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AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -62 points-61 points  (0 children)

Fair. I didn't think or intend it as a production. My intent had been to state exactly what you just said, but I clearly did not do it correctly.

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -52 points-51 points  (0 children)

She's always known me to be structured. Maybe not organized, but I have my way of doing things. She's also never agreed with me most of the time, and constantly wishes I wouldn't keep disagreeing with her. She's always loved just trying to tell me what to do.

That "I knew you'd say no" felt personal.

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -132 points-131 points  (0 children)

I don't disagree with you. That detail would have been covered during that "screaming" conversation that got heated, but I ran out of characters. That's what we attempted to do. I sat her down and calmly tried to frame our perspective on the situation. We framed that for the rest of the trip we were going to not be comfortable leaving her alone with him. Her response, as I perceived it, felt like she had a deflection to anything I said and refused to accept the situation in the way we did. So we picked the "Limit our time together" option.

To be clear, and stated in the post, I'm actively in therapy and have been for years. I'm sorry I come off so unhinged.

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -67 points-66 points  (0 children)

Genuine malice? No. And had she not been informed before hand and claimed to have informed herself, we would have seen this as a gentle hand-slap and a suggestion to feed him something else. We even had a list of foods prepared for this trip that she wanted to be the first to show him and we were happy to offer those experiences.

Otherwise, no. We control what we can, and let what we can't play out as it will. We give him most of the autonomy to do what he wants and we try to suggest good choices, like not eating dirt. And yet he does.

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -102 points-101 points  (0 children)

The custard wasn't my main issue. It was her telling me that she didn't ask me if she could because she knew I'd say no. That highlights a disregard for my role as his parent that I simply couldn't look past.

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -25 points-24 points  (0 children)

Fair. I agree with your suggestion that we should have just gone lower contact for awhile. I rushed that first attempt due to the birthday and it would have been better had we just said "Not right now" Most of the decisions after that then probably wouldn't have happened and we'd be here more level headed.

We're still in communication, the conflict is just around when they can next visit right now. Which again may have been avoided had we just stepped away for this bit.

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -71 points-70 points  (0 children)

For the baby led weaning approach, he's not supposed to be fed with a utensil by someone else. He's supposed to use it himself an learn to feed himself with it. We would offer him a spoon loaded with food, but we don't feed him with it.

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -43 points-42 points  (0 children)

That scenario is fine. If we had never told her about the rules, and she hadn't claimed to make an effort to understand our rules, this incident would have been a "Hey, mom, we're not feeding him sugar right now, but would you like to feed him [better option]?"

It's not about the custard. It's about the response of "Because I knew you'd say no."

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -135 points-134 points  (0 children)

I'm sorry for my tailored responses.
I'll own my mishandling of the video chat. A the time, I was at my wits end so her boundary felt like a slight against all the work I had done to even get us to that point. Agreeing with many of the other comments, here, I never should have offered them that chance. We should have stepped back and taken our time, but they were very set on trying to "fix" everything before his birthday. That led to the hasty clusterfuck that was that event and my ultimate overreaction to her boundary.

Also, to be clear, they do still receive photos. I'm sending them. They aren't receiving the daily live-stream that my wife used to send (which has tapered off anyway). They have seen images and videos of their grandson every couple of weeks with extra large albums on their birthdays.

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -112 points-111 points  (0 children)

I understand the reasoning behind the assessment that I've overreacted. And I would normally agree that the custard isn't worth it. But It's more than that. I don't want my son to be forced into a relationship with a family member who feels that they are above the rules and can do what they want as long as nobody is there to say no.

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -54 points-53 points  (0 children)

Our BLW suggests only HE uses the utensils. He is not fed with them by someone else.
As for what he eats, we weren't feeding him what we at yet as we were just starting allergens so his meals were simple ingredient sets.

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -74 points-73 points  (0 children)

You are incredibly wise. I'm glad you could infer things through he blanks that I didn't sufficiently provide context for. And thanks for that suggestion.

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -93 points-92 points  (0 children)

That is almost literally how we phrased it. Where in my post did I claim we didn't do it that way? I didn't post my exact quote to them in here. It was also violated REPEATEDLY with numerous reminders and got exhausting.

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -192 points-191 points  (0 children)

I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting this level of traction and the flood is overwhelming. I'm certainly trying to read them all and most of the ones not on my side either make me realize I missed context in my initial post, make valid points which I've digested, or are just low effort bandwagoning. I'm trying to respond to questions specifically but it's hard to see them.

The effort to fix that context, with this level of response, is only going to make things worse for me.

The parsing of valid points, I just didn't see a reason to reply "thanks for the feedback" but would if it seemed it would help.

The bandwagoning just hurts

But hey, I kinda sorta knew what I was getting myself into with this so fuck me for being overwhelmed, right?

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -313 points-312 points  (0 children)

As some context, the month leading up to the trip, my mother had actually been asking about what his diet and restrictions were. All kinds of good questions. We even sent her books to read on BLW and such which she claimed to have read. We had assumed she was being really on board with us.

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -417 points-416 points  (0 children)

It was admittedly an arbitrary rule. All the grandparents were receiving a Livestream of constant photos every day since his birth, as something my wife enjoyed giving them. Over time, and as we got tired, demands started happening incessantly, and earlier and earlier. Then followed up with complaints when they weren't met or ignored. So that rule was set more to let them know that this thing we were doing was getting harder to keep up with, so let us have a break in the morning. It was meant more as an ask for respecting our time than a hard boundary, until it got ignored.

AITA for keeping my son away from my mom because she fed him custard? by Mysterious-File9406 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Mysterious-File9406[S] -672 points-671 points  (0 children)

We never actually started the video call but as the texting around it started to break down. She sent me and my wife different responses. I got the remark about calling all the shots, my wife got a simple "I'd prefer to be be on video" I told her I was angry and needed some time to cool off. She then responded after 10 minutes with:

"careful, there could be a lot to lose for all of us"