Mom Forbids Her Boomer Parents From Babysitting Her Kids After They Repeatedly Violate Her Parenting Boundaries
As the boomers always told us as kids, "How many times do I have to tell you?!"
fizkes / Getty Images / Canva Pro Parenting has changed dramatically in recent years, and not every boomer grandparent is exactly amenable to doing things the way their kids ask them to when it comes to the grandkids.
A mom on Reddit is embroiled in a conflict with her own boomer parents, and it's gotten to a point where she's had to lay down the law in a very controversial way.
The mom now forbids her boomer parents from babysitting after they repeatedly violated her parenting boundaries.
There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but boomer parents are pretty much notorious for two things — letting us Gen Xers and millennials run feral with no supervision, and punishing us pretty harshly for even the pettiest of offenses.
Millennials and many Xers have of course decided to do basically everything differently in response. And a lot of boomers simply aren't having it.
"My parents have always been pushy on boundaries and have trouble accepting them especially when it comes to grandkids," this mom wrote, speaking for many parents nowadays.
From food routines to safety precautions — and spanking — her boomer parents refused to follow her rules, and she's had enough.
From the very beginning, her parents have constantly pushed back on every rule she and her husband have made for their son in ways that would cause major inconveniences for them as parents.
"Whenever they watched my son before, my mom would overfeed him in order to get him to sleep," she wrote. "The next day he would be sick to his stomach and coughing up formula all day."
But that's not the worst of her parents' offenses. "My mom told a story about spanking my nephew and it was found out through daycare that my nephew was instructed by my mom not to tell anyone about the spanking," she shared.
Spanking is a major red line for this mom — and sure enough, her mom crossed it despite knowing this. That's when the mom decided her parents were out as babysitters.
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"She made the excuse of 'I just swatted him to calm him down!' and burst into tears telling me to leave immediately," she added. "Did I overreact?"
Situations like this are incredibly common between millennial and boomer parents, and experts say boundaries are essential.
First of all, it's not just our collective imagination — there's actual science to back up the claims about boomers being difficult to deal with.
In 2019, the largest study of narcissism ever at the time found that older generations exhibited far more hypersensitivity — one of the key markers of narcissism — than younger generations.
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And one of the other major features of narcissism, whether clinical or subclinical? A refusal to tolerate criticism.
It's easy to think that these tendencies of the older generation are part of why there seems to be so much conflict between boomer grandparents and their millennial children — and disrespecting their boundaries is chief among the gripes.
Social media is absolutely replete with Millennial parents who have had it with their boomer parents' refusal to respect their parenting wishes.
Experts say setting firm boundaries, especially when it comes to respecting your parenting choices, is truly the only way to navigate these kinds of problems, so this mom has absolutely done the right thing.
That doesn't make it less nerve-wracking or emotional when the grandparents kick up a fuss in return, but it's what's best for everyone — most importantly, the kids involved.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.