Grandparents behaving badly

Katie Cannon still isn’t sure what her mother-in-law was thinking.

When touring an art museum in Europe, she purchased a gift to mail back to her 8-month-old grandson, Rowan — a blue stuffed teddy bear with a rather prominent penis and testicles.

“I was shocked,” says Cannon, 35, a Seattle-based multimedia producer for msnbc.com, who promptly shoved the bear back in its box and has dodged the issue since. “We’re still not exactly sure what her intention was. I feel a little awkward asking at this point.”

From inappropriate gifts to indulgent behavior, ask any group of moms and you’ll be showered with stories of grandparents behaving badly. Whether it’s a small indiscretion like flouting bedtime to more blatant infractions, such as whisking a baby off for an ear piercing — or even a baptism — without permission, parents are often left wondering what their own parents were thinking.

Elizabeth Thielke, 43, a Nashville, Tenn., mom of three who blogs about parenthood at busymom.net, remembers the time she and her husband returned late one night to her mother-in-law’s condo after attending a 20th high school reunion, only to find her 2- and 4-year-olds still awake and running around the living room at 3 a.m.

“They all just kind of said, ‘Hey’ when we walked in, and went about their business like nothing was unusual,” Thielke recalls. “We just put them to bed and hoped they'd sleep in the next day. Not much you could say to a free babysitter.”

Often, these intergenerational power struggles revolve around a common theme: grandparents either unfamiliar or dismissive of the modern parents’ newfangled tangle of safety rules.

Josephine Lindgren, 40, a New Jersey mom of two who contributes to the parenting blog SVmoms.com, sent her parents to pick up her 2-year-old daughter from a friend’s house while she and her husband were stuck in the hospital during a bout of false labor.

Later, Lindgren discovered her daughter had resisted the car seat, so the grandparents let her ride in the backseat on grandma’s lap “Britney Spears-style.”

“I was flabbergasted,” Lindgren says. “I said, ‘Please never let that happen again.’”

Lindgren chalks up the aberration to the direness of the situation, but also a basic generational divide. “My dad would say, ‘You guys would sit in the front seat with no seat belt and me smoking and you are all fine.’”

Breast-feeding seems to be an issue especially rife with mother-daughter drama. On the UrbanBaby.com message board, one mom laments how she discovered her parents were sneaking formula into the bottle of her breast-fed infant, convinced the baby was undernourished and that breast milk was “toxic.” Another grandmother tossed her daughter-in-law’s carefully cultivated three-month supply of pumped breast milk to make room in the freezer for her snacks. 

Control issues
Why do some grandparents overstep their bounds? Do they think only Grandma knows best? Or do they look at their adult child and still see that tyrannical toddler in a tutu?

EPA file Like father ... Do you know a little boy (or girl!) who looks like a smaller version of dad? Or a grown-up pair of father-son lookalikes? Send your photos.

“It really is a control issue,” says Karen Keenan, who currently spearheads the Coalition for the Restoration of Parental Rights, a grassroots group that provides a sympathetic ear for parents being sued for visitation rights by grandparents. “It’s the grandparent trying to control the adult child.”

Christine Crosby, founder of Grand magazine, a publication aimed at grandparents, suspects this particular set of grandparents may act out because, well, baby boomers are used to getting their way.

“Today’s generation of grandparents were very empowered,” she says. “They grew up in the '60s, and truly have had freedom that no previous generation ever had. Giving that control up doesn't come naturally.”

Stephanie Kutzen, a social worker outside Chicago and author of “Grandparenting: Tales From The Crib — When Your Children Become Parents,” believes there is a “dissonance” and some resentment that their children rely more on information gleaned from the Internet or parenting classes than their hard-earned wisdom.

But all agree that grandparents need to accept and abide by their children’s rules if they want to maintain good relationships with their families.

“You will cause all kind of problems if you maintain you are still the boss when your adult children become the parents,” says Crosby, who learned this lesson firsthand when she took it upon herself to have “the birds and the bees” discussion with her 9-year-old granddaughter. “I thought it was my duty, and I didn’t think my daughter was going to get around to it.”

After the irate mom forced her to apologize, she realized her mistake. “What I’ve learned now, how important it would have been if I respected my daughter and said, ‘I’d love to have this conversation, is it all right?’”

Whether it’s announcing a grown child's pregnancy or buying expensive gifts for the grandkids, Crosby says the golden rule is “ask permission.”

Bite your lip — until it bleeds
And if you disagree with the answer? “Bite your lip, and let it go,” advises Crosby. “You don’t like how your daughter is dressing your granddaughter or growing your grandson’s hair into a mullet? Just bite your lip — until it’s swollen bleeding.”

Kutzen has a different strategy. “Humming, I hum,” she laughs. “That was the art I learned.”

“You need to have a mantra: I am not in charge,” maintains Lillian Carson, a psychotherapist based in Santa Barbara, Calif., and the author of “The Essential Grandparent.”

“It’s very hard to hold your tongue, because we’ve been there, done that, and can see things happening that we feel have consequences that are negative,” she says.

Carson believes the dark side of grandparenting is standing by and watching your adult children raising their kids differently than what you believe to be right — even when you know in your heart they are making a mistake.

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