# Dont know how to react to my mother giving parenting advice?



## kittykatz (Feb 22, 2013)

I have a 6 month old son, who my mom absolutely adores. I have 3 brothers, two of them are in their 30s, the other one is in his early 20s and none of them have kids, and they all still live with my parents. So, my son is my parent's first grandchild.

My parents were always very controlling and protective of me growing up, and they were always paranoid about everything. So I guess when my mom tries to give me advice about my own son, its natural for me to get defensive because I feel like shes just trying to be controlling or tell me what to do. 

Yesterday I was at her house playing with my son. I was tickling him, as I often do, and he was giggling as usual. I noticed that she got silent and it felt like she wanted to say something but she didn't. Today she texted me the link to an article she read talking about how its bad to tickle babies because they cant tell you to stop and that it can give them anxiety to be close to people when theyre older because they will associate being close to people with being tickled.

Even though my son can't verbally tell me to stop, I'm usually pretty good at picking up on his cues. If he wasn't laughing anymore or looked like he wasn't enjoying it, I would stop. Plus I don't do it for more than a minute or two. Even an adult will get tired of being tickled if its done nonstop. This isn't the first time she has shared these types of articles with me. It seems shes always going online reading about something or trying to find something to worry about. 

Chances are she probably has good intentions and is genuinely just trying to look out for my baby's well being but do you think this is a bit over the top? I guess I just don't think its that big of an issue. Has anyone ever heard of tickling babies being a bad thing? And how do you think I should respond, without sounding defensive?


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## Relationship Teacher (Jan 3, 2016)

kittykatz said:


> I have a 6 month old son, who my mom absolutely adores. I have 3 brothers, two of them are in their 30s, the other one is in his early 20s and none of them have kids, and they all still live with my parents. So, my son is my parent's first grandchild.
> 
> My parents were always very controlling and protective of me growing up, and they were always paranoid about everything. So I guess when my mom tries to give me advice about my own son, its natural for me to get defensive because I feel like shes just trying to be controlling or tell me what to do.
> 
> ...


Evaluate any information you receive in a black and white manner. If it is good advice, then take it to heart. If you don't agree with it, then shrug your shoulders. She is only controlling if you are controllable.

:smile2:
Relationship Teacher


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## unbelievable (Aug 20, 2010)

Receive her advise graciously but don't get the idea you have to implement it. If I were inclined to implement parenting advise it would be from someone who's adult kids were independent. Maybe if she tickled babies more her house wouldn't be filled with adult dependent males.


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## gouge_away (Apr 7, 2015)

I was tickled a lot as a child, my family was very physically affectionate.

I turned out to be a very physically affectionate person, and aside from a few women who absolutely don't like being touched all the time, most of the women I've been involved with loved the physical attention they received from me.

It was learned behaviour that actually has cause me to extremely close and intimate with almost everybody in my life.

Side note.
Does anybody else find it interesting how many parenting device articles are online, written by 25 year old women who think a 4 year education qualifies them to give parenting advice.

I'm a parent, from a long line of parents before me, I don't need advice from single, childless, frat-stains.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

intheory said:


> I've never heard of tickling causing problems.
> 
> I was tickled a lot as a kid. I can't think of any stress or problems that it's caused me.
> 
> This is what they call a "first world problem"


Tickling can be a problem. It's not a "first world problem".

When I was a kid, one of the neighbor boys used to tickle me to the point of me peeing my self. It was to the point of it being torture/abuse.

I could not stop laughing because that's the natural response to being tickled. But I was not laughing because it was funny or fun. He did it to the point that, well it hurt.

Then one day something switched in me. I lost the ability to be feel tickling. I was about 11 at the time. I'm 66 now and still have no response to being tickled except that I might punch anyone who tries.

Tickling is also often used by child molesters as the first level of touch to groom a child for later sexual abuse. So it also depends on who is doing the tickling.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

kittykatz,

I think that your mom is just being a caring grandmother. As someone else said, it's only controlling if you are controllable.

Your mom might have some personal experience dealing with tickling that makes her concerned about it. Things like this might be a good lead in to talk to your mother, you might find out things about her that you never knew.

You said that you tickled your baby for only a miniute or two. I don't see anything wrong with that. 

By the way.. congrats on your baby!!


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## unbelievable (Aug 20, 2010)

If tickling caused mental health problems, all three of mine would be institutionalized and so would my grandchildren.


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## Anonymous07 (Aug 4, 2012)

Listen to the advice and accept it if you agree with it or disregard it if you don't. If you disagree with what she said, tell her "thank you for your concern, but I enjoy tickling my son and we're doing just fine". Then move on. 

Your mom isn't doing this to try to be controlling or doing it out of malice, she just cares about her only grandchild. My mom can be overly into my son, as he is her only grandchild, too. She would try to tell me to do this or that, but ultimately he is my son and I parent how I want to with my husband. We have my 2 and a half year old son rear facing in his car seat, which my mom thinks he is too old for, but it's not her decision. We have decided to keep him rear facing for his safety and she doesn't get a say in that. Part of parenting is dealing with unsolicited advice and you will get plenty of it.


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## karole (Jun 30, 2010)

I didn't get a lot of advice from my mother, but I did from my MIL (whom I thought the world of). I was thankful for her advice. It's nice to have someone to go to for advice that you trust when problems arise with newborns. I only have one child and when she was born, my husband and I didn't have a clue as to what we were doing. I'd read books, etc., but having someone that had raised 4 kids to go to when I had questions was helpful. I will say, that she did give advice occasionally that I didn't take or didn't ask for, but I know that every bit of advice she gave us was because she loved our daughter and genuinely wanted to help. As others have posted above, I listened and if her information was helpful, I used it, if not, I didn't, but thanked her anyway. 

Congrats and good luck to you!!


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## SecondTime'Round (Jan 15, 2015)

I think you just say, "That's interesting, I've never heard that." And leave it at that. Some of my friends are becoming grandparents now, and from what I can tell from Facebook, grandmothers are OBSESSED with their grandkids lol! (My mom is too, with all of her grands, including mine). She means well and is not trying to be critical.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

"Thanks for the advice, mom. I'll take it into consideration."

Done.


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## giddiot (Jun 28, 2015)

Ignore it, Moms can't help it. My wife does it all the time to my son's and it has caused some of the biggest rifts. I keep telling her they have to raise their own kids and learn on their own, but she literally can't refrain from commenting.

We have a new grand daughter and she is doing child care for her. My wife tries to do everything the way she did it with our boys rather than following what my son and wife do with her. Like how to put her to sleep. My wife likes to hold her and rock her but she never goes to sleep. The kids put her in bed and give her a slow feeding bottle and she is out in 5 minutes.

Now neither of us think the bottle idea is good for the baby, but why fight it when were taking care of her, it just wears us out and frustrates everybody. My wife and the baby get to crying and I end up putting her to sleep. And what do I do, what they told us to do.

It has gotten so bad with our grandson of my other boy that my son wont even talk with his mother any more. Last comment I heard from him was he was glad that his brother has a new baby so that she will leave him alone. Both his mother and I do not like how he deals with our grandson however but there is nothing we can do about it.

My advice, talk to your father and see if he can talk some sense into her.


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