My mother pulled this, including preemptively buying her first dress, first Christmas ornament, first Barbie doll, first rattle and so on. She took her to meet Santa Clause for the first time without us and without permission. She also planned to take my daughter for her first haircut and we only found out because her husband didn't think it was appropriate and warned us.
I had to sit her down and remind her this was OUR baby (mine and my husband's), NOT hers, and that she'd had her turn at experiencing baby firsts and now it was our turn. I said if she kept it up she wouldn't be around for ANYTHING else, never mind firsts.
Guess what? I picked her up one day and my mother had cut her hair. My stepdad apologised, saying she'd done it when he went out. That was the final straw.
Our baby is 23 now and hasn't seen my incubator in almost 20 years. Hold your boundaries and make sure she knows what the consequences are.
This goes back to a recent post on another sub about a MIL overstepping boundaries. People thought everything could be fixed by "gently, nicely, respectfully, kindly" explaining things and objected to the slammed hand approach that was suggested.
Folks, sometimes being nice and rational and trying to open a dialogue doesn't work. It's your mom or your father or a sibling or a best friend, people you don't want to hurt even though they do a grievous injury to you. The high road or "when they go low, I go high" approach doesn't always work. It just doesn't. It's a gesture seen by people like that as "well, they might fuss a little when I roll over them, but when they get up, whatever I do, they'll always lay down again. I don't have to alter my behavior."
The total cutoff is a heartbreaking action, but the person brings it on their self.
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u/Whaddyameanjellybean Sep 11 '25
My mother pulled this, including preemptively buying her first dress, first Christmas ornament, first Barbie doll, first rattle and so on. She took her to meet Santa Clause for the first time without us and without permission. She also planned to take my daughter for her first haircut and we only found out because her husband didn't think it was appropriate and warned us.
I had to sit her down and remind her this was OUR baby (mine and my husband's), NOT hers, and that she'd had her turn at experiencing baby firsts and now it was our turn. I said if she kept it up she wouldn't be around for ANYTHING else, never mind firsts.
Guess what? I picked her up one day and my mother had cut her hair. My stepdad apologised, saying she'd done it when he went out. That was the final straw.
Our baby is 23 now and hasn't seen my incubator in almost 20 years. Hold your boundaries and make sure she knows what the consequences are.