Woman shares spat with mother-in-law that has internet divided
A first-time mother has taken to a parenting forum to complain about the “overbearing behaviour” of her mother-in-law.
On Mumsnet, the woman asked if she was being unreasonable for getting annoyed when her mother-in-law would call her newborn “my baby”.
The user known as Babybarclay explained that she was annoyed by the phrase because the child is her first baby.
“She constantly refers to my baby as ‘our baby'. This annoyed me a bit as I grew up with a lot of children and it's my first baby so it's a big deal for me! Yes she is the grandmother and it's her family too so I brushed the our bits off thinking I was being silly....”
“But am I being unreasonable to get annoyed when she starts saying 'my baby my baby' when she's talking about... well my baby not hers?"
The mum added that this was not the first time her mother-in-law had overbearing behaviour.
She wrote, “My mother-in-law was an only child so she’s used to getting what she wants and this has carried on throughout her adult life.”
“She has two children and was quite a strict parent. She and my husband’s dad got divorced about 10 years ago when the kids were all grown up.
“She's living quite a luxurious lifestyle travelling about a lot but gets annoyed when my husband doesn't ring on at least three times a week to say hi.
"When we got married my husband made a point of living in the same area as her so she wouldn't get lonely..."
Many Mumsnet users were quick to tell the first-time mum that she was overreacting.
One user wrote, “Saying ‘my baby!’ doesn't necessarily mean she thinks your child is hers. Any more than me calling my nephew 'my little sausage' doesn't mean that I think he's a) mine, or b) a sausage.”
“It's an expression. Really just not worth losing any sleep over,” another said.
However, others were more understanding and said that similar incidents happened to them.
One user wrote, “My DM (darling mother) does this too and it used to drive me bonkers! She’ll say ‘our kids’ (hers and mine – obviously they’re nothing at all to do with DH (darling husband)!!”.
Another said, “It’s rude, MIL is not your friend and sounds nutty.”
Do you think the new mum is being unreasonable?