Woman Says She Won’t Let Her Mother-in-Law Discipline Her Child

A young mother recently shared that she was tired of her mother-in-law trying to discipline her child.

In a recent post on Reddit, “Am I A——–?The 29-year-old woman said she and her 32-year-old husband are parents to a 3-year-old daughter and “have a very open and well-established parenting that has always worked for us and for her.”

However, their newly increased frequency of contact with their in-laws led to attempts to interfere with their parenting methods.

“Enter my mother-in-law. Before I had our daughter, we started seeing them more often – usually around ten times a month, whereas before that it was maybe once/twice because Ronan (her husband) has a pretty strained relationship with them (especially her mother),” the woman explained.

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She added that her husband’s strained relationship with his mother “is because she is one of those people who does not allow him to have his own privacy, constantly rummaging through her room, even asking where/when/with whom to go.” “Towards the end of my youth.”

“He never completely cut off contact, but they’ve been doing better since our daughter was born and he didn’t want them to completely break away from being grandparents,” she added.

The woman also shared that she, her husband, and her mother-in-law differ greatly in their parenting styles; This culminated in her mother-in-law’s recent attempt to harshly discipline her daughters.

First, she noted that her husband’s parents “have a different approach to discipline” and that “it’s very yelling/punishment based.”

Meanwhile, she and her husband prefer “calm discussions, occasional breaks, and natural consequences” over a “tough love” approach.

The differences in parenting styles came to a head when the couple “went to see her parents and threw a tantrum after her grandfather took her favorite toy from her because she was ‘too old for that anymore.'”

The woman said her mother-in-law “raised her voice and said, ‘Behave or otherwise!’ The situation got worse when he said that. ”

“I tried to remain calm about the situation and told them we would not discipline him that way and asked them to leave the disciplinary actions to Ronan and me,” he said.

This woman’s relatives were offended by her statement and further increased their criticism of her parenting methods.

“They were offended and said we were spoiling him and that his methods were ‘tried and true’. ”

Finally, her husband stepped in and said they would raise their daughter “the way we believe is best.”

The woman concluded: “We broke up shortly after that and her mother-in-law thought I was overreacting and that I was the problem.”

The Reddit user stated that he “only wanted the best for our daughter” and asked other users for their opinions/

“You see your in-laws so often. Why would they believe they could decide that she’s too old for her favorite toy?” one person asked. “They’ve always crossed the line with your husband, and now they’re overstepping the line with your child. Stop putting your kids in a situation where they’ll be stolen, yelled at, and mistreated.”

Another person suggested that the woman give her mother-in-law a break of some sort to show her how unfairly she treats her daughter.

“Tell your relatives they are right, you are being too soft, tough love is needed,” the Reddit user wrote. “They are currently on a 2 week break for bad behavior… Further bad behavior will result in an extended sentence. So no visitation for 2 weeks (or longer if necessary).”