Things that get the grandparents riled up...

After reading the thread about grandparents and haircuts, it made me think about some of the things I've done with my kids that have irked the heck out of my grandparents (not my parents, but the grandparents). The funny thing is, I can't understand why it would bother them so much!

For starters, breastfeeding. Both sets of grandparents were completely anti-breastfeeding. Neither one of them did it with their children because they thought it was "disgusting" and just "not right". My mother breastfed my sister and I, and they hated when she did it; called her a rebellious hippy.

Second, not sending my oldest son to preschool. OMG, you would have thought I was the anti-Christ for that one.

Considering homeschooling. Geez, I'm made out to be the worst parent alive for thinking about that.

Not doing the whole Santa and Easter Bunny bit. Why is it so horrible that I don't want to go along with that? We still celebrate the days with all of the works, except the kids know that mommy and daddy are the ones who provide the goodies, thus, are learning that there is a limited budget.

Letting my twins sleep together as infants. I don't see why that was a huge issue. I mean, they were in my womb next to one another for 9 months, and so I chose to let them sleep in the same crib, even though we had two seperate ones. I felt that it would be an easier transition from the womb to have them next to one another, to feel the comfort of one another being near. I was lambasted over this. Nearly every time I spoke with my grandmother, she wanted to know if the twins were still in the same crib, and when was I going to put them in seperate ones.

That's about all I can think of right now, but I was curious as to things that maybe others do that really riles the grandparents/great grandparents up.

 

As a child my brother and I used to play with dolls together (I was older and called the shots) he loved it, and for a while used to walk around our close pushing the toy pram.
My parent's never had issues with it. But then my Grandparents found out and totally freaked. They eventually got my brother a wheelbarrow to play with. Something to push that wasn't 'girly'.
On the rare occasions it was played with we used it as a pushchair/stroller

That was about ten years ago. Now my brother works part time in an old people's home, and is the sweetest most nurting boy. So it must have done him the world of good.

 

Heheheh, my oldest son occasionally plays with my daughter's dolls too. It doesn't bother me in the least. I figure the world needs more nurturing men, right?

 

I think sometimes that just about everything I do upsets mine or my husbands parents, or usually both.

Lets see, I also had both sets of grandparents and my own grandparents just HORRIFIED I would even THINK of breastfeeding. My mother-in-law actually asked my why I would want to be "tied down" to my children like that.

Following my heart and not celebrating the holidays like easter and christmas, when we had the house they would try to get us a christmas tree, easter baskets ect...

Being a stay at home mom, this one just irks the heck out of my mother-in-law, she actually accused me of wanting to homeschool so I wouldn't have to work.

Co sleeping, they informed me my children would never sleep by themselves if I let them sleep with us as infants, and of course I was going to smother them in my sleep. I'm glad to say my 11yo wouldn't even think of sleeping with us even though I don't mind and both my girls have opted to sleep together, another issue with them.

Homeschooling, I still hear about this one, my person favorite is "but he's so smart, you should put him in school" not like I could have had anything to do with that.

Try telling your family you are quitting your job, selling your house and getting a bus to travel the country.

Not vaccinating my 2 youngest children after really researching and finding out more than I ever wanted to know about vaccines.

They even have issues with the fact that we like our kids to eat as naturally as possible and while we allow them candy and other yucky stuff (ie hotdogs, lunch meat ) we expect it to be in moderation.

Oh yeah I almost forgot, they just don't see how we can live without a TV. one of them asked me "what do you DO without a TV" hmm I guess she never heard of books, puzzles, games or just plain talking to one another.

I'm sure I forgot lots of stuff, just suffice it to say they just "don't get us"

 

me an my brothers have done so much that has pissed off and confused my grandparents... first things first my fake grandfather hates the fact that I dont wake up at the crack of dawn and go to sleep when the sun sets... ide go to sleep at like 4 AM and he'd wake me up 2 hours later to help my grandma do so meaningless task... that quickly stopped after i bitched him out and went breserk... and my brothers are always wearing these big inverted crosses and other such nonchristian things that really get to my grandparents.

It's easy to piss off old people, they still think its 1950 .

 

I remember one year my grandparents weren't so happy when we didn't attend the family Christmas party. They thought we were snubbing them because we were Jewish. But we weren't. We wanted to go on vacation, and that was the only time we were all home. We almost always go to celebrate with them. I don't know why it bothered them so much to miss one year.

My grandfather on my mom's side was never too happy with a lot of things about me. I don't mean that he doesn't like me, we're both very fond of eachother. But he's a kind of a traditional person, and I'm a liberal-feminist-vegetarian. You can see why that may cause some conflict.

They never liked the fact that my brothers and I all dressed different and listened to loud music with *gasp* swear words. And my grandma wasn't violently opposed to it, but I could tell she was a little uncomfortable with the fact that I used to date a black boy.

My other grandma, whose slightly more modern, is pretty cool with most things except that my brothers and I used to wear a lot of black. I wasn't a goth, I just think that black is a beautiful color. My grandmother said black was the color of depression. I still don't think so, but whatever.

 

Oh, that's another one I forgot about busmama. The eating naturally. Sure, I'm not the food police, but I try and see that they eat as healthy as possible. We had people look at us like we were insane when our oldest son politely refused potato chips and Doritos at a get-together, or when offered a pop (soda for some of you others *lol*) he could barely drink any. Sure, he was curious to try it, but he didn't even want to drink much of it.

 

Its hard sometimes isn't it? One thing I forgot was when my son was about 4 I let him have a mohawk, lol. They really didn't like it.

So, how do you deal with it? I try to ignore them which is kinda easy since we don't live close. I try to be nice and respectful of their feelings, but it is hard sometimes. Mostly our parents aren't too bad they only complain to us, but I had an aunt who was just way out of line, she would tell the kids we were lying about xmas and that if we really loved them we would let them go to school. We had to completely break ties, which I hate. I get so tired of constantly defending myself that I just don't go visit them. But I know that the kids deserve to see their grandparents. I would be interested in how others deal with it.

 

From a kid's perspective, the grandparents thing is kind of upsetting. I always felt upset when my grandparents got mad because something my parents let me do and tried to tell me not to. I love my grandparents, but where do they get off trying to tell me how to do my hair or dress? Why do they try to set rules for me? That's not their place.

I can imagine why that would be so annoying for the parent. Treating their grandchildren like they were the guardians and that was their job, not the parents. I'd be upset.

 

My grandparents actually are pretty accepting of everything my parents have done. I don't know if my Grammy breastfed my mom, but as far as I know, she never had a problem with my mom breastfeeding my brother and I (and my mom is FAR from a hippie... although in her day she was a deadhead and went to a few Pink Floyd concerts).

The one thing where my grandpa steps in is my future. Since he's paying for college, he always FREAKS out at my mom for being too hard on me (I'm harder on myself then she is, but basically my parents told me that it would be "disappointing" if I don't make 200K a year and be a CEO of a multinational company.. wtf). The only thing now is that my mom won't let me do ANYTHING that she thinks my grandpa would disapprove of (although I know he'll get ticked when I inform him of this when I see him him over Spring Break) because she thinks that if I don't toe the line, that my college funding will be cut off and then I'll be stuck going to a community college in state, but he wouldn't do that to me because I'm really the only grandchild that isn't an apathetic loser (my brother is just lazy and my cousins are too busy being sluts to do much of anything). So yeah. I really lucked out in the grandparent department, except my dad's mom I try to avoid at all costs because most of my family's problems stem back to her horrible parenting skills... but whatever.

I guess because my family moved to Georgia when I was 2 and the rest of my family lives in Massachusetts and New Hampshire so I only see them once (if that) a year, they are much more accepting of how I am of my goals in life and everything because they'd rather not cause conflict in the rare times I spend with them. If you live around your grandparents, I think their instinct takes over more to try to raise you (or your child) themselves.

 

I would give anything to have my grandparents back, those of you who have them, cherish them. I am not so lucky.

 

I am intending on going back overseas for work once I have finished a bit more study...that gets the silent treatment when or if it comes up!!

 

OMG the names we have given our children, lol. Of all the ridiculous things to get upset about, my husband's parents were livid that we were giving our kids such strange names. When we were expecting Ryvre, we made the mistake of telling them his name would be Ryvre Raine when they asked, so my MIL swore she'd call him Raymond. Ugh. She didn't, of course, but naturally when they heard we were having another child, the big question was "so, what are you naming this one? April Fresh?" Gee, i'm glad it's such a big joke to them. My parents didn't have any trouble with the names, but some of the older grandparents were "conserned" lol. Did they think i'd name my kids after them? If so, they'd surely get teased: lets just use Clarence and Dorothy as examples, haha.

Of course, breastfeeding was a big thing; my mom and MIL both breastfed, as did my mom's mom (she nursed twins!), but my dad's mom told me "in my time, that's something only poor women did" Well, my mom's parents were poor, and growing up, she was alot healthier than my dad was I nursed Willow for a year, so of course, there was the general "you're still doing 'that'?" from everyone.

No one has said anything about me being a SAHM or homeschooling the kids, but i can definately sense alot of tension there; it's no secret that we struggle financially, so of course, the general consensus is that i should obviously send them off to school, and get a job. Conversely, everyone seems to think my husband should get a second full-time job so that he can "better provide for us," and they are not shy about saying so. Thanks for the consern, but i'd rather have a husband who actually helped me with the kids, and was a constant presense in their lives, instead of an extra paycheck.

Then there's sleeping arrangements. The kids have a bunk bed that they share, though they usually fall asleep on the couch. The argument is that they'll never learn to sleep in a bed, but the way i see it, wherever we go, there's always a couch, so they'll feel at home even when they're away Sometimes we move them to their beds, but not usually, since they always get up at night, and come to our bed anyway. It just doesn't bother us.

Food isn't a huge issue, because we don't always buy organic (though we'd like to), except for milk. So, they really don't think that's too weird, plus, the glass milk bottles remind them of better times, haha. I make my own baby food, which they see as a novelty (my mom is always bragging about that, haha--i keep telling her "mom, it's boiled veggies thrown in a food processor" lol).

We get alot of eye-rolling for using herbal remedies instead of rushing to the doctor every time someone starts sneezing, but the teas and concoctions work (Dale makes this cream for Willow's eczema that's amazing), so they give us little trouble about them. They probably think we're convincing ourselves that the herbs work, but it still works, so everyone is happy even so.

Then, of course, there's our general "lack" of discipline (time-outs instead of spanking), and the way we try not to force standard gender roles on them (yes, Ryvre likes to wear my high-heels; isn't his balance amazing?). Etc. In general, we just surprise the grandparents sometimes, but they're usually kind about keeping their mouths shut.

 

My mom used to say that all the time to my grandmother when my little brother would walk around in mom's high heels.

"He works those pumps better than I do!"

Although, in my family, he ended up being called "RuPaul" and "GirlyBoy"...I just hope it's not scarred him too awfully bad.

You seem like such a great mama Hell, you all do!

 

Hmmm..."starving" my kids by "making" them eat vegan, not vaxing, tandem nursing my 3 and 1 year old, not spanking and using positive redirection instead,co sleeping and letting them run around naked all the time (we're raising them to be perverts you know... ), letting our son play with dolls and wear a sling *gasp*, letting our daughter dress up as a knight and wear her cape everyday for I swear like a month straight...lol, pretty much anything we do and everything we say...LOL