How to Tick-off the Grandparents of Your New Baby

Having a new baby is a time for unprecedented joys—washing little feet, drinking in the intoxicating scent of a new baby’s hair and feeding time with satisfying snuffles, slurps and sighs. These are the joys that the new grandparents are dying to get in on, after torturing you as a couple for years. But you hold the reins on that new bundle of joy. Follow these steps to effectively tick-off the grandparents of your new baby.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• New baby
• Grandparents

1. Make a good start by calling the grandparents after your new baby is born, rather than during labor and delivery—which would allow them time to speed to your location, book a flight or call the hospital to give instructions in an attempt to overrule your birth plan.
2. Be a parental unit from the first moment. Oh, how those new grandparents love to set up a he-said/she-said dynamic from day 1. Refuse to play into good mom/bad dad stereotypes and remain stalwart as a couple. Nothing infuriates meddling grandparents like new parents refusing to play ball.
3. You’ve got the power! Calmly refuse to surrender control to grandparents dying to parent a new generation by proxy—offering advice, solutions and critique galore. Getting angry is a sign you’re weakening, while saying “no” with a smile deflates most steamrolling grandparents, offering you smug satisfaction.
4. Break with tradition. You’re starting a family of your own, not extending your parents'. While inter-generational relationships are important (it does help to have that village on hand), you don’t have to pass on the whole kit and caboodle. Decide what family traditions to keep and toss out the rest.
5. Confront each and every stereotypical statement made about your child. When grandpa pushes pink on your baby girl and focuses on her beauty, her future marriage and her potential career in modeling, vent your feelings about gender, compulsory heterosexuality and the beauty myth, at length. Refuse to take a joke.
6. Quote from modern parenting experts, eschewing Spock, Brazelton or any baby doc the grandparents think wrote the Baby Bible. Read up on experts supporting your parenting plan; quote liberally if your plan is opposed by grandparents concerned about your inexperience, relative youth and odd ideas.
7. Question their authority. When grandma says, “That’s not how we did it in my day,” reply, “And look how we turned out,” without suggesting in what way you and/or your siblings are flawed. Chances are this affront will result in silence, guilt, confusion, tears and a rapid retreat.

Tips & Warnings

• She’s your baby and she’ll cry if she wants to. Nothing gets grandparents quite as worked up as a crying baby. Refusing to swaddle, bounce, pacify, force feed or give formula as suggested (to cease the wailing) will infuriate them thoroughly. But try to help your baby.
• Gender is an especially hot point for grandparents not quite on the equity bandwagon. Raising a son without emphasizing strength, team sports, emotional inaccessibility and the color blue will tick off grandparents as much as raising a girl competent in football, power tools and mechanical engineering.
• Don’t rise to gay baiting. If grandparents tell you, “You’re raising a dyke,” in response to a parenting choice, respond, “You think so? That’s great. When she gets married we’ll have another daughter in the family and twice the opportunity for grandchildren.”
• Those judgmental folks who made your life a living hell during nine months of eagerly anticipated bliss may turn into loving, accepting elders later, so don’t alienate them completely unless they are toxic and truly harmful.
• Never try the “And look how we turned out” approach as a son- or daughter-in-law. Besides needing to alter the speech to, “And look how they turned out,” you would need to be crazy. Attacking a mother’s children is strictly taboo, and for good reason. She will become a maternal tiger, capable of mangling with a single paw, even if she’s 5 foot tall and 92 lbs in her stocking feet.
• Grandma may be right, some of the time, so listen before telling her to “talk to the hand." Smiling and refusing gives you the option of trying her methods later, when Grandma’s not around. Good karma demands that you tell her later she was right.
• Joking aside, a new baby should be the focus of good feelings, not retaliation for real or imagined slights. Most grand-parental interference is attempted with good intentions, not motivated by underhanded attempts to scuttle your parental power. You do have the power, wield it with grace.
• Refusing all conventional wisdom in the name of opposition is simply stupid. Use common sense as well as intuition, professional advice and the path of least resistance in baby care.