Parenting
Help, my godchild is uncontrollable thanks to his parents
Droevigemeter
Hi everyone!
As my profile name suggests, I’m a very sad godmother. My partner and I would like your advice on how to handle the situation below. We don’t have children yet, but we really want some.
I became a godmother a year ago to a baby who is now 1 year old. It’s the child of one of my best friends. Until now, we’ve always had a good bond and we’ve known each other for a very long time. But my partner and I are absolutely not happy with how the parents are raising the child. The way they handle things really goes beyond our limit.
Since I had to babysit the baby regularly for a while, I spent a lot of time with him in the meantime. But honestly? For my partner and me, it really doesn’t need to be this way anymore... We want to maintain the friendship and we want to remain the godmother and uncle to the baby. But it’s incredibly difficult this way because every comment about the child is just laughed off. We have no idea how to bring this up to them... This is going to be a very long post since this is a buildup of things that are getting worse and worse. They date from the first month before the lockdown and since the easing of measures.
To start with, the baby is really a attention-seeker, to the absurd. Since he was born, the mom has carried him day and night. Whenever he was awake, he was on her arm. She was busy with him every second. Finally, it’s been a year and the child still expects to be carried on the arm constantly. If the parents or I don’t do this, he starts screaming deafeningly! If it were just crying, I’d find that okay. But he screams so loud that our neighbors come knocking to see what the problem is.
I myself try not to give in to this, which recently led to me standing for 20 minutes with a screaming 1-year-old hanging from my leg. Sometimes it gets so bad that he starts stomping or hitting me with his feet or fists. Also, no other bystanders are allowed to talk to me when he’s here. My father recently came over because I really couldn’t handle the child alone anymore. Unfortunately, his presence made it even worse. As soon as he wanted to say something to me, the child started screaming EVEN LOUDER. I couldn’t believe this was even possible...
His parents, on the other hand, pick him up immediately from the first scream. If they are tired of carrying him, they put the child on my counter, my dresser, or the dining table. Which means that if I don’t keep an eye on him myself, he sometimes ends up stomping with his shoes in my trash bin or lying with his feet against the wall. If my partner or I then exchange an angry look or make a comment about it, the parents immediately feel attacked. So we get comments back like 'But I don’t put my child on the table, my child crawled onto the table himself so I can’t do anything about it' or 'My child likes to put his legs in the trash bin, he finds a kitchen tap fascinating'.
Eventually, it has come to the point that the child has fallen off the table twice on the same evening because she was scrolling on her phone. The first time he luckily fell on the chair and the second time another present friend caught him just in time. If this hadn’t happened, he would probably now have his arm or leg in a cast.
They also just let him keep busy all the time. So recently he was banging a wooden rattle super hard on my wooden coffee table. With the result that there are now marks visible on it. When I had had enough, I said the following to get the parents' attention, namely: 'Friend, my table doesn’t need to get broken, right?', and I immediately got the response from the parents: 'Your coffee table was already broken by that one family member during the move. They’re going to buy you a new one anyway, so what does it matter?!' (Just for clarity, you can hardly see any defect on the table from the move, so we’re not going to let that family member buy a new one for this. Only I fear now that because of that stupid wooden rattle we might have to buy a new coffee table ourselves).
Finally, they feed the child everything and anything. He figuratively hungers for chocolate and chips. When the mom dropped him off with me, she immediately said; 'Just give him a cookie with chocolate, then he’s calm' (Nothing could be further from the truth...). He also recently vomited while his dad was playing with him. It was dark brown and when I made the comment that that’s a weird color, I got the answer: 'No no, that’s normal. He just ate a whole pot of chocolate mousse.' Sorry, a 1-year-old child that they let eat a whole pot of chocolate mousse, I do NOT find normal.
As soon as a bowl of chips is put on the table, he sprints to the table and starts eating it hand over hand. If I don’t keep an eye on him myself, I later heard from another friend that he eventually emptied the bowl of chips on my mat and then wanted to throw the bowl on the ground. The mom just managed to take the bowl and according to my friend, she just started laughing at it.
He also gets Cola and Ice Tea now, mixed with water or not. Because he drinks poorly, she says. To a friend she then says that it was the very first time, while I’ve seen the child walking around with a baby bottle with sugar in it more often.
And as the cherry on top: when she comes here
As my profile name suggests, I’m a very sad godmother. My partner and I would like your advice on how to handle the situation below. We don’t have children yet, but we really want some.
I became a godmother a year ago to a baby who is now 1 year old. It’s the child of one of my best friends. Until now, we’ve always had a good bond and we’ve known each other for a very long time. But my partner and I are absolutely not happy with how the parents are raising the child. The way they handle things really goes beyond our limit.
Since I had to babysit the baby regularly for a while, I spent a lot of time with him in the meantime. But honestly? For my partner and me, it really doesn’t need to be this way anymore... We want to maintain the friendship and we want to remain the godmother and uncle to the baby. But it’s incredibly difficult this way because every comment about the child is just laughed off. We have no idea how to bring this up to them... This is going to be a very long post since this is a buildup of things that are getting worse and worse. They date from the first month before the lockdown and since the easing of measures.
To start with, the baby is really a attention-seeker, to the absurd. Since he was born, the mom has carried him day and night. Whenever he was awake, he was on her arm. She was busy with him every second. Finally, it’s been a year and the child still expects to be carried on the arm constantly. If the parents or I don’t do this, he starts screaming deafeningly! If it were just crying, I’d find that okay. But he screams so loud that our neighbors come knocking to see what the problem is.
I myself try not to give in to this, which recently led to me standing for 20 minutes with a screaming 1-year-old hanging from my leg. Sometimes it gets so bad that he starts stomping or hitting me with his feet or fists. Also, no other bystanders are allowed to talk to me when he’s here. My father recently came over because I really couldn’t handle the child alone anymore. Unfortunately, his presence made it even worse. As soon as he wanted to say something to me, the child started screaming EVEN LOUDER. I couldn’t believe this was even possible...
His parents, on the other hand, pick him up immediately from the first scream. If they are tired of carrying him, they put the child on my counter, my dresser, or the dining table. Which means that if I don’t keep an eye on him myself, he sometimes ends up stomping with his shoes in my trash bin or lying with his feet against the wall. If my partner or I then exchange an angry look or make a comment about it, the parents immediately feel attacked. So we get comments back like 'But I don’t put my child on the table, my child crawled onto the table himself so I can’t do anything about it' or 'My child likes to put his legs in the trash bin, he finds a kitchen tap fascinating'.
Eventually, it has come to the point that the child has fallen off the table twice on the same evening because she was scrolling on her phone. The first time he luckily fell on the chair and the second time another present friend caught him just in time. If this hadn’t happened, he would probably now have his arm or leg in a cast.
They also just let him keep busy all the time. So recently he was banging a wooden rattle super hard on my wooden coffee table. With the result that there are now marks visible on it. When I had had enough, I said the following to get the parents' attention, namely: 'Friend, my table doesn’t need to get broken, right?', and I immediately got the response from the parents: 'Your coffee table was already broken by that one family member during the move. They’re going to buy you a new one anyway, so what does it matter?!' (Just for clarity, you can hardly see any defect on the table from the move, so we’re not going to let that family member buy a new one for this. Only I fear now that because of that stupid wooden rattle we might have to buy a new coffee table ourselves).
Finally, they feed the child everything and anything. He figuratively hungers for chocolate and chips. When the mom dropped him off with me, she immediately said; 'Just give him a cookie with chocolate, then he’s calm' (Nothing could be further from the truth...). He also recently vomited while his dad was playing with him. It was dark brown and when I made the comment that that’s a weird color, I got the answer: 'No no, that’s normal. He just ate a whole pot of chocolate mousse.' Sorry, a 1-year-old child that they let eat a whole pot of chocolate mousse, I do NOT find normal.
As soon as a bowl of chips is put on the table, he sprints to the table and starts eating it hand over hand. If I don’t keep an eye on him myself, I later heard from another friend that he eventually emptied the bowl of chips on my mat and then wanted to throw the bowl on the ground. The mom just managed to take the bowl and according to my friend, she just started laughing at it.
He also gets Cola and Ice Tea now, mixed with water or not. Because he drinks poorly, she says. To a friend she then says that it was the very first time, while I’ve seen the child walking around with a baby bottle with sugar in it more often.
And as the cherry on top: when she comes here
Replies
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Anonymous Guest #2
Not meant badly, but it's not your child. Parents are reasonably free to raise their kids however they see fit. If you suspect child abuse, there are information channels where you can ask for advice, anonymously or not, on what can be done.
However, the rules that apply at the parents' home don't necessarily have to apply at yours. I'm not talking about what the parents feed their child in your house regarding food. But rather about where or on what in your house the child is placed or allowed to play. If you don't want hammering on your coffee table, then that's not allowed.
By the way, the behavior of the child you describe doesn't sound really extreme to me. They're 1 year old; even then, they still cry a lot. They're becoming wary of strangers, so they want to be close to a familiar person, and they're still fully exploring. So yes, they touch everything and want to taste everything. As for the alcohol, that would really go too far for me; in my opinion, a minor shouldn't even try a sip. -
Liha Guest #3
I agree with the anonymous poster above. I can totally understand why you're annoyed by the behavior you're describing, but the child's behavior doesn't sound that extreme, and how the parents raise him is their choice. Although alcohol is obviously not a good idea.
In your house, you can certainly say that you'd rather not have kids on the counter and tables, and ask the parents directly to keep him off there. The same goes for other rules in your house. But keep in mind that rules are hard for a one-year-old to follow anyway; they don't understand them yet (they can't assess danger or the value of household items, for example) and they're not logical yet. Punishment doesn't do much at that age, so distracting a little one is often more effective than saying "No."
Maybe if the parents' parenting style causes long-term problems and they discuss it with you, you could refer them to some parenting advice, but as a childless couple, I certainly wouldn't tell them how to do it myself (at least not to keep your friendship intact).
Otherwise, draw strength/hope from the fact that you can do it all differently with your own child later on. And if you ever have to look after your godchild for a long time (or often, when he's older), he'll most likely adapt to the rules in your house.
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