Whose Baby is it Anyway?: Dealing with Intrusive In-laws
Category: yourchicfamily
If you thought your in-laws were intrusive before you had kids, then hold onto your maternity pants. The "fun" has just begun. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the truth is that your relationship with your in-laws is likely to grow more tense once children enter the picture.
But then you probably discovered that the day you announced that you were pregnant. Ah, yes, that was the day your father-in-law insisted that you follow tradition and name your son (or daughter), "Clyde Waldo Dufus III". And later that evening your mother-in-law purchased airline tickets and reserved a seat in the front row of the delivery room, followed by a two-month visit in your guest room.
Don’t get me wrong; some in-laws are wonderful people who respect their daughter-in-law’s needs instead of expecting her to revolve everything around them. Let’s take a Jeff Foxworthy style approach to finding out if you have intrusive in-laws.
You Might Have Intrusive In-laws if:
#10 They insist that they are entitled to be present in the delivery room.
#9 They compete with the other set of grandparents by fighting about who gets to see the baby first, who gets to stay at your house first, who gets to be called "Grandma", who buys the best toys, etc.
#8 They make it clear that they don’t like the name you chose for your child…and may even go so far as to refuse to call him by that name.
#7 They insist that you should breastfeed your baby instead of leaving the decision to you.
#6 They pressure you to let your baby cry in its crib for awhile instead of letting you decide whether or not you want to hold him.
#5 They lecture you on the importance of spanking instead of leaving the discipline decisions to you and your husband.
#4 They insist that you spend every holiday at their house and try to make you feel guilty if you try to start any new holiday traditions.
#3 They think that they are entitled to spend time with their grandchildren whenever they want to; therefore they show up uninvited, insist that you come visit them constantly, etc.
#2 They undermine your authority by saying things to your husband and to your child to mply that you aren’t a good mother or that their opinions outrank yours.
#1 They refer to the baby as their child instead of yours.
Here are some tips to help you survive intrusive in-laws:
- Replace your insecurity with confidence. You and your husband are the final authority on your children. If your in-laws don’t approve of something you are doing, then so what? You don’t need their approval; so don’t behave as if you do. Just because they disagree with something you do doesn’t mean that you are bad parents.
- Learn to let your in-laws be upset with you. Don’t overlook your own needs constantly just to keep everyone else happy. For example, if you want to spend the first week home from the hospital with just your husband, then tactfully tell both sets of parents exactly that. If they put up a fuss, let them know that it is not up for discussion.
- Behave as an adult on an equal level with your in-laws. Your in-laws are not superior to you, so don’t behave as if they are. The next time they give unwanted advice, say, "Thanks for your advice, but I’ve decided to do it this way instead" or "I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree." Their opinions are just that…opinions, not fact.
- Unite as a couple. Tell your husband specific things that you need for him to say when certain situations come up such as, "Honey, the next time your mom says something to you that implies that I’m a lousy mother, I need for you to tell her that you aren’t willing to listen to her say negative things about me."
Only you can change your life. Develop healthy behavior patterns by saying and doing new things to show you are now an assertive mom. You can’t force your in-laws to change their behavior, but if you change your own, then they will likely change theirs too.
Jenna D. Barry is the author of "A Wife’s Guide to In-laws: How to Gain Your Husband’s Loyalty Without Killing His Parents." Married 15 years, Jenna has learned how to gain her husband’s loyalty through communication, persistence, and a whole lot of love. Her articles have been published in various newspapers and magazines. She leads a support group for daughters-in-law and has a website at www.WifeGuide.org.
Is Your Child Ready to Be Home Alone?
Category: Uncategorized
The end of the school year brings a tough decision for many parents, "Is my child ready to be home alone?" Many parents answer this question simply by looking at a child’s age or maturity, but really need to consider both.
There is an unwritten, unspoken "law" among social service and law enforcement professionals that no child nine-years-old or younger should be left home alone – no matter how mature. Older children who are immature or irresponsible should also not be home alone.
By the age of eight, parents need to be teaching children skills in responsibility and independence. These skills make parenting easier and children misbehave less, make more responsible decisions and are more resourceful in solving problems they face when alone.
To prepare children for being home alone, teach them:
Basic first aid,
When and how to call 9-1-1,
What to do if there is a fire,
How to fix meals without a stove, to prevent fires,
How to answer the phone (IF they are allowed to answer it),
The house rules and see they have a track record of following them.
Before leaving a child home alone with younger siblings, consider these issues:
No sibling under the age of eleven or twelve-years-old should be responsible for a younger sibling – even if they are the most responsible children in the world! Imagine the emotional trauma should anything happen.
When the youngest child is about seven- or eight-years-old and the oldest is at least thirteen-years-old, it is safer for them to be alone.
How well do the siblings get along? Does one torment the other? If so, they shouldn’t be alone together without an adult present.
How many children would the older sibling be watching? No minor should watch more than three or four children under the age of ten. Younger children (ages eleven to thirteen) should only watch one or two children who are older than toddlers.
Children should be at least thirteen-years-old to care for infants and need special training. They should know how to handle incessant crying without resorting to spanking or shaking, which many younger children will naturally do due to inexperience or lack of knowledge. Let these children help with the baby while the parent is present, to coach them before leaving them alone.
Remember, sometimes the older child is not the more responsible one. Sometimes siblings can stay home together but independently. Each is responsible for their own care, without a sibling "telling them what to do," which can cause conflicts.
Finally, here are some basic rules a parent should set for children who will be home alone:
No visitors. It’s too tempting to experiment when a peer is present. Also, the absent parent may be held legally liable if something should happen in their home, even in their absence.
Depending on the neighborhood, children should stay inside. At the least, encourage them to stay on their own property where they have access to a phone to communicate with parents. If older children (13+) are allowed to go places, they should let the parent know where they will be. Parents also want to be sure there will be adult supervision and have a contact number to reach the child.
No phone calls or limit all calls to fifteen minutes so parents can reach the child.
Decide whether the child is allowed to answer the phone. If the home has Caller ID, the child can answer calls from familiar callers rather than not answer at all. Parents can also have a signal (2 rings and they hang up) so child knows when to answer.
Keep doors and windows locked, depending on the weather/climate, air conditioning and neighborhood safeness. Teach children what to do if someone comes to the door and what to do if it is a stranger. Not answering is the best policy. Children should also have a way to watch what the stranger does. If they act suspiciously, they should call the police.
No cooking on the stove until they are experienced cooks, usually around age thirteen if parents have been teaching and supervising them from about age eight or so.
Obvious things like no smoking, drinking, or girlfriends/boyfriends.
Once the child has the skills to be alone, start with short periods of absence (ten minutes). Gradually increase the time as you and your child feel more comfortable.
If children act irresponsibly or are unwilling to follow these rules, they need to have a sitter for a brief period. Then get agreements and give them another chance to show they can be home alone safely.
To ask Jody your parenting questions, please email her at: expert@chicmommagazine.com
The “Other Side” of Motherhood
Category: yourchicfamily
You know you are a mother when … your child throws up and you catch it.
Author Unknown
As I was cleaning out my files I came across the above quote and had to stop and laugh. Of course when I was a young mother and six little ones running around the house, my humor was not so acute as it is now. It did however, bring back memories of when my children were little and even a more recent event with one of my grandchildren.
One evening after a busy day at the Mall, my granddaughter, age two, curled up into her mother’s lap looked her straight in the face and threw up! I heard that familiar sound from my chair and looked over to see my daughter-in-law covered with her daughter’s stomach contents and a look of total shock on her face. The memories of such moments came flooding back to me as I gingerly took my granddaughter away from her mother’s lap and carried her to the bathroom to strip her and clean her up. My daughter in law came in right behind her and I helped her pull off her sweatshirt and gave her a towel to clean up her face and hair.
When my six children were young, there was a time when at least five of them had the stomach flu and with one bathroom it was quite an experience. I remember finally laying down in my bed and one of the younger ones come running into my bedroom which was across from the bathroom to tell me he was going to get sick and then proceeded to do so on me. I don’t remember ever reading any baby books that prepared me for such moments or many of these ‘other sides’ of motherhood moments that continued throughout the years.
When you find out you are pregnant or your adoption process is going to happen, the excitement is wonderful. You pick up ‘how to be a great mom books’ about baby names, baby games, baby toys and how to be the best mom ever. Throughout all these books are picture perfect moments. The books feature baby snuggling with mommy; baby joyfully watching bubbles go into the air; baby sweetly sitting in their highchair accepting a spoonful of cereal. The mothers all have a look of serenity on their faces and you believe this is going to be me!
Once the child comes into your life those picture perfect moments begin to slowly fade away and the joyful baby sometimes is an unhappy, discontented baby. The snuggling baby becomes the tantrum baby and the baby who sits quietly waiting for the spoonful of cereal becomes an octopus with cereal in hair, face and high chair but not in mouth. Oh, there will be great moments of delightful smiles and captured moments of blissful motherhood but the reality of life is that the ‘other side’ of motherhood has less than perfect moments.
The other day my son called and we talked about the exploits of potty training his two-year-old. Yes, the same child who threw up in her mother’s face is now the child facing the challenge of going to the potty per her parent’s desire. Now this is a side of motherhood that is only skimmed over in the ‘how to be a great mom books.’ As a matter of fact, I know there are ‘how to’ books out there but unfortunately the child can’t read, and that places the burden on the young mother to explain to a toddler the joys of having dry and dirty free underwear. The serenity of the mother’s face becomes a distraught one.
In glancing through these great mom books, I don’t believe there is a chapter entitled, Finding the Poopy. Any mother who has gone through this phase of childhood understands the concept of clean underwear. Unfortunately conveying this concept to a toddler would cause a rocket scientist to cry. The child begins to accept the fact that they no longer wish to have a poopy diaper or what they call ‘pull-ups’ now days. So it doesn’t matter if the poopy is on the floor, in a drawer or in the potty, it isn’t in the underwear. To a two year old – hey, this is mission accomplished. To a mother, this becomes another search for a chapter entitled, How to Explain to a Small Child the Difference Between Dry Underwear and Wet Floors and Clean Panties and Poopy Hidden.
Those of us who are older moms should get together and write a ‘true’ book on how to be a great mom. It will feature the above mentioned titles and many more titles that just never seem to make the top best sellers list but would certainly be more helpful to young mothers. As one of those older moms I know those ‘other side’ of motherhood moments go by very quickly and what was once a challenging, stressful times become wonderful humorous memories that can be written and shared in a column.
Tonight after the house quiets down, the poopy is flushed away, the cereal cleaned off the high chair and your face is still smeared with a good-night kiss from sticky jelly lips, say a prayer and thank God for the gift you have been given. Unlike other material worldly gifts that fade away with time, the gift of a child only becomes more treasured as the child grows and the memories are made.
Meet The Royals
Category: yourchicself
“Come fair children! Retrieve Kipling and Milton from thy Power Ranger backpacks. Let us recline on eighteenth century Gustavian daybeds to devour sweet literature in the library. No, Jacob Charles, not the west wing library. Alas, fumes remain strong in the west as the paint on ceiling frescoes dries still.”
This was what I thought motherhood would be like when I daydreamed about it as a teen.
I blame it on my parents. They preached good manners, proper grammar, and wrinkle-free wardrobes. Indeed, my father was a freak for creases down the ol’ Gloria Vanderbilts, and Mom chased after us with an acrylic hairbrush for saying “shut up” (oddly, “shut your trap!” earned only a glare).
So of course my 14-year-old self thought I could do it better. And baby I wanted more-a more dignified household, complete with a sophisticated manor in which Ivy League sons and daughters clamored for advice. Where classical ballerinas and polo players begged to visit the Louvre. Of handsome offspring arriving at the dinner table in Lacoste button-downs the tones of Mary Cassatt’s palette.
“Oh Mother! Would it be quite all right if I skipped Simon’s sleepover on the yacht? I do so wish to add flourish to my report on Emily Dickinson due in six weeks!”
A breeze would waft through the main villa’s north clerestory windows enhancing our home’s interior scent of Ivory soap and linen…
As it turns out, 1980 was a bad year for prognostication.
Those Izod-clad kids never showed up. And it seems unlikely my sons will ever play polo. Worse, they’d struggle to name a common interest between us, including Ivory soap. Dude-my kids are too lazy for soap.
Gone is the image of refined persons reclining with me as a gentle breeze kisses our faces enraptured by fine literature. Still, I have chosen to look at the positive aspects of my children’s less than royal behavior. For example:
Mahhhhhhhm! Outta axe spray.
A fine example of their mastery of American English-and a sexy-smart substitute for showering, as well.
Dude! Me and Colin BALLED it up today-we PONED.
Another excellent illustration of their superior grasp of current idiomatic expression. For those of you still clinging to 20th century speech, “to pone” is gamer talk for “to power own”.
Don’t EVER ask Obama to step aside!
This exemplifies a polite manner of threatening someone. Me, for example. Such as when I ask my eldest prince to clean his room.
This family sucks!
Another modern colloquialism that, roughly translated, means “My teen experience leaves much to be desired. I am very distressed, mom.”
The roast smells like butt.
Despite its richly expressive tone, this colorful turn of phrase still confounds me. I’m fairly sure I’d sport a cranial disfigurement from a certain hairbrush had I ever uttered it, but times change.
I do admit that my kids make my family of origin look like royals. But then, I too have lowered my standards with age. The OCD I inherited from my neatnick parents does not encompass ironing. In fact, my kids would likely mistake a steam iron for a waffle one, having never laid eyes on either appliance in person.
I also did away with the idea of family road trips in a vintage Jaguar (too cramped) and that equestrian arena (I don’t need anything else to smell like butt around here).
I have no idea when reality shattered my dreams, or when, exactly, I embraced it. I can only assume extreme exhaustion negated my desire for extreme perfection.
But hey, I ended-up with two boys who are totally slammin’ and alt-worthy.
And I’m still angling for the villa.
When she isn’t daydreaming, Michele Ranard is a professional counselor, academic tutor, freelance writer, and mom to two sons.
