Zrecs Family Follow Up Dealing With Challenging Grandparents || The Tranquil Parent

ZRecs Family follow-up: Dealing with challenging grandparents

By Terry

November 05, 2009

ZRecs Family follow-up: Dealing with challenging grandparents

Photo by rsgranne, shared via Flickr.

We received some great reader comments to the ZRecs Family post on grandparents and family rules, and I wanted to follow up with some additional thoughts and suggestions. In particular, I wanted to touch on how some of the challenges new parents face in dealing with their own parents can relate to deep-seated issues that need to be addressed if your relationships are going to improve.

One comment gave some great examples of issues that have come up with a mother-in-law. One issue was the mother-in-law wanting to bottle feed a newborn immediately at birth and insisting that breastfeeding was gross and disgusting. Another example was grandparents refusing to abide by the well-established car seat rules, installing the car seat in the front seat so the baby could “see better and be happier." These two examples are obviously extreme and are areas on which parents should not even considering giving in.

Issues like this often suggest to me that something deeper is going on than the issue of whose rules will prevail. In the field of family therapy, it is well established that there are certain life passages that elicit very strong emotional pulls and can often trigger deep issues that have been dormant for some time. Think of the family system as a mobile. Whenever someone or something in the family changes, even slightly, the mobile swings wildly, upsetting the equilibrium of all of the members. Births, weddings, funerals and any other important life passages seem to be times of high tension and drama for most families.

My own mother became extremely emotional and irrational while attending the birth of my first child. I did not understand at the time that she was experiencing extreme menopausal symptoms, issues with my father’s health and her own issues related to her child becoming a parent. Passing through this life stage triggered something in her that made her feel old and useless and unnecessary. I must admit that I was not very understanding in my dealings with her and there are still painful memories attached to that time in life.

In defense of this particular MIL, whom I must admit is very difficult to defend, I would suggest the possibility of being non-reactive. In other words, begin to pay attention to the way you would have handled the situation in the past and find a new response. Do not immediately take offense, but begin to study what is going on in the situation. As am example, while biting your tongue, you might recite silently in your head "The one who talks next loses," or "Words once spoken can never be recalled," to calm yourself.

The bottom line is, the parents get to set the rules and need to establish safety, but as you are able to recognize that there are deeper issues at play here, you might find it possible to take the role of a researcher with this MIL. This can lead to both personal growth and a better shared understanding of what must be done. Begin to ask questions about what it was like for her when her children were born, who was there, what it was like. Ask about the way the children rode in cars, what the practices were in caring for her children. Do so as a researcher, as though looking in on the two of you in conversation, rather than as someone who feels attacked. As you learn to handle these issues differently, things are very likely to begin to change in ways that surprise you.

I realize this is very difficult to achieve and I am hopeful that my next post on making "I" statements will be useful in this regard.

If everyone can work at being particularly understanding and non-reactive during these particularly tense family times, assuming good intentions, families can move through these times of transition peacefully. In a future post I'll offer some tips about getting in touch with those initial responses and doing some work on your own responses.

Terry McNichols is a Marriage and Family Therapist who also blogs at Grace and Gravity and Are We There Yet?

Categories: family, grandparenting, parenting techniques, ZRecs Family

7 comments | Comment on post

7 Comments

1. Charlie [11/06/09]

It’s interesting, your point on how grandparents must feel certain rejection and oldness when their own child becomes a parent. I can’t actually imagine the range of emotions that must go through their mind when they realise that their child now takes on the role they had adopted for so many years. Until now it had always irritated me when grandparents intervened but it is so so important to stand back and think about where they are coming from.

2. Mominator [11/06/09]

Thanks for the suggestions...I will report back after a few instances to see how it goes. The research, believe it or not, has actually been done which is part of what floors me. She tells me of her struggles with her MIL and SIL with them believing that they knew better for her children…

I will definitely be attempting even moreso to be non-reactive to the non-gross violations of safety issues, hard as it may be. I did react to the two examples, because, well, they needed to be. Also reacted a third time when I woke up to hear my infant fussing (she was at our house “helping” in the early days - son was two weeks at this point and had not been introduced to bottles, period) - she was attempting to feed him a bottle of formula (from a can she had brought without my nor hubs’ knowledge, yes, this is what I’m dealing with folks!), he was hungry but kept spitting the bottle and formula out and was screaming his fool head off. My reaction pretty much consisted of: you’ll wake me to change his diaper, which I DON’T need to do, but you won’t wake me to breastfeed him which I DO need to do? You aren’t helping.

I will say that the issue of being at the birth has been dealt with for future children, not that any are in the oven: I have switched doctors, to one that delivers closer to me and is an hour from her; was not the case before. Since she did not respect our wishes to not show up before she was called, we simply will not tell her when we go to the hospital the next time, unless things change massively. She’ll get a call that the baby is already here. (Yes...hubby has told her this plan, and she has stated that this is an idle threat and she’ll do as she pleases...)

I really would like to go back to our relationship before her son and I had children. I had NONE of the typical MIL issues. None, zilch, zip, nada. I am hoping that some of the advice given here will be a step in the correct direction.

3. PaperPusher [12/02/09]

Since I first read these 2 posts by Terry as well as the comments, I’ve been thinking about the content for a long time. Unfortunately, I’m still at a loss for how to handle my mom’s upcoming visit. I’m pregnant with my 2nd child. She came for an extended visit (she doesn’t live in the US) while I was pregnant with my 1st. It was wonderful to have her there at first. After my daughter was born however, everything changed. She became extremely domineering, openly dismissive for how we wanted to parent, and no way was the baby allowed to cry - at one point she snatched our daughter from my husband’s hands as he was trying to soothe her. Our wishes, rules etc disregarded. A lot of the things that Mominator described , we experienced with my mom and there were more. Every day of my maternity leave, I was crying because of how I was feeling under her rule. I learned from my SIL that my mom had acted the same with her.

I have thought alot about the underlying reasons for why my mom acted the way she did. While I understand, I still have a hard time accepting her behavior. Even now I have a hard time talking to her on the phone because I can’t get a word in. She cuts me off and starts with unsolicited advice.

We’ve asked her to come again, and we want her to, but as my brother pointed out to me, I asked her to come “help”, or at least she’s under the impression that she’s coming to “help”, which my brother said might be a repeat of what happened that first time, basically her taking over because in her mind, that’s what help is.

Because of this, I haven’t spoken to my mom about her upcoming visit in quite awhile. I’m confused by how I’m supposed to describe her reason for coming. Yes, help because God knows we’ll need it, but also I would love to see her, and I would love it even more for my daughter (and newborn) to spend time with her. But I would really like our experience this time to be much better for all of us.

4. Mominator [12/04/09]

@PaperPusher - Read Terry’s article about “I” statements - it helped a lot in our case.

I’m not sure if this is what Terry would advise, but if it were me:

1. Lay out your expectations and explain what you would like to see different

2. Do not let her tread on you, gently correct. If it continues, continue to correct.

3. At some point, you may need to ask her to leave. That is what we had to do.

We’ve had some success in “housebreaking” my inlaws at this point…

5. Terry [12/04/09]

Wow, Mominator, you’re getting it! So fun to see you helping each other here in the comments.

Here’s an I statement:

“Mom, when you give me advice, I feel defensive. I really need to figure some of this out for myself. Would you consider letting me work it out?”

I can’t promise that this won’t bring a negative reaction from your mom. But when it does, you need to hold your own, restating in some calm way. To protect yourself, you might say “Mom, when you give me advice, I get a knot in my stomach and feel anxious. So, if I get the knot, I’m going to need to take a break. I don’t want to do or say anything hurtful.”

Remember that you really don’t have the power to change your mom’s behavior—only the way you handle it. Good luck!

6. PaperPusher [12/08/09]

Terry and Mominator - thank you so very much for your advice and support. I had tried “I” statements before when I decided to confront these issues and feelings I had. Let’s just say that “talk” with my mom is still legendary in my husband’s mind for the duration and volume. It was a lot of my listening to her letting her vent, I start to talk only to be cut off within a couple of minutes, I ask her (at first calmly then after so many times, angrily) to please let me finish, more cut offs, her turn to talk, repeat. I’ve also told her I want to figure things out on my own and if I make mistakes, they’re my mistakes. Her response is why would you need to go and make mistakes when you have my experiences to learn from? There’s definitely a control issue and inability of letting things go with my mom.

I agree with Terry that this will be all about how I handle it, including as Mominator also suggested, defining her length of stay with us. Trying to stay calm and not fly off the handle will be my biggest challenge.

7. Rapid Share [1/25/10]

I believe relations with grandparents depends on the national traditions. I’m from Russia and in our culture the role of grandparents prevails the role of parents, cause as a rule when a child is born, parents coninue working and live their kid to grandparents, who help and support them till they can. Whe I visited Germany, I noticed it’s the other way round there. When they retire, grandparents live for themselves and kids are totally brought up by young parents. dunno which variant is better.