Pregnant Woman Says That Family Members Who Don't Like Her Are Not Entitled Access To Her Kids
"I'm sorry if that's how you old-school people grew up."
@taylerarrington / @a.pasha.girl / TikTok A woman in the third trimester of her pregnancy struck a chord with followers due to a recent TikTok post she made, surrounding the emotional and challenging topics of family and setting boundaries. The expectant mom, named Tayler, clarified that she’s not talking about any specific person, it could be a stranger on the street or a close family member.
She said, “Let’s say any of those people do not like me… and they make it very known that they don’t like me, to many different people, in many different ways, on the internet.”
The pregnant woman said that family members who don’t like her are not entitled to have access to her kids just because they’re family.
“You do not like me,” she continued. “You call me names and you put me down. You don’t support me. You want nothing to do with me… You just don’t like me, and you let me know you don’t like me.
You let other people know. And at the end of the day, you still feel as though, regardless of how you treat me… regardless of the relationship, or no relationship, that we have, you still think you should go around that nasty relationship you’ve developed with me, and still be able to have access to my children.”
Tayler offered an imagined scenario for context, in which she and a friend, Savannah, have a falling out, because “she said something nasty about me, or I didn’t like something she did, but I still expect to be able to see her child, hang out with her child, have access to her child, be alone with her child.”
“Regardless of your relationship with somebody — regardless if you are a grandma, a grandpa, a great grandma, a great grandpa, an aunt, uncle, brother or sister — you have no entitlement in life, and I’m sorry if that’s how you old school people grew up, but that is not how we roll now.”
She explained that no family title is strong enough to make her cross the boundaries she’s creating to protect herself and her kids.
“You do not have any entitlement over my children. I don’t care what your relationship is, what you think it is, to my child. If you disrespect me and you don’t appreciate me, and you don’t want to work on a relationship with me, you’re not gonna go around me as the mother and have access to my children.”
Another mom posted a TikTok in response, explaining what her family relationships looked like after she did allow access to toxic family members. She gave a detailed account of not being liked by her husband’s family, yet that dislike manifested in subtle, covert ways.
She mentioned that her children weren’t immediately affected by her in-laws’ dislike for her, yet as they grew older, the kids started to notice that they were treated differently than other family members.
She offered the following warning: “If you think that someone [who] doesn’t like you, that they’re going to treat your children the same as somebody they do like, you couldn’t be farther from the truth.”
She detailed that her kids started struggling, to the point of requiring professional mental health intervention. She organized counseling sessions for her kids and group counseling for her husband’s family.
“We started setting up boundaries that protect our family and the emotional health of our children,” she explained. She mentioned that she and her kids have stepped back from all engagement with their family members who mistreated them.
“It means we have completely stepped away,” she said. “We stopped playing the game and we just quit going. And I will say that the best thing we ever did for our family was to stop, to put up those boundaries, and just stop. If you don’t want us, you don’t like us, it is so much better to just stop.”
Having a baby and growing your own family is a moment in time when people look into their pasts to decide how they want to spend their futures.
As these two moms show, there’s power in setting boundaries that align with your values. There’s strength in knowing your own worth, and living a life that takes your own emotional support needs into account.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers parenting issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.