Nearly every family has a member who feels pressured by their relatives to have children. You know the gist – constantly asking when they are going to have them, how many, with whom, and so on.
Sometimes this pressure goes way too far, like in today's story. In it, a couple decided one kid was enough for them. Yet, the man's mom wanted more grandkids, despite already having plenty of them. So, besides the "traditional" pressure, she decided to tell her 6-year-old grandson he should have a sibling, spooking the boy in the process and angering her son.
More info: Reddit
Someone in a family feeling pressured to have children isn't anything new
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
A couple always wanted to have only one kid, so after he was born, they had a vasectomy and a tubal ligation
Image credits: Timur Weber / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Still, the man's mom wanted them to have more than one kid, so she kept pressuring them to adopt or have a vasectomy reversal
Image credits: August de Richelieu / Pexels (not the actual photo)
When this didn't seem to work, she started talking to their 6-year-old son about him having a sibling, which spooked the kid, since he has trouble dealing with change
Image credits: Longjumping_Stop_606
When the man learned how his mom had scared his kid, he decided she no longer could babysit him, which divided his family
When the OP and his wife got married, they decided that they would have only one kid. So, after their son was born, they were done in this area. There are plenty of ways for a couple to ensure they don’t have any more kids. A vasectomy for a man and a tubal ligation for a woman are among them. Both of these procedures are permanent, even though a reversal for both of them is technically possible.
Well, the OP did have a vasectomy, but his wife also had her tubes tied. Basically, they just wanted to make sure there would be no unwanted pregnancies – they already had the kid they wanted and were happy with him.
Yet, the author’s mom wasn’t content with this situation. She herself was one of eight kids. Then, she had six kids, among them the original poster, and most of these siblings had at least 3 children. All her life she was surrounded by families with many kids, which led to her not accepting the fact that her son only wanted one child.
So, she goes out of her way to pressure him to have more of them, despite knowing that it’s physically impossible due to the procedures that the couple had. For example, she suggests things like adoption or a vasectomy reversal and never takes a hint to stop.
In fact, she decided to go even further. One day, she was babysitting her 6-year-old grandson. After his parents picked him up, he started crying and asked whether they were having another baby. Well, as we already acknowledged, the couple doesn't have such plans.
Apparently, while he was babysat, his grandma kept asking whether he wanted a baby sister, as his parents should have another baby since he could be a “big helper.” While some, like this grandma, might believe that a person must grow up with siblings, it’s actually not entirely true.
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
While having siblings has plenty of benefits, being an only child does too. Here, in this article on Psychology Today, people who grew up without siblings shared their positive experiences of such lives. They talked about how it gave them independence, confidence, the full attention of their parents, and so on.
So, you can see that growing up an only child isn’t so terrible, but it doesn’t look that way to the OP’s mom. She didn’t see much fault in her actions and thought the anger from her son was undeserved. She actually said that in her opinion they were raising a spoiled child who ridiculously cried over the possibility of getting a sibling.
In reality, the boy is simply a sensitive kid who has trouble with change, and his grandma’s talk about an addition to the family scared him. Since she clearly had no issue with scaring her grandson, she was banned from babysitting him without his parents’ supervision.
The OP’s brother agreed with such a “punishment,” as the mom had also tried to pressure an additional child onto his family as well. At the same time, his sister thought that both her nephew and her brother had overreacted to their mom asking a natural question.
So, the man came to Reddit to ask what people thought – who was out of line here? In their eyes, the mother was completely wrong here. They wondered what was going on inside her head that made her think that involving a child in this debate was a good idea. Plus, she already has plenty of grandkids, so why does she need more from the parents, who are content with the one they have?
Well, we can’t answer these questions. What we can do is hope that one day the mother will get the message that pressuring someone to have a kid isn’t great. And that she should appreciate the grandkids she already has, instead of seeking more. After all, as the saying goes – it’s about quality, not quantity.
So, he asked online whether he was a jerk for making such a decision, and people there told him he wasn't – the only jerk here was his mom
