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Kit
I am lucky that my parents are supportive of my pregnancy. However, I am a little worried and upset that they seem to be a little too interfering. I am 28 years old. My husband and I have been married for 6 years now. I’m not a child! This is our first child. My parents were good parents but very controlling (they weren’t supportive of me studying the major I wanted to study and they tried to cancel my wedding because I was suffering from depression and had bad grades). They have been less interfering lately until recently when they found out I was pregnant.
My dad came over to our house to deliver some furniture from my grandmother who was moving into a smaller house. Admitedly our house was a bit or a mess, but it was not a disaster area. (We are both grad students and have been extremely busy – its not like we were hosting a dinner party or something!) Two days later my dad calls and wants to have dinner with me – telling me how much of a disaster our house is, telling us he has set up an appointment for someone to come clean and demanding to know information about my husband and my insurance and financial situation. He also keeps insisting that we must get rid of our cat before we have the baby. Last week I had a dream that my mom named our baby before we had a chance to put a name on the birth certificate. I appreciate their help and advice but I feel like they are overstepping their bounds. Am I out of line? Is there a nice way to say thank you for your help, but please back off?
Anonymous
the best advice i can offer is to sit them down and tell them how you’re feeling. explain to them that this is your life, and that you are not their child. tell them you don’t mind their help, but that you need them to understand that you are an adult and don’t need their help for every little thing. tell them about the dream you had, so they understand how much this has been bothering you. tell them you dont apreciate them coming over to your house and telling you how to live your life. you don’t tell them how to live their lives or keep their house. they should at least give you that same courtesy.
Kit-
Congratulations!! By my figuring, we’re about the same age and about the same amount pregnant (how ya doin’, prego?)!
Are you out of line? Um, how do I put this delicately… heck, no! Okay, it was kind of your father to set up a cleaning service, but politely decline if you don’t want it. As for your finances and insurance, would you be being honest if you could say to your father that your husband takes care of all that, and you don’t really worry about it because your hubby takes good care of you? Yeah, it’s a passive-aggressive way of saying that it’s not your dad’s business, but it’s effective. Or, if you’re more the blunt type (that’s me), then you can kindly explain to him that you’re just fine, and although you appreciate his concern, you’d really rather him concentrate on accumulating a collection of baby-appropriate toys at his house than worry about yours. Not that I’d stand a chance of saying all that as kindly as I’d intend to! Best of luck to you, let me know how your pregnancy is going!
-KathrynKathryn,
Thanks for your advice. It is good to know that there is someone out there at about the same age and stage in pregnancy as I am at. So far I have been doing pretty well. I am FINALLY getting over the morning sickness a little bit (getting sick a couple of times a week is better than getting sick a couple of times a day!) I haven’t felt any movement yet but I am looking forward to when I can feel the baby rather than just feeling pregnancy symptoms. I am also looking forward to when the doctor will do an ultrasound at 20 weeks and I can get to see the little one! How have things been going for you?
Anyways I did meet with my dad for dinner together. The conversation went better than I had expected. I was worried because we both have pretty strong tempers (I get that from my dad). I didn’t tell him about my dream (prob should have) but I told him a little bit about how I was feeling. I told him that we were not giving away our house cat and that it was our house and our decision. (He just stressed that we would need to vaccuum several times every day if we did keep the cat.) I told him that we had life and health insurance covered. I gave a basic brief description of our coverage (I shouldn’t have had to…but I could tell it reassured him and it got him off my back.) As far as the cleaning situation we did quite a bit of cleaning ourselves. I said that money to help with cleaning would be better used closer to when I am due and maybe a little help after the baby is here and I’m exhausted from sleepless nights. He thought that sounded reasonable. I told him that I understood his concerns but it was our house and we don’t judge his house or tell him how my parents need to run their house. I know that my parents love me and are just concerned for me and for their future grandchild but I still get frustrated. We’ll see how things go with the rest of the pregnancy and once the baby is here.
Sounds like you need to offer your parents the gift of providing you and your husband with a (hired) housekeeper! You may need to have them over for dinner, at your house, on a day you have had a chance to have it look normal, and let them know that you do appreciate all they do and how excited you are that you all live close enough to enjoy their active participation with your growing family. Then, carefully drop the bomb of "you raised me well and you must trust me to make more right decisions than wrong, just like your parents did with you (and if they didn’t, what is/was the relationship like as adults). You have done the research on having animals with children and it is perfectly safe with simple precautions, no fleas, baby sleeps with stuffed animals only…
Be strong, you are the mommy now. You can honor your parents and still speak your heart in love and they will come back and have a deeper respect for you.
Kit-
I’m so happy for you that you were able to have that conversation with him and everything went well! I think about the last thing we pregnant girls need are more reasons to get all emotional!
Things have been pretty good with me, over all. This is my third pregnancy, but my second with my hubby. My first child was an "unplanned pregnancy", a boy, whom I made an adoption plan for. That was five years ago now, and before I had met my husband. We just had our third anniversary in July, our little girl turned 1 in May, and now we’re (joyously!) due the last day in Feb. I know that seems soon, but that’s really just two and a half months short of two years apart. After the placement of my first child, I finally got the fortitude to get out of the poor relationship I was in, move back home, and go back to college. I met my hubby shortly after at a church soup-supper, took things slow this time, fell in love with a wonderful man who loves me and treats me great, got married, kept going to school and worked like a maniac at three jobs, got pregnant, gave birth and graduated simultaneously (okay, they were five days apart, if you must know), and am now a stay-at-home who works part-time doing in-home, intensive therapy with an autistic girl- that’s what I did all through college, too. Oh, and my degree is a BS in Biological Sciences, and a minor in Chemistry. Okay, that’s the timeline of my life for the past five years… how about you?-Best wishes, Kathryn
Kathryn,
It does sound like we have a lot in common! Happy anniversary (late). Your husband sounds wonderful.
My husband and I just celebrated our 6th wedding Anniversary on August 28. We met about ten years ago in college classes and dated for about 6 months before we broke up. I was pretty devastated. A good male friend of mine, Sean asked me out after Jeremy and I broke up. (He had asked me out before and I has said no because he was 3 years younger and I didn’t want to damage our friendship. However there had for a long time been a mutual attraction and sexual tension.) We started dating and all the previous sexual tension came to the surface. We were both virgins, but gave in to our curiosity and urges. As soon our relationship turned sexual it went downhill. I had a pregnancy scare. He told me that if I was pregnant that he didn’t think he could be there for me or the baby. That really bothered me. Also he was always putting me down and just seemed interested in sex. The good friendship we had before was unfortunately destroyed. Deep down I knew this was not a good relationship and I eventually broke it off. Later Jeremy and I started hanging out together as friends and eventually started dating again. We have been together ever since. Jeremy and I did have a pregnqancy scare after we were engaged before we were married, but luckily I was not pregnant.
I was an environmental studies major in undergrad. I took a lot of biology courses and am very interested in zoology and botany. I also had an art minor. I sufferred from depression in mid/late college and my grades sufferred. In what should have been my senior year I just stopped going to classes. After Jeremy and I were married I took some time away from school to redefine and rebalance my life. I decided that I really did want to finish my degree, but finances were an issue. I worked full time and also took classes by working them around my work schedule and taking night and correspondence courses. It took me 8 years from start to graduation but eventually I made it to graduation! I continued to work full time and take classes.
This fall I just started graduate school in textile design and I have a paid graduate assistantship which means that for the first time in a long time I will be able to coordinate work and school in a very integrated and flexible way. I don’t know if I will have to sit out next semester. (My due date is Febraury 19th) but it sounds like if I choose to take classes and work as the gallery assistant that my professors will be willing to work with me – which is good! My husband is working on his masters in educational psychology and is working full time too. He works for a group on campus focusing on making the university more accessible for students with physical and learning disabilities. Your work with autistic children seems right up his alley.
Best Wishes to you too!
Kit-
This’ll be quick, it’s way too late for me, but just had to add-
my hubby’s in education, too! Only mine’s a high school music and history teacher.
Write later?
Blessings, KathrynKathryn,
I’d definitely like to keep in touch! Maybe you could give me some pointers on how to get through pregnancy/labor/parenthood since you’ve been through this before. I’m too if you want to talk and share experiences. Please keep in touch.
Kate
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