# my mother feeling left out of new grandchild life



## New2marriage

My brother and sister in law recently had a baby. The families were very excited for them. They have been married for 8 years and have been trying to get pregnant for 4 years. Their lives are very stable and it is now complete with this new baby girl (my niece). The problem is that now that there is a new baby there are some issues that have come to light. My brother and sister in law are in an interracial/intercultural marriage. When they were getting married my sister in laws immediate family did not come to the wedding because they did not approve. We are black/of Haitian decent and my sister in law is Italian. My brother's family was all there to support them. I respect my sister in law for standing by my brother and their marriage. For the early part of their marriage they had little contact with her immediate family. Throughout their marriage we (my mom, younger sister, and I) would visit them on holidays and family events. The other issue is my brother does not have a relationship with my father. They have not spoken for years. (We've all accepted the fact they will not have a relationship due to past traumas). He has little contact with our extended family members aunts, uncles, cousins(by choice). They (my brother and sister in law) have only kept contact with the three of us. Over the past couple years they have reconnected with my sister in laws family. They live close to her parents and her parents seem involved with them. This somewhat upsets my mother as they pretty much rejected my brother/her son due to his race. In fact the first time my mother even met my sister in laws parents was at the baby shower her sister and mother organized. My mother put aside all her upset feelings to celebrate the upcoming arrival of her first grandchild. My niece was born December of 2013. We were all excited to meet her and visit her in the hospital. However I began to notice how my brother and sister in law began to react towards my mother. Whenever she would make a suggestion they would correct her or tell her that things have changed. They would say that's not what we are doing. I understand sometimes adult children can get annoyed by overbearing parents but watching this began to irritate me. Next I watched during the early weeks of my niece's life my mother called often to check on her to see how she was doing. My brother would respond and over time less and less. I told my mom to just give them time to adjust to new life as parents. Eventually she called them less. My brother was nice enough to invite us over to the house to visit the baby. Things were going well my sister in law was out. When she returned she seemed surprised to see us. We talked and exchanged gifts as we always do. As we were leaving my mother made a joke and said jokingly "don't beat my baby". My brother promptly replied "She won't be raised the way I was raised". My mother got upset and said "What is wrong with the way I raised you? I am very offended". Meanwhile my sister in law clutched her daughter for dear life. We all left after that. It was a very uncomfortable exchange. After a few days my mother pretended like nothing happened because she was dying to know how her grandchild was doing. My brother made nice as well. (There was no apology). In the end I can't help but feel as though they are completely cutting out our side of the family. Aside from being offended my mother is very upset that her grandchild is now 4 months old and my brother seems uninterested in letting my grandmother and our aunts be involved in anyway. They have invited us (my mother, younger sister, my husband, and I) to the babies christening in June. My mother does not want to attend the event. I am torn myself. What do you make of this? What should I do if she does not want to attend? I'm sure my sister in laws family will be there in huge numbers.


In the mean time I've distracted my mother by telling her to make things for her granddaughter to leave for in the future this way she can express herself and her love for her grandchild in some way.


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## EleGirl

This sounds like a classic case of her trying to separate him from his family.

There will most likely be a time when your bother realizes that he needs his family. 

If this were me, I’d give it some time because I’d want a relationship with the baby.

So I’d go to the Christening and be as gracious as possible. (No jokes cause some people have no sense of humor.) You and your mom can be the better people in this.

Has your mother and/or you invited your bother, his wife and baby over? Or are you just waiting for them to invite you? Make sure you all extend family invitations to them.

Give it a while. Things are in a state of change with her family coming around, a new baby.


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## Anon Pink

When you become a parent, you recognize that some things your own parents did or didn't do, might have been a bad call.

I went through something similar with my own mother when I had my first. I was the lucky one who got to "break in mom" on being a grandparent and not a parent.

"What's wrong with the way I raised you?" 

That is a totally loaded question and while there might be a huge list of things that were right, there are no doubt a lot of things that are not looked upon favorably anymore.

My oldest is 27 and my mother was horrified that I would strap my baby into a car seat! Horrified! My mother was also disgusted that I was breast feeding and literally walked away from me if I nursed in public insisting I do "that" in the ladies room. Right, I should nurse my baby sitting on a stinky filthy toilet seat? My mother wanted to rub bourbon on the baby's gums when she was teething and insisted I use soap on the baby's face to clear up infant acne!

So, yeah, lots could be right with the way your mom raised you guys but times have changed and lots of things are different now. 

But your mom still has a lot of experience "knowing" babies and that will be a tremendous help to her son.

Maybe your mom could ask her son about the newest thinking in raising babies now a days? Maybe this could help get them all on the same page on doing what's best for the baby.

In terms of the cultural issues... That is a tough one!

My oldest daughter is gay and is marrying another woman in the fall. My soon to be daughter in law doesn't have the support of her family at all. And I'm mad about that. So I can totally identify how your mom feels a little betrayed. Having supported her son only to have him turn his back when the in laws finally get their head out of their asses! Yup that hurts!

But, and this is something I know I'll have to do one day too, your mom needs to remember how painful it was for her DIL to be shunned by her family and how happy she must be that everything is coming back together. Now is not the time for your mom to show anger at what feels like a betrayal, cause it really isn't. 

You know that story the prodigal son? How the father rejoiced and went nutso celebrating his wayward sons return...meanwhile ignoring the son who had been there all along. I never got that story. Still doesn't make sense to me.

Maybe you mom does understand that story and maybe that will help her cope?


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## Omego

This is a tough one. I guess you are implying that your mother let your brother get abused in some way? So yes, it sounds like all of that resentment is coming to the surface.

I don't know if this helps, but as Anon Pink said, sometimes we realize that the way our parents raised us is not EXACTLY how we'd like to raise our own. I have experienced this as well. I breastfed all of my children, but my mother probably thinks it's gross. This is just a small example of how different we are in this respect. 

I guess your mom, as you said, has hurt feelings about the race/culture issue, which makes things worse. Maybe you could point that out to your brother and SIL so that they could be a bit more sensitive? It sure doesn't help if your SIL is clutching the baby as if her MIL is a danger to the child!

It looks like you're going to be the mediator for a while. When the child gets older, I assume that she will go alternatively to visit both grandmothers, as the parents will surely need babysitting, etc. And if the child feels comfortable with both grandmothers, it should be ok.

Good luck!


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## AliceA

My biggest take on this is that you shouldn't put yourself between them. Don't be a flying monkey trying to fix things for your Mum. Your brother has a right to how he feels. If he feels he wouldn't raise his own child the way he was raised, then I can honestly say I doubt his childhood was a bed of roses and he might actually have good reason to say something like that. He might have a lot of built up resentment. This is his cross to bear. You have no right to judge him in this respect imo.

The worst thing your mother could do is to force herself on them. The best thing would be for her to express her love by accepting how they have chosen to do things, keep her advice to herself until she (if ever) develops a bond where they feel they can trust her advice. However, if she hasn't developed this bond by now, she may never.

It may not be at all that his wife is the 'bad guy'. It may be completely from within him. This is his child and if he wants his child to have a relationship with other family, he has the choice. If you try to push your views onto him on what he should and should not do, you may as well say goodbye to whatever chance there was left for him to open up to his mother more.

Don't be that crappy sister in law that interferes and tells them how much they're hurting your mother etc, bemoans her poor mother who could do no wrong (when in reality, she must've, because he wouldn't feel this way for no reason at all). I've seen that crappy SIL written about many times in the MIL forums. Nobody likes her and eventually she, along with the MIL, are out of his family forever.


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## Miss Taken

Your brother definitely sounds like he has some resentment towards your mother and it may be fully justified or it may not. To me it sounds like he was beaten either by your mother or father or both so when she made the joke, he was sensitive about it. If it's the case that he was beaten growing up and is hurting about it, I think the joke about beating the baby was in poor taste and it's your mother who should apologize. Either way, a heart-to-heart between your brother and your mother sounds like it's needed as it sounds like there is tension there that needs to be sussed out.

I don't want to project MY issues onto you as I don't know you but in my family - my grandmother and Aunt are very toxic people. They are emotionally and spiritually abusive and draining, and when I was a child even physically abusive and I've cut them out of my life for nearly ten years. However, they both martyr themselves to friends and family about my choice not to speak to them all the while not looking at how their behaviour has/is pushing me away.

That may or may not be going on in your case but I just thought I'd get it out there in case your mom is martyring herself.

I would encourage your mom to go to the Christening. If she's worried about being cut out, it seems counter-intuitive to me to not want to go to the Christening.... seems kind of passive aggressive to me and another situation she can bring up in the future as an example of how she was pushed out and thus a victim.

It's understandable that your mom wants to give advice on how to care for the new baby and it's probably well intended BUT she needs to keep her unsolicited advice and comments to herself if she hopes to foster a relationship with your sister-in-law and in turn, get more play time with the baby. Being a new mom is overwhelming and it makes even the most well-intended advice sound like criticism. Many new moms have doubts in their abilities and question themselves of whether they're doing a good enough job so are hyper-sensitive to criticism. So when your mom says something about how the baby is being raised, it may make your sister-in-law feel attacked.

As for the race issues, I would have to say forgiveness is needed. Quite often, grand-babies do help turn these bigoted minds around. It's a huge paradigm shift for many. Speaking again, from experience. I am biracial Jamaican/Finnish. My maternal grandfather was racist up until my older sister was born. He was a horrible man up until he died but I do believe he loved my sister and didn't die a racist.


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## New2marriage

Thank you for the replies. They are much appreciated. I actually read each one to my mother and she was surprisingly open about it. We discussed everything from my brother's upbringing, to my sister in law's family returning, and being gracious. She has decided to attend the Christening and I am helping her adjust to this new role as grandparent as apposed to parent. I still have some work to do with her regarding the cultural aspects of this. But I am hopeful things will work out in the end.

Thank you all again


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## Openminded

I am a grandmother of three. The paternal grandmother. Long before my first grandchild was born I was told by friends that the paternal grandmother often doesn't receive the same access to the grandchildren as the maternal grandmother. I had a great relationship with my then-DIL and didn't believe it. But as time went on I did see it. So that dynamic could be part of the problem in your family. Along with whatever resentment your brother may have for his upbringing. 

I had to dial back my expectations once I had grandchildren. Your mother may have to as well. Hopefully not -- but it happens.


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