Imagine giving birth to your first child about a year after your sister-in-law. Would you purposely try to make her look bad and make yourself out to be the better mom, or would you simply do what works for you and not worry about what works for her?

In this story, one woman is in this situation, and she is doing what works for her, but her sister-in-law thinks she’s purposely trying to make her look bad.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITAH for not having strict rules when it comes to my baby and making my SIL feel bad about it?

Husband and I have a baby boy who is 6 months. My SIL and BIL have a 1,5 years old girl.

SIL and I have very different rules when it comes to our children and I guess this is what created this issue.

Her SIL is maybe a little paranoid.

SIL is what husband calls a helicopter parent. She has 100 rules when it comes to her daughter and it’s honestly too much sometimes.

Some examples: no one in the family was allowed to see the kid until she turned 3 months old, each time we see her we get slapped with her set of rules (no kissing, no hugging, no picking up without her approval, no visiting without being invited etc).

The rules are valid, however it’s her way of imposing them meaning that everytime we meet she gives us a 10 minutes lecture on what we are not allowed to do.

This sounds really annoying.

Once we were all in the same room and my MIL looked her daughter’s way and made the sound of a kiss towards her.

It was just the gesture of a kiss from afar, not a real kiss, however SIL spent 15 minutes explaining us why we are not allowed to kiss her.

I was not allowed to hold her daughter until recently because of my nails. I normally have medium nails, not extremely long, not pointy, but somehow she acted like I would stab her kid with my nails.

Whatever.

OP has a completely different parenting style.

Husband and I are very relaxed when it comes to our parents. Everytime they come by we use the chance to do things that we don’t have time to do any other time or just go out for a coffee just the 2 of us.

Honestly, even having my MIL watching the baby while husband and I go outside to smoke a cigarette is very relaxing and seems like an adventure for us.

My in laws are coming this end of the week to stay with our son because husband and I need to sort some paperwork for a property.

When SIL found out about this she got mad and she sent me a text last evening complaining about all the things that I do to spite her.

Her SIL’s first point is pretty ridiculous.

Main things are:

1- I had to recover fast after my c section just to spite her and show everybody I am better than her.

Which of course is not true.

She needed 1 month to recover after her surgery, I was able to clean the house, take care of my baby and be functional 5 days after my surgery but it’s just my body. I recover well after surgeries.

Also I kind of developed a cleaning obsession after I got back from the hospital so it was a mental thing, not that I wanted to prove something. I just couldn’t stop for a while.

Now we get into the different parenting styles.

2- I don’t impose too many rules to my in laws just to show them I am better than her.

Not true. I have a set of rules but if they want to hold the baby they are free to do it without asking if they are allowed. If they want to cuddle the baby, they are free to do it.

I don’t mind, my husband doesn’t mind.

Her last point is really her SIL’s own fault.

3- Because of me not imposing the same rules as her, I get help while she doesn’t.

The thing is one of her rules is that we don’t go to visit her without being invited and she rarely invites us so how is she supposed to get help if we can’t go to her place?

Anyways, my husband says she is crazy but I keep wondering, is there anything I am doing to make her feel this way?

I am not competing with her in any way, I don’t want to gain points or anything, it’s just the way I choose to raise my child. So AITAH? Am I doing something wrong here?

If her SIL is jealous, she needs to modify her parenting style and let family drop by to help. She also needs to trust them around her baby. Otherwise, she needs to stop complaining and stop comparing.

Let’s see what Reddit thought of this situation.

Too many rules makes parenting harder.

She really shouldn’t be smoking.

Her sister-in-law might benefit from therapy.

She shouldn’t let her SIL get to her.

Parenting is not a competition.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.