The holidays are coming, and so are all the conflicts that your family may have been avoiding throughout the year.
A new mother turned to Reddit to ask its users for advice after her father’s fiancée came to babysit her son, but ended up crossing important boundaries.
The lady took the boy to a mall to meet Santa for the first time in his life, even though the parents had explicitly told her they were looking forward to sharing that moment themselves.
Meeting Santa for the first time is one of our core memories
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But this woman said her dad's fiancée deliberately took her son to the mall, making sure she would be the one to introduce him to Santa
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As many as 2 in 5 families fight over the holidays
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According to a survey from last year, nearly 40% of families get into open disagreements throughout the holiday season. The research also revealed that a significant portion of these conflicts erupt during the holiday gatherings themselves.
Topics that cause the most trouble usually are:
- Politics (34%)
- Past grievances (32%)
- Relationships (25%)
- Finances (25%)
And it’s not like things get easily brushed off, either. The stakes can be very high, as nearly 20% of respondents indicated that holiday conflicts have prompted a family member to revisit or adjust their estate plans.
After posting the story, the mom joined the discussion in the comment section
Most people who read about what happened said it wasn’t her fault
A few, however, felt she overreacted
Later, the woman shared an update on how her father tried to make things right
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While moms and dads may look to their own parents for advice and help with raising their kids, disagreements are fairly common
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A study from C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health found that almost half of parents report conflicts with grandparents over parenting choices.
The survey looked at more than 2,000 responses from parents with kids aged 18 and under. Among those whose children see their grandparents often or occasionally, 37 percent reported having minor disagreements over parenting styles, and 15 percent said their disagreements had a negative effect on the relationship between their children and their grandparents.
More specifically, the study found that 40 percent of parents felt grandparents were too soft on the kids, while 14 percent said they were too strict.
The most common areas of conflict were discipline (57 percent), meals and snacks (44 percent), TV and screen time (36 percent), manners (27 percent), health and safety (25 percent), treating some grandchildren differently than others (22 percent), bedtime (21 percent), and sharing photos or other information on social media (10 percent).
“Grandparents play a special role in the lives of many children and can be an important resource for parents through support, advice and babysitting. But they may have different ideas about the best way to raise the child and that can cause tension,” Sarah Clark, M.P.H., Mott Poll co-director and research scientist with the Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research Center, or CHEAR, said in a press release.
“If grandparents contradict or interfere with parenting choices, it can have a serious strain on the relationship. Parents may feel that their parental authority is undermined when grandparents are too lenient in allowing children to do things that are against family rules, or when grandparents are too strict in forbidding children to do things that parents have okayed.”
The mother once again shared more information in the comments
And most people agreed that she handled it the right way
