Imagine being pregnant, and your well-meaning yet intrusive mother-in-law lives nearby. If she wanted to bring over some decor for your baby’s nursery, would you let her, or would be upset?

In this story, one woman is in this situation, and she doesn’t like any of the things her mother-in-law wants to put in the nursery. She’s wondering if that makes her a bad person.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for not wanting to include my MIL artwork in my nursery?

I (30 F) and my husband (36 M) are expecting our first child in the new year. It will also be the first grandchild for both of our families.

Both sets of grandparents are incredibly excited but because my parents live a 2 hour flight away they’re pretty low maintenance.

My husbands parents can be very… intrusive?

It’s been a difficult road setting boundaries with them and have them be respected. This isn’t to take away from the fact that they are very kind hearted people who want the best for us, but we’ve had some issues with boundaries in the past.

Here’s an example.

For example, my MIL used to call my husband (irate and crying) to act as a mediator whenever my MIL & FIL would have a fight. She wanted my husband to stay on the phone for hours talking with both of them, these calls would happen any time of day and last hours.

I feel strongly it’s inappropriate to involve your children in your conflict so intimately, and is incredibly emotionally taxing for my husband.

Eventually after a few discussions between my husband and I we decided it would be healthiest for these calls to stop, so when he would get a call with my MIL crying, he’d stop engaging and eventually she took the hint and these calls stopped pretty much all together.

There’s another thing she finds annoying about her MIL.

One small boundary that’s been very difficult is my MIL keeps buying ‘decor’ for our home as gifts.

Her and I have very different taste and while I appreciate her thinking of us, they are not things I think work with the aesthetic of our home.

She is also incredibly sentimental to the point where she has kept every single toy, piece of school-work, test, trophy etc. Essentially anything he’s every touched she has kept in his childhood home.

It’s worse than ever before!

Now that we are expecting, and starting to decorate our nursery the two worlds of her sentimentality and need to decorate my home are colliding.

She wants us to hang some items she handmade for my husbands nursery in our babies future nursery. While the idea could be cute, my husband has no recollection of these items, they don’t fit the theme or decor of my nursery, and (respectfully) I think they’re tacky…

It’s decor from a different time and doesn’t fit my vision for my babies nursery. The items are not small, and are not subtle…

AITA for not wanting these items in my home OR am I being overly sensitive due to our history and my hormones?

Setting boundaries is important, and her mother-in-law needs to learn to respect those boundaries.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person emphasizes that her husband is the one who needs to set the boundary with his mom.

Another person suggests compromising.

Her MIL means well, but that doesn’t mean she has to let her decorate.

Another person shares what she did when her MIL gave her something she didn’t like.

Good intentions don’t make the decor any less tacky.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.