When new mothers come home from the hospital, baby in tow, they generally need all the help they can get.
Those who are lucky to have close friends and family who live nearby often find themselves inundated with help, with people offering to do anything from cook or provide breakfast, lunch and dinner, to cleaning the house and changing the baby's diapers.
Of course, wonderful as it is to have friends and family who are willing to help, this help shouldn't necessarily be expected of anyone.
Particularly from those who might not have the means to provide it.
The daughter-in-law (DIL) of Redditor Inevitable_Nature985 was expecting her first child, and asked if the original poster (OP) could, in keeping with a cultural tradition, take over household chores for a while after she gave birth.
While the OP was ready to accept this request, they were surprised by a certain condition.
A condition that was enough for the OP to eventually say no to helping their son and DIL out, much to the anger of both of them.
Wondering if they were being unreasonably for saying no, the OP took to the subReddit "Am I The A**hole" (AITA), where they asked fellow Redditors:
"AITA for refusing to a help visit for my DIL and son since they won't allow me to stay in their home?"
The OP explained why they eventually said no to helping their son and DIL with household chores after their baby was born:
"My son married Sierra ( fake names) and they live two states over."
"Sierra is from a culture where it is customary after she gives birth she will not do any household chores."
"The family members ( mostly women) will go over and do all those chores."
"So cooking, cleaning, shopping etc."
"She explained this to me and it happens for a few weeks after the birth."
"She is not close to her family and it was asked of me to come up for a few weeks and do this."
"My son will be back on call a week and a half after she gives birth."
"She is suppose to give birth in about a month and I was talking about logistics of the whole thing."
"I asked were I would sleep and she informed me that I will need to get a hotel."
"This shocked me since they own a nice home."
"I thought it over and decided I do not want to do this."
"I was already going to be doing them a huge favor by being a live in maid."
"I was going to use all my PTO for this and now I will have to also live in a hotel."
"This isn't even a culture I am a part of."
"I informed her that I will not be able to come up for the time she wanted if I have to stay in a hotel."
"I am willing to come up for a weekend at most if I can not stay in their home."
"I got a call from my son and he is pissed."
"He told me that Sierra has been crying since and that I am being a d*ck."
"That I am disrespecting her culture and rejecting her from the family."
"That he knows I could afford this ( I could but I don't want to pay thousand of dollars to be a maid)."
"We got into an argument."
"I explained my points about but he wasn't having it."
"AITA?"
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You're The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
The Reddit community unanimously agreed that the OP was not the a**hole for refusing to provide help for their son and DIL if they needed to stay at a hotel.
Everyone agreed that the OP offering help was a favor, not an obligation, and the very least the OP's son and DIL could do for the OP offering their help was provide accommodation.
"NTA."
"So, I am familiar with variations of this tradition in a number of cultures, actually."
"My (passing, this is not my culture) exposure to it has been about pampering the new mom and ensuring she has lots of rest and bonding time and it's a very communal based thing, where families live nearby (possibly together) and there's also aspects of knowledge sharing from elder women to the new mom."
"I have never heard of a hotel stay being a part of this 'tradition' lol."
"This sounds like cherry picking of a tradition that undermines what it is valuable about it to reduce it to you being a maid and spending a lot of money for the opportunity (/s)."
"Are all the women of her family staying in hotels or just you?"- Even_Budget2078
"At the absolute very least, THEY can foot the hotel bill."
"You may wind up being thankful to be able to leave the drama daily, instead of staying at the house."
"If you choose to go, make crystal clear you are not on 24 hour, drop-everything call."
"Additionally, wtf is keeping your son from stepping up to do chores?"
"It's not his culture that it has to be done by women."
"NTA."- Only-Ingenuity7889
"NTA."
"Your son and daughter in law want you to travel, use all your PTO and pay for and stay in a hotel because culturally the your daughter in law needs to be waited on hand and foot after giving birth?"
"Oh, heck, no."
"I was lucky."
"My mother and mother in law worked out a schedule to drop of meals or some groceries and pop by so I could take a shower after I gave birth."
"And I was beyond grateful."
"Your son's and daughter in law's request is over the top."
"You son needs to look into the parental leave policies at his employer and take off additional time if his wife needs assistance."- Peony-Pony
"'La cuarentena: a 40-day postpartum ritual practiced in many Latin American cultures, aimed at supporting new mothers in their recovery and bonding with their babies'."
"'During this period, women are traditionally cared for by their communities, receiving assistance with household chores, cooking, and childcare'."
"'This cultural tradition is rooted in Christian customs of isolating and caring for new parents, which were once common throughout Europe and the Americas'."
"Ya, staying in a hotel would make that extremely difficult."
"If you lived nearby it would work well but...you don't."
"You are NTA, they are expecting too much."- IamIrene
"NTA."
"My guess is her culture also includes a close knit family and 'village' and she seems to have 'disrespected' this aspect of her culture (maybe for very good reasons)."
"From your description, the 'maid' duties are shared by multiple people, not just one, another way she has disrespected her culture."
"Has anyone explained why you can't stay in the house that you are cleaning?"
"Does your son have a time restricted job (e.g. medical resident) that he can't use more PTO to be the maid or is he selfish and used the PTO at other times so he won't have to deal with all of this?"
"If you do decide to go, my guess is that Sierra will treat you more as a slave, then as a much-loved family member who is sacrificing to help her out."
"So, set some boundaries about what you will and won't do and how you expect to be treated (yes, you should expect to spend some time with the baby and gasp even hold it, but of course you will return the baby to a parent when it needs soothing and a parent requests the child back....)."
"Make sure you are allowed to eat the meals that you prepare and that they aren't overly elaborate or must be made exactly following a family recipe with techniques that you are not familiar with."
"Is Sierra expecting to be waited on hand and foot and that you jump at her every command, or is this the more normal Mom is recovering from child birth and needs another set of hands as she physically recovers and learns to be a Mom?"- FormerRunnerAgain
"Not participating in someone's 'culture' is not being disrespectful."
"You are not preventing them from participating or even degrading her culture."
"You are telling them it is TOO big of an ask."
"PTO in the US is sacred."
"NO ONE should ask someone to give up their PTO for them. If you offer, ok, but asking is being disrespectful of you and all the time you had to put in to earn that."
"On top of all this they expect you to PAY for a hotel."
"The entitlement is real."
"NTA."- VeritasB
It seems that Sierra has her perception of this particular cultural tradition slightly skewed.
As the tradition seems to be that the new mother's community comes together to help her out, voluntarily at that, not that one person is the new mother's personal attendant.
Then too, one favor usually begets another, hence why it would make sense that the OP expected to be provided lodging for all the help she provides.
One can only hope this unfortunate situation won't have a negative effect on the OP's relationship with their first grandchild.
Woman Asks If It's Wrong To Hold Grudge After Mom Told Her When She 8 Years Old That She Wished She'd Aborted Her
While some people view having and raising children as the greatest blessing, some parents hold their children's existence against them for their entire lives.
And when they feel that way about their children, they're unfortunately typically pretty honest about it, cringed the members of the "Am I Overreacting?" (AIO) subReddit.
Redditor heavelymango knew from the time she was young that her mother did not really like her and significantly favored her sister.
But when her mother told her at the age of eight that she wished she had aborted her, the Original Poster (OP) held on to that grudge for years after the fact.
She asked the sub:
The OP had a grudge against her mother.
"I (22 Female) have been holding onto a grudge due to something my mom told me when I was roughly eight or nine years old."
"Growing up, I was a rebellious kid and always felt as if my mom favored my older sister. My sister would always get whatever she wanted."
"I know she was born with Down syndrome and always needed more attention and care, but if my sister wanted my tablet, for example, she would have it for the whole day while mine was limited to 30 minutes so she could have it."
"As a kid, I lashed out more because of this. She could take all of my things, but I could never use hers."
During a heated moment, the OP's mother said something unforgivable.
"Eventually, this led to an argument with my mom. I don't recall the whole thing, but it was related to my sister and how I felt my mom didn't care about me or give me the same amount of attention."
"The fight got heated, and I probably told my mom that I hated my sister and her."
"I remember she said back, 'I never wanted you from the start. I knew I should've aborted you when I had the chance.'"
" I didn't know what aborted meant at the time, and I remember I looked it up, and it made me cry. I never forgot it, and it lingers in my mind whenever I am home."
The OP's mother pressured her to "let it go" and move on.
"Even growing up, I still brought it up, and she would get mad, saying I need to let it go and how I'm stubborn for not just forgetting what she said."
"There was even a time in high school when she took me to a therapist, and she complained about how I never dropped what she said."
"She says I need to move on from it because it has affected my relationship with her, and she wants to fix it."
"I know I'm older now and it was so long ago, but it still hurts, and I feel like it's made me not want to have her in my life in the future, and I have told this to her."
"How I don't want her in my life once I move out, get married, or have my own kids."
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
Some reassured the OP that this sounded like a core memory more than a grudge.
"The axe forgets. The tree remembers."
"It sounds less like you're holding a grudge and more that this is a formative, core memory for you."
"It won't stop being a core memory (unless maybe with the help of a lot of therapy). Has your mom ever apologized for saying that? Because you don't have to forget to forgive, but if she's not remorseful for saying that terrible thing to her young child (not just remorseful that you remember it), then she probably needs therapy (or is a narcissist/sociopath/similar)."
"You are certainly not obligated to 'get over it.'" - Hot-Can3615
"This is not a 'grudge'; it is pain that is still felt to such a degree. If she said it, then she was thinking it. She'll probably never apologize, but that doesn't mean your pain is or was invalid." - Fast_Register_9480
"NOR. This kind of thing needs a real apology. Like she needs to acknowledge the damage and genuinely care about it. Brushing it off won’t make it go away." - TentacleWolverine
"NOR. Did she really want to fix things? She basically just told you to get over it from the start instead of giving you a sincere apology."
"That isn't working on anything. She wants you to get over it so she can pretend that she never said it, so she doesn't have to feel bad about what she did. It doesn't sound like she cares much about how you feel."
"She just doesn't want to deal with it. For that reason, I would still have issues with what she said." - Chemical-Ad6809
"If your relationship with your mother is being affected by the actions of your mother, your mother is responsible for fixing it."
"You should know you probably aren't ever going to get closure, but you don't have to swallow it down. It helps to be the person you needed when you were younger out loud to yourself, but especially to others."
"For example: My name is Liz, and my mom told me to go ahead and do it already and save us all the heartache when I finally had the courage to tell her about how much I've been struggling with self-harm and suicidal ideation. I'm never going to forgive her for that, and we have never been close as a result of her actions."
"You aren't holding onto a grudge; you have a core memory of your mother distilling her feelings into a world-shattering sentence."
"You did not have a secure attachment before and can't have one now because of the deep trauma. You do not apologize for being stabbed."
"Find another therapist. I mean it. Someone who cares about your well-being wouldn't force you to apologize for being verbally abused as a child. I'm 29 now, and I lived through it. I still struggle with suicidal ideation daily, but once I stopped relying on my mom and unstable sources for support, my life got better immediately."
"You want things for comfort and familiarity. Don't let your mom or your therapist gaslight you into crossing a boundary."
"It might help to ask for a written five-part apology from your mom. 1. Acknowledge what you did 2. Say why it was wrong 3. Promise not to do it again 4. Ask how to make amends. 5. Share your feelings at this time if there's anything you'd like to say."
"My mom can be a good person and a bad mom and role model. Being in your own company is so much better than poor company." - PotLuckyPodcast
Others hoped the OP would go no contact with her mother sooner rather than later.
"NOR. It’s emotional abuse. And you do not owe her closeness after that, especially as she refuses to be accountable for that and try to make it up to you."
"She knows you have her number, and she can’t forgive you for knowing what a colloidal b***h she is."
"It’s unlikely that will change; it will at least be turned back on you with her the victim."
"Stop expecting her to apologize. If she doesn’t pay your bills, ghost her." - SnooCheesecakes2723
"My mom said something similar. My brother and I were adopted, and when I was a teen, in front of a church lady, she said, 'We didn't even really want you, but the people didn't want to split y'all up, so we just took you, too.'"
"Me and the church lady were shook. When I say my falbbers were ghasted. Like huh? She didn't remember saying that when I brought it up years after the fact."
"I also got grounded two times for two separate nine weeks (for C's on my report card) and a three and a half to four months (for smoking at 16 and getting caught because she liked to just pop up out of nowhere), and we just had a talk about that, and she didn't even remember."
"She said, 'No, I didn't. I never grounded you for that long,' and when I gave my rebuttal, she said, 'Well, if I did, it definitely wasn't for no nine weeks or months,' and this started because she was praising me for reading so much and liking books. I said, 'Well, when you were grounded like me, that's all I could do (no TV, no friends outside of school, no music, nothing but my room and books)."
"There's a reason I only call or answer her calls once or twice every few weeks. And I only call to get food, really..." - ManicalMoe
"‘Fine, I'm sorry’ is not an apology."
"Whilst I’m sure it was said in anger, most things said in anger have a grain of truth. There are also some things that no half-decent parent ever says to their children, no matter how angry they are, and this is one of them! It also sounds like she has made repeated similar comments of not wanting you as her child."
"I understand her eldest had a disability, but this is no excuse for neglecting and emotionally abusing her younger child. Lots of families deal with a child with additional needs whilst still managing to prioritise their other kids. Children with Down syndrome are capable of understanding ‘that’s your sister's, not yours; give it back’ !! It sounds like your mum has mental health issues?"
"Do you have a present father or other family you can turn to?"
"Protect your peace. Your mum has hurt you time and time again, honestly, for no real gain other than momentarily satisfying her anger. You owe this woman nothing." - Background_Term9810
"I went through something similar. When I was a little girl, my mother used to make comments that implied she didn't want me, though it was never that explicit. 'I only had you because your brother wanted a sister,' and 'My figure never recovered after you; after your brother, it did.'"
"Each comment stayed with me, but I never addressed it with her. I tried to move on and leave it in the past. She did a lot of horrible things throughout my life, but her behavior was always ignored because that's the precedent my dad set, where she can do essentially whatever she wants."
"A few months ago, she came to see me because I was desperate for help and sick. Instead of helping, she made my life so much worse. I won't go into details. At one point, I could no longer keep it inside, and I told her that she is a narcissist, to which she responded with, 'It would have been better if I had never had you.'"
"In some ways, it felt really good to hear her come out and say it. It felt good to hear the truth I've always known."
"I don't know what you should do, but I've chosen to not forgive."
"Every time I forgave, I just let her know that she can get away with whatever horrible things she had done. Her apologies were never real apologies. She always found ways to blame me or others for whatever she had done."
"And I'm truly just done with it. As sad as it is to not have a mom, it's sadder to pretend that you have one when in reality you don't... quite the opposite, if anything." - Neos_Mom
"So, OP, what will hurt more: keeping her and the grudge in your life or making a break and going low or no contact with her?"
"Frankly, we've no idea of what she might have been dealing with at the time, but regardless, what she said was said only to cause pain and suffering. 'Sorry' doesn't magic that intent away."
"Me, I think spending time alone or with friends or in therapy away from her might be what you need here. You might come to some sort of acceptance, but if this is something that's just going to keep coming between you, then stop trying to have that relationship." - Tal_Tos_72
After the OP received feedback, she shared a few clarifications from her original post.
"I wanted to clear some things up, take accountability where it's due, and provide some much-needed context from many people commenting the same questions."
"I want to be completely honest. We had many arguments, and I was a rebellious kid. I acted out and argued with my mom."
"I don't want to give off the impression that I was an entirely innocent kid who never did anything wrong and my mom just snapped out of nowhere. We both said hateful and hurtful things to each other during our fights."
"Growing up, the only way she would accept an apology was if I got on my knees and begged her for forgiveness. If I ever asked her to apologize to me, she would say, 'I have nothing to apologize for; you should be the one begging for my forgiveness.'"
The OP had a lot of physical memories, too.
"Things also would turn into physical arguments, not just verbal ones."
"There were times when she would get so angry she would get physical. Like yanking me by my hair, twisting my arms, or throwing things at me (like remotes, a bug spray can, or a radio)."
"When she yanked my hair, I would fight back just to get her to let me go, and she would scream that I was trying to kill her and she would get me arrested. When she twisted my arm, and I begged her to stop because it felt like it was going to break, she would say she hoped it did."
"When she threw objects at me, she would say she wished they would hit my face."
"I remember in middle school, during an argument, she said she wished she could break my face and that she hated it because I look like my dad. I won’t lie, whenever she said things like that, I would say nasty comments about how she chose to have him put us in her."
While the OP wasn't financially ready to move out yet, she hoped to as soon as possible.
"Why haven't I moved out yet? The main reason I haven't been able to move out is financial."
"I wasn't making enough to support myself without worrying about whether I’d end up having to crawl back home."
"Thankfully, I have recently found a better-paying job. My plan is to move out between mid-to-late October, or early November at the latest."
"The only reason I can't leave this exact second is because I have a few legal/administrative things to get cleared up so I’m completely untied from my mom, which will take a few weeks."
The OP also had proof that her mother liked her sister better.
"Has my mom ever admitted to favoring my sister? Yes."
"In arguments, she has explicitly told me that she doesn't see me as her legitimate daughter, and that she adored my sister more and forever will. She has also called me a 'monster,' told me there is a certain type of evil inside of me, and said she was afraid I would be just like my dad and try to harm them."
"She would even tell me that she was telling family and friends these things about me, but then later claim she 'just said it in the moment' and wouldn't be crazy enough to actually tell people that."
"Because I was so confused growing up and didn't know if she was lying or telling the truth, I started avoiding our family when they came over."
"Naturally, that just made things worse because she would get mad at me for avoiding them (even now as an adult), completely ignoring the fact that she was the one who lied about what she told them."
Unfortunately, the OP didn't have support from her father.
"What about my dad? My dad is not in my life."
"He was around sporadically, but never as a stable parent. My parents separated before I was born and divorced when I was two or three."
"Growing up, it was just constant back-and-forth toxicity, with him telling me how toxic my mother was, and her telling me the same about him."
"He would mostly only come over to see my sister, and often used me to care for her if he wanted to take her out to eat. Ultimately, my dad didn't care about anyone else other than my sister (and his drugs)."
"I hope this can clear some questions on the original post. I know I didn't provide many details as I originally should have. I honestly didn't want to post something too long, and I honestly did not expect it to be noticed."
"Thank you all for taking time to talk to me and share your thoughts."
The subReddit fully sided with the OP, pointing out that no matter how heated the moment was, it would never excuse the terrible things the OP's mother had said to her.
If the OP's mother really wanted a relationship with her, she'd drop the defensiveness and demands, offer a genuine apology, and work hard to be better for both of her children.
That takes a very rare kind of person to pull off, and it didn't sound like the OP's mother had that in her.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://findahelpline.com/i/iasp