude. That totally doesn't bother me. I know she is wrong and I know the parenting she practices stems from her laziness and her refusal to see past herself and recognize her children as people. Anyway, she respects my way of doing things when she is with us and she knows the only way she can watch Tain is if she does those same things. So it works out.
We don't have extended family that we are close to at all so that isn't an issue for us.
What bothers me most are the IL's. I believe that they think of themselves as AP parents. But they really aren't. They never co-slept, they never thought twice about vaxing, they didn't sling their kids. It seems like their whole parenting trend was to push their children away (I KNOW they don't see that in their history-and they did do a lot of family things together like trips to Nat'l parks, but it isn't the same as doing it every day, all day. yk?). Now my MIL mourns that her adult children don't confide in her.
I don't bother to point out that waking up in the morning with your 2 yr old asleep in your doorway b/c he had nightmares and didn't feel safe crawling in bed with you is not a way to instill trust. My dh still has nightmares. And he still battles them alone. It makes me so mad. When I was 8 I was still crawling in bed with my parents after a nightmare. But I rarely have them now.
Anyway, that was not my point. The thing that gets me is that they downplay things that are important to me. Like ds screaming in the car. Their response is that kids can be like that. My response is that is doesn't have to be like that. They don't respond very quickly to him crying at all. It is really frustrating. I feel like they treat me like I am too overprotective and I will eventually grow out of it when I realize my kid isn't REALLY the worse for wear. God, I hope not. My ds trusts me implicitly. I know for certain they can't say that about their kids.
Also, my MIL did have comments about co-sleeping. She always starts off these things by listing her reasons for not doing them (like I care). She did this to justify her hospital births, her non co-sleeping, her allowance of her dd to cry for long periods in the car, her substitution of formula for her dd, etc. Anyway, she said that my dh always kicked her and her dd made her too hot-she would get all sweaty wherever her dd was touching her. Then she says that the marriage came first and if you don't separate parenting from your marriage/make "marriage" time, your marriage won't last/be healthy. OMG! I tell you, Tain in our bed is not the reason we don't have sex very much. And there are plenty of other rooms in the house. The kids are here b/c of our marriage. They are a part of our marriage. Not worrying about them or ostricizing them makes my marriage better. In her defense, she told me this when dh was sleeping on the couch instead of in the bed with us. But still. Like we don't know how to make our marriage work. And FYI lady, your marriage had and still has a lot more problems than ours, thank you very much.
As for slinging, she once again listed reasons she never did it, but other than that she doesn't say anything. I don't think she thinks it is detrimental to the baby so what can she say? I think she worries that I am giving too much/not taking care of myself. And she has a history to support that. But my dh is ten million times more helpful and supportive than hers was at the time and I am not extroverted and isolated like her. I do get lonely, but that has nothing to do with AP.
The hardest parts are 1) I really don't understand why she has to justify her past actions to me instead of just being supportive. I DON'T CARE why she did what she did. Justifying them makes me feel like she is unsupportive 2)Her heart is in the right place and she only says it all b/c she loves us so much. How do you debate that? I find that I let her say her piece, state my position a tiny bit and bottle the rest. She doesn't try to hurt my feelings and I try to avoid saying things I know will hurt hers.
God, sorry about the vent. This is really the first time I have put a million little incidents together and realized how irritated it makes me. I don't like venting to dh about his parents. He doesn't need any more fuel to be unresponsive to them, yk? Plus, he never points out my parents many failings to me. He's so much more gracious. So there is very little outlet for me.
My parents practiced aping so I never got any flack from them. I have a VERY non-ap sister and she acts like she humors me. "Silly Julie, but who wants to listen to her rant?" kind of attitude. That totally doesn't bother me. I know she is wrong and I know the parenting she practices stems from her laziness and her refusal to see past herself and recognize her children as people. Anyway, she respects my way of doing things when she is with us and she knows the only way she can watch Tain is if she does those same things. So it works out.
We don't have extended family that we are close to at all so that isn't an issue for us.
What bothers me most are the IL's. I believe that they think of themselves as AP parents. But they really aren't. They never co-slept, they never thought twice about vaxing, they didn't sling their kids. It seems like their whole parenting trend was to push their children away (I KNOW they don't see that in their history-and they did do a lot of family things together like trips to Nat'l parks, but it isn't the same as doing it every day, all day. yk?). Now my MIL mourns that her adult children don't confide in her.
I don't bother to point out that waking up in the morning with your 2 yr old asleep in your doorway b/c he had nightmares and didn't feel safe crawling in bed with you is not a way to instill trust. My dh still has nightmares. And he still battles them alone. It makes me so mad. When I was 8 I was still crawling in bed with my parents after a nightmare. But I rarely have them now.
Anyway, that was not my point. The thing that gets me is that they downplay things that are important to me. Like ds screaming in the car. Their response is that kids can be like that. My response is that is doesn't have to be like that. They don't respond very quickly to him crying at all. It is really frustrating. I feel like they treat me like I am too overprotective and I will eventually grow out of it when I realize my kid isn't REALLY the worse for wear. God, I hope not. My ds trusts me implicitly. I know for certain they can't say that about their kids.
Also, my MIL did have comments about co-sleeping. She always starts off these things by listing her reasons for not doing them (like I care). She did this to justify her hospital births, her non co-sleeping, her allowance of her dd to cry for long periods in the car, her substitution of formula for her dd, etc. Anyway, she said that my dh always kicked her and her dd made her too hot-she would get all sweaty wherever her dd was touching her. Then she says that the marriage came first and if you don't separate parenting from your marriage/make "marriage" time, your marriage won't last/be healthy. OMG! I tell you, Tain in our bed is not the reason we don't have sex very much. And there are plenty of other rooms in the house. The kids are here b/c of our marriage. They are a part of our marriage. Not worrying about them or ostricizing them makes my marriage better. In her defense, she told me this when dh was sleeping on the couch instead of in the bed with us. But still. Like we don't know how to make our marriage work. And FYI lady, your marriage had and still has a lot more problems than ours, thank you very much.
As for slinging, she once again listed reasons she never did it, but other than that she doesn't say anything. I don't think she thinks it is detrimental to the baby so what can she say? I think she worries that I am giving too much/not taking care of myself. And she has a history to support that. But my dh is ten million times more helpful and supportive than hers was at the time and I am not extroverted and isolated like her. I do get lonely, but that has nothing to do with AP.
The hardest parts are 1) I really don't understand why she has to justify her past actions to me instead of just being supportive. I DON'T CARE why she did what she did. Justifying them makes me feel like she is unsupportive 2)Her heart is in the right place and she only says it all b/c she loves us so much. How do you debate that? I find that I let her say her piece, state my position a tiny bit and bottle the rest. She doesn't try to hurt my feelings and I try to avoid saying things I know will hurt hers.
God, sorry about the vent. This is really the first time I have put a million little incidents together and realized how irritated it makes me. I don't like venting to dh about his parents. He doesn't need any more fuel to be unresponsive to them, yk? Plus, he never points out my parents many failings to me. He's so much more gracious. So there is very little outlet for me.
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. If it was me, I wouldn't talk to her, but I get mean and cranky and I think that's a really really personal decision to make. Good luck with it. 
: ) and my oldest siblings was not nursed at all. My mother is a huge advocate of co-sleeping, especially if you're nursing. She actually laughed at me when I said I wanted to put the baby in a bassinet while I was pregnant with Eli and said that she'd eat her jacket if Eli wasn't in bed with us by the time he was 3 weeks old. :LOL
). He said "We never had that problem with you, because you slept in a crib from the beginning and learned to sleep through the night on your own." Dh said that he didn't see any need to make Eli's suffering worse by putting him into a baby jail. :LOL That hurt MIL's feelings, and she told him that it wasn't about putting him in jail. He apologized for making his mother feel bad, but he told me later "Well, that's how I feel about it. If he needs to be with us at night, he belongs with us. Besides, I like waking up and rolling over and kissing his little head!" :LOL 
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