One mom-to-be on Reddit can't wait for her baby to arrive in a few months, but she's already afraid that her mother-in-law isn't listening to — or respecting — a lot of her parenting philosophies. As she explained in a post this week, the mom-to-be asked family for gender-neutral gifts for her soon-to-be daughter. Yet even though she thought she'd made her wishes clear, her mother-in-law still showed up with bags full of pink frilly "girl" clothes anyway.
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The future mom, who is 7 months pregnant, was pretty frustrated by the whole thing.
After she already experienced an unconventional pregnancy and missed out on many mom-to-be traditions, she's not willing to compromise on anything else. The one thing she's really been looking forward to, though, is preparing her home for the baby's arrival.
Lately, she's been shopping for baby clothes at secondhand stores.
Although that may not be the route that most new parents take, she's been trying to reduce her carbon footprint in the last few years, and she hopes to parent her child with that in mind.
Because of this, the mom-to-be almost never buys new clothes for herself and eats an almost entirely plant-based diet. But her efforts go further than just that.
"I stay away from plastic and non sustainable materials as much as possible," she explained in her post. "I'm also not the most feminine person, and the idea of gendered children's clothes always really bothered me. Even since I was a teenager I wanted to avoid that when it came time to have my own baby."
Her MIL, on the other hand, is a bit of a 'shopaholic.'
By the sound of things, she doesn't exactly share her daughter-in-law’s same concerns.
"She's constantly online or in stores or travelling across the border to buy things," the poster explained, "and although it's kind, she often buys us lots of things we don't need even if we tell her not to."
This, of course, has presented some issues.
When her MIL first discovered she was going to be a grandma, she couldn't wait to shower the baby with gifts.
She was especially excited about buying baby clothes.
"Because of this she was very, very adamant that I found out the gender of the baby as soon as possible, even going as far as to offer to pay for a blood test to find out early," the mom-to-be wrote. "When I refused, she would regularly text me or my husband to see when my appointments were, and would repeatedly ask that I ask the ultrasound technician if they could tell gender yet."
Needless to say, the tension grew from there.
The poster explained to her MIL that they would need to wait until 20 weeks to learn the baby's gender, and even then, she wasn't sure if she wanted to find out or keep it a secret.
This didn't exactly go over well with Grandma, who was "not too happy about that," the mom-to-be admitted.
But at 20 weeks, the couple gave in to temptation and decided to learn the news: They were having a girl!
Her husband was thrilled by it all, and despite her own reluctance, the mom-to-be told him he was free to tell his family. "I had a feeling this would mean MIL would immediately start shopping," she added.
As it turns out, she was right on the money.
Her MIL soon started sending her cute outfit ideas for her little girl — ones that the mom-to-be would ignore.
"I told my husband that I wanted to shop local and second-hand for our baby's clothes to reduce plastic and textile waste," she recalled.
But it wasn't only about that.
"Since I haven't gotten to do anything really this pregnancy, I was really looking forward to 'treasure hunting' for clothes I liked," she went on.
The other issue is, her MIL has very different taste than she does, which is why she told her husband she didn't want her MIL picking out all sorts of girly clothes for their baby.
"He agreed and he told his mom a few times not to buy clothes," she wrote, "but rather gift cards or to shop off our registry for items we really need since it would be more helpful. Again she didn’t seem too happy about it."
The mom-to-be had thought she'd been clear.
Her MIL didn't just show up with one frilly, over-the-top outfit — she showed up with a whole truckload of 'em.
"She shows up with, I kid you not, 15 gift bags all labeled by month and each and every one is stuffed to the brim with baby girl clothes," the poster recalled. "We did the actual opening of the gifts on Skype and I faked my reaction to virtually every one."
Another sticking point is that her MIL didn't even try to go by the registry.
The DIL knows she was just trying to be helpful, but she also kind of hates everything the MIL bought. ("Every single item just screams 'grandma' or 'I’m a girl,'" she explained.)
But here's the part that really rubs her the wrong way: She feels like her MIL sort of stole her moment.
"I was really looking forward to the experience of shopping for my first and only daughter," the woman explained. "I was so excited to find items I liked, ones that were more gender neutral and less in your face girly. Just to pick out some stuff and then dress her in things I chose, have it be special."
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Now, she's left with a closet full of pink, sparkly baby clothes she feels forced to use.
And if she doesn't, they'll only go to waste.
"It's probably mostly hormones, but I just feel so bummed out," she admitted. "I feel like I'm having her grandchild rather than mine if that makes any sense."
All she wanted to do was to pick out baby clothes that reflect her own style and sensibilities, but now she feels too guilty to do that, considering all of the new things her MIL bought her. (In fact, she's even cut off the tags already.)
"Of course, I love my baby no matter what her clothes look like, but I just had this idea in my head of how things would be and now it's not that and it just sucks," the woman concluded.
A lot of Redditors told the mother she shouldn't stress over her MIL's gifts.
"I would go through and sort out what you want and donate the rest. It's not your fault she spent that money when you expressed not to. Donate it all and move on like it never happened," one person told her. "You can tell her you donated it too. You expressly told her not to do that, and she did it anyway. I get being excited, but she crossed the line. No one is forcing you to keep them."
"I've got a MIL just like you do," another commenter said. "We're also one and done. I just politely say thank you and then we don't use whatever she bought. We wind up either passing them on to someone in our families or someone we hear is in need. If she's unwilling to listen and spend her money, that's on her."
"I'd do my best to sell all the pieces and buy what you actually wanted," another commenter advised.
A few people, however, thought she was being a bit short-sighted.
"Do you think what she has bought will be the end of it?" one person wrote. "By keeping your mouth shut you just encourage the behavior."
"Should have returned it all for store credit but you cut the tags off," wrote someone else.
"Dude. Why did you cut all the tags off???" someone else asked. "I took SO MANY clothes back to shops and exchanged them for vouchers or have put them to one side to sell on marketplace as brand new with tags for anything I can’t take back."
Ultimately, the mom-to-be reconsidered things.
Agreeing with many of the commenters, in an update she shared that she decided that the best plan was to donate the clothes she really didn't want and keep some of her MIL's picks for photos or to use them as sleepwear.
She also wasn't going to let it deter her from picking out more baby clothes herself.
"[I’m] making a trip to my local second hand store to get a few items more in my taste," she shared. "Moving forward, as baby grows older, I'll be sure to be more firm on spending/shopping limits." (After all, she can already foresee where this is going with her MIL when it comes to future birthdays and holidays.)
Another tip she should file away for the future? DON'T CUT THE TAGS OFF SO YOU CAN RETURN THEM.
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