I was nineteen when I got my first piercing - a small silver earring - and my grandma poured all her wrath and wit on me for doing so. To be honest, I turned out to be a weakling and gave up in just a few months - but the narrator of our story today is actually much stronger than I was back then.
Well, the author, the user u/blah_fkin_blah, also had one, quite innocent-looking nose ring in her nostril - and it immediately became the target of her grandma's critical arrows. However, the author managed to put the old lady in her place one day - and did it quite wittily!
More info: Reddit
Sometimes it's quite difficult for the young adults to communicate with their grandparents as they believe they're entitled to give various unsolicited advice
Image credits: The Yuri Arcurs Collection / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The author of the post got her nose ring in a nostril one day - and it became the grandma's target for endless criticism
Image credits: blah_fkin_blah
Image credits: Edu Bastidas / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
The lady used to say that the granddaughter "looked like a bull" with this ring - and this was obviously offensive to the author
Image credits: blah_fkin_blah
Image credits: Vishal Tiwari / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
One day she warned the grandma that the next insult would have a backlash - but the lady neglected the warning
Image credits: blah_fkin_blah
So after another "joke" at the family gathering the author simply told that the grandma looked like Ronald McDonald with her hair dyed red
The story we're describing happened about six years ago, when the Original poster (OP) got her piercing - just a hoop in her nostril. A completely typical situation for many people - but, as it turns out, it was downright outrageous for the author's grandma. From the very first moment, this decent lady began criticizing her granddaughter for her nose ring.
Literally every meeting became an opportunity for the old lady to fire a few critical - and rather offensive - darts at our heroine. The grandma usually claimed that the nose ring made the author look like a bull. However, the OP specifically noted that it wasn't actually a septum. Thus, the grandma's insults were even more weird and offensive.
Our heroine repeatedly asked her grandma to stop this mocking show, and the last time, she honestly warned her that she would not restrain herself in the future. And if she heard any offensive remark directed at her again, she reserved the right to respond. Needless to say, the grandma either ignored this warning or forgot about it…
So, at another family gathering, the lady started her old rant again about how the author allegedly looked like a bull with a nose ring… But the granddaughter countered with a punchline: she said her grandmoa looked just like Ronald McDonald with her dyed red hair. The grandma went silent, and then a real family drama erupted.
The grandmother - and then the author's mom too - accused her of being disrespectful and rude, to which our heroine reasonably countered that she had repeatedly asked her to stop bullying and warned her of a possible backlash. So the OP simply decided to take this online, seeking netizens' support.
Image credits: shurkin_son / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Experts note that sometimes grandparents and grandkids have really great relationships - sometimes even better than with their parents - but sometimes the grandparents simply prefer being toxic and overly critical. So, this dedicated article at Choosing Therapy highlights at least two of the seven signs of toxic grandparents, which are common to our tale.
The first sign would be struggling with boundaries and the second - being verbally and emotionally offensive. The former is characterized, in particular, by imposing one's own opinions and vision of life, while the latter is inventing all sorts of offensive nicknames for grandchildren and humiliating them in public. In other words, this is essentially what the author's grandmother did.
Okay, but how well did our heroine handle the situation described? Anita Cleare, a UK-based parenting expert, urges us to politely but firmly reject unsolicited advice from grandparents, establishing the personal boundaries. However, as we can see in this story, the grandmother actually crossed these boundaries more than once…
So many people in the comments were just confident that the author did everything right. At least she gave her grandma a fair warning that the next insult would result in a backlash, and it's not her problem that the old lady ignored that warning! Well, and what do you, our dear readers, think about this case? Please feel free to express your thoughts in the comments.
Most commenters unanimously sided with the author, claiming that this was just her way to set personal boundaries, and that's all
