It can be super irritating and uncomfortable when you have relatives with children who often misbehave with little to no consequences.
One woman has begun refusing to go to family gatherings because her sister’s two-year-old daughter always roughly handles her new baby, and her sister doesn’t do anything to stop her.
She has a five-month-old daughter and has been worried for her safety anytime she’s around her sister’s daughter, Grace, her two-year-old niece.
“I love my niece, but no, I don’t like her,” she said.
“She’s a terror, and it’s 100% her mother’s fault.”
The last few times she’s been at a family gathering with her baby and Grace, Grace has been extremely rough with her baby.
At a gathering about a month ago, Grace went up to her daughter in her baby seat and tried picking her up by her head. Instead of intervening and moving Grace away from the baby, her sister simply told Grace to “be easy.”
Whenever she tries to sit down with her baby, Grace comes up and “pats” her baby on her head, but those pats are actually harsh blows to her head, right where her ‘soft spot’ is. Other times, Grace has hugged her baby tightly, calling her “her baby” and refusing to let go.
Her sister also has a five-month-old, which has given her the impression that she allows Grace to treat her baby sibling that way, which is why Grace thinks it’s okay to behave that way around her cousin. Additionally, her sister thinks it’s cute when Grace acts this way around babies and never does anything to correct her.
“Every time she’s around now, I literally have to stand up the entire time with my baby because if I even so much as try to sit down, my niece is trying to manhandle my kid,” she explained.
“When you speak up to my niece, my sister gets so offended.”
Recently, her mom invited her to a family dinner. Her mom originally mentioned that her sister wasn’t planning on attending because she had something to do with her in-laws. So, she accepted her mom’s invitation.
However, just days before the dinner, her sister texted her and said she couldn’t wait to see her there.
“I told her I wouldn’t be coming,” she recalled.
“I really don’t find it amusing or fun that my niece is a little terror and gets away with it because she’s ‘just a baby.’ I’m protecting my kid and my sanity in the process. She’s more than welcome here, [but] without my niece.”
Her sister told her she was blowing the situation out of proportion but that she’d try and ensure Grace stayed away from the baby’s head. However, her sister’s message did not comfort her, as she didn’t want Grace anywhere near her baby in general.
Now, her sister is very upset with her. The tension with her sister makes her sad, as they’d grown especially close since becoming moms, but she needs to protect her baby’s safety.
How should she approach this situation with her sister?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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