Kids are an interesting bunch. You never know what they’ll latch onto.

Furthermore, it can be hard to tell which fascinations are harmless, and which need to be watched.

That’s at the heart of the family controversy described in this story.

A mom is concerned about her mother-in-law’s influence on her daughter, but she also wonders if she’s overreacting.

Let’s read the details to decide.

AITA for making my MIL return a gift she bought for my 6 yo on Amazon?

To preface, my 6 (almost 7) year old daughter has always had a fascination with babies and pregnancy.

When she was as young as 2, she used to shove stuffed animals up her shirt and pretended it was a pregnant belly.

She’s always pretending her Barbies or other dolls are pregnant, and she’s always loved playing with baby dolls

This is a common thing for grandparents to do.

My MIL, who I get along with for the most part, has always spoiled my daughter rotten.

I want my daughter to have a good relationship with her grandparents but it gives me pause that it seems they let her do whatever she wants when she’s over there visiting them.

This gift may have crossed the line.

My daughter recently mentioned she was excited to see her grandmother sometime soon because she’s expecting a package MIL ordered her off of Amazon.

I asked my daughter what she bought her and my daughter informed me she purchased 2 fake pregnancy bellies for her to wear.

I don’t anticipate that they’d ever let her wear these outside of the house and this is something that would exclusively be for pretend dress-up play at home, but I got pretty upset as I don’t believe this is an appropriate gift for a 6 year old at all.

Dad doesn’t like the gift idea either.

I discussed my concerns with my husband, who promptly reached out to his mother to tell her she needed to return the bellies.

Now MIL is upset because she was “just trying to do something nice” and thinks we’re being harsh.

My daughter is also upset as this is a gift she was looking forward to receiving

She blames her MIL for her daughter’s fascination with pregnancy.

I understand that my daughter has a fascination with pregnancy (which, for the record, I’ve always thought was strange and have not encouraged), but I don’t think her grandparents should necessarily be promoting this interest.

I have always been vocal about not wanting my daughter to watch YouTube and I don’t allow her to watch it at home much, outside of a few things I’ve personally watched and decided are age-appropriate.

I believe her grandmother allows her unlimited access to YouTube and my daughter will watch videos where the MC is pregnant, which is what I think stemmed her fascination with pregnancy in the first place.

She doesn’t think her MIL takes her concerns seriously.

I’ve addressed my concerns with them about my daughter having unfettered access to YouTube, but I don’t believe my concerns were taken seriously and am under the impression they’ve been dishonest about letting her watch whatever she wants.

I’m uncomfortable with them encouraging my 6 year old to pretend she’s pregnant, but MIL acts like it’s no big deal and that I’m the jerk for perceiving it as weird.

The belly thing is questionable, unfettered access to YouTube is undeniably bad.

Let’s see what the comments on Reddit say.

This person calls the MIL “weird.”

The screen thing is maybe the most concerning:

There’s normal kid stuff, and then there’s whatever this is.

Also, maybe no need to sweat the kid’s interest.

But that’s not a toy.

Is there any part of being a parent that ISN’T deeply weird?

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.