The Day My Son Wanted Nothing to Do With Me

While on vacation with my entire family I had one of the most heart breaking things happen... my son wanted nothing to do with me only my mother (his grandmother).  My mom watches him everyday while I am working so they have a strong bond, but this was completely heart breaking.  If I would take my son into another room for a even a simple task of changing his diaper he would scream bloody murder for my mother.  He wouldn't eat any meals at the table with the rest of the family he wanted to sit on the couch with "Mimi" and eat (despite Mimi sitting at the table with the rest of the family).  We took him to the beach and Mimi had to be the one in the ocean, Mimi had to play in the sand.  When we got back Mimi had to cook his lunch and put him down for his nap.  At bedtime, Mimi had to give him his bath and put him to bed (a task usually reserved for only mommy and daddy).  At one point my husband attempted to help my mother and my son pushed him away and told him no.

There my husband and I were, standing in the kitchen of our rented beach condo, heartbroken wondering what to do next.  My two month old was happily sleeping in the bedroom, surely he still loved us but what did we do to make our toddler favor his grandmother; I didn't want my youngest to favor her too.  I began sobbing into the kitchen counter feeling like a failure as a mother.  I love my kids, they are my everything.  All of my time is devoted to caring for them and being with them.  Yes I do work 40+ hours a week but I wake them up and make their breakfast in the morning, I am getting home when they are waking up from their afternoon naps (thanks to my 10 minute commute) and spend every weekend doing activities with them.  So why did my son want to be with his grandmother over his mother?  What seemed like an eternity later, my mom emerged from the bedroom, my son had fallen asleep and she apologized to me.  She felt bad that my son was favoring her, it was no fault of hers no fault of my son; it was just the fact in that moment.  I went to bed that night feeling very defeated and very heartbroken.

I woke up the next morning to my son snuggled in bed next to me (his bed was in the same room as mine for vacation).  He had woken up in the middle of the night and saw mommy and daddy were in the room and climbed into our bed for comfort.  Obviously, the topic of conversation at the breakfast table was the big elephant in the room.  With the prodding of my brother and sister (thanks again!), we discovered that Mimi had "altered" my son's routine after my second was born.  As my second son likes to eat leisurely, Mimi has started allowing my toddler to eat meals in the family room with his toys so she can focus on feeding the baby.  Since Mommy and Daddy have only left my son to be put to bed by his Mimi (or anybody else) less than 5 nights, Mimi has snuggled with him and watched Sesame Street with him until he fell asleep.  The answer wasn't that he loved his Mimi more than Mommy and Daddy the answer was he liked the way Mimi did things.  As Mimi put it, Mommy and Daddy have more rules.

I was very worried that this was going to continue throughout the entire vacation and extend into our "normal lives" once we got home but thankfully it didn't.  When Mimi became aware of what was happening she enforced mommy and daddy's rules and the Mimi fascination seemed to dwindle.  He still loved his Mimi and wanted to do things with her but he also wanted to interact with all his other family members as well.

Our first night home my son got right into bed and fell right asleep just like he was doing before we went for vacation.  He fell right back into his normal routine in stride as though it had not been interrupted for the week prior.  He was content when Mimi left when Mommy got home from work (even if he wasn't content to stay inside since it was raining and his brother is 2 months old).  He's the exact same kid as he was before we left for vacation except with more words and requesting ice cream every night (Thanks Uncle B).

This was a definite learning experience for me!  Sometimes being a Mommy is a thankless job and sometimes that means not being the "fun one" or the popular one with your kids,  I need to focus on my relationships with my kids and not focus on being the most liked person in their lives.  That doesn't mean however that I don't want to be the most liked in their lives and that it doesn't hurt when they favor someone else.  What am I going to do when they want to go away on a trip without me or want to get married?  I think those things are going to break my heart, but I can't cry in the kitchen forever or can I?