Not ungrateful, just uncomfortable

Before I begin, let me say that I am NOT ungrateful. I know there are people who will tell me that I am, but it’s not true. I am very thankful for everything we have received, but sometimes it’s too much.

When we told my husband’s parents that we were pregnant, his mom was over the moon. This is their first grandchild and they will only get grandkids through us, as my sister-in-law is single and doesn’t want kids. I was super reserved because I was paranoid about miscarriage, but my mother-in-law bought a Pack N Play for their house almost immediately. My in-laws have a LOT of money, and apparently not much to spend it on. Then she moved on to buying diapers. Every week I would come home to huge Sam’s Club boxes in our porch with cases of diapers because “they were on sale!” We ended up with 14 cases of diapers. Yep, 14 cases. I have always felt guilty receiving gifts, so in the back of my mind I’m trying to figure out how many hundreds of dollars she’s spent on diapers and how we can repay her. I finally convinced my husband to tell her that we had enough and she needed to stop.

When we revealed the gender, I showed her a picture of how I wanted to decorate the nursery and what kind of crib I wanted (it was $450). The first words out of her mouth were, “Can I buy the crib??” I said no, and after everyone left I told my husband about it. His mom has a tendency to spend lots of money without telling his dad about it, so I didn’t want his dad to be angry about the money being spent. My husband called his dad and told him what she wanted to do, and that if they wanted to, we would go in on the crib and let them pay for half. His dad said they would pay for it and that would be our Christmas present. I said that was fine, but that they weren’t allowed to buy us anything else. So of course they go on to spend lots of money on us for Christmas. 😖 By this point I’m figuring we owe them about $1,000 and I’m getting nervous about it.

After we got the crib set up she asked, “Now what can we buy???” I said nothing, no more buying. My husband and I make good money, have a good home, and so far had spent next to nothing on our own baby. I don’t like feeling like a charity case and I don’t like that I feel so indebted to my in-laws. She kept begging and everyone around me told me to just let her buy the stuff because she was an excited first time grandma, so I let her buy the car seat when there was a really good sale at Target. (She also went and bought herself a car seat for her car.) They are also looking to buy my son a little snowmobile (my husband snowmobiles) and a little dirt bike for at their place because that’s what my husband was into when he was younger and they assume my son will be the same. Besides the fact that he may not like these things, that’s just more and more money that they are spending. (Not to mention that these motorized things just make me worry about future broken bones and ER visits.) When I have said that no, he doesn’t need those things, his mom says, “Well, we’ll just buy them anyway and you can’t stop us.”

Somewhere along the way, my husband and I had a cow butchered and processed, as did his parents. When the meat was ready to be picked up, his mom went to go get their beef and also paid for our beef. Wouldn’t tell us how much it costed and wouldn’t let us give them money for it. I figured we were up to about $1,500 that we owed them. Towards the end of my pregnancy, she cashed out 80 hours of PTO (she never uses it and always maxes out so she stops accruing it) and transferred it to my husband’s bank account. I don’t know what the actual dollar amount ended up being, but she said it was to cover my cost of health insurance because I would be taking 2 extra months off of work unpaid. I was super uncomfortable with that, but once my son arrived, I kind of forgot and was desperate to have as much time with him as I could, so I gradually accepted it. But in the back of my mind, my mental tally says we owe my in-laws at LEAST $3,000.

When I go back to work next month, my mom will be his primary caregiver, but she will be out of the country for a week so my mother-in-law will be watching him for a few days. Last weekend she asked if we would have the stroller by then so she can take him for walks. She tried to buy the stroller before he was born; I walked in on her whispering to my husband trying to get him to tell her what stroller I wanted. I told her we would be buying the stroller ourselves. I want the Baby Jogger City Select so that it can grow as our family does, and I won’t let her pay for the $500+ stroller. She’s spent way too much money already and I am so uncomfortable with the amount they’ve spent. However, we don’t have the extra cash floating around right now, so no, we will not have the stroller by the time she watches him, and no, she isn’t allowed to buy it for us.

I don’t think they ever would, but in the back of my mind I’m worried that they could hold it over our heads or say things like, “Well we’ve spent $XXX on him, so it’s only fair that he come to our holiday party” (instead of things at my parents’). Like they get dibs because they’ve spent so much money, like a down payment or something. I’m also uncomfortable because my parents don’t have a lot of money and I don’t want it to feel like a competition, or for my parents to feel like they are less than because they can’t afford to spend like my in-laws can. I don’t want my son to grow up resenting my parents because they can’t spoil him with material possessions like my in-laws do. I can tell my mother-in-law will give him whatever he wants, so even if I say no to something, she will get it for him because she says, “it’s my job to spoil him!” I don’t want him to grow into a spoiled brat who gets everything he wants, and I don’t want him to prefer my in-laws over my parents just because my in-laws have money.

Furthermore, my in-laws live seven miles away, but they never come over to visit. They don’t ask for pictures, they don’t call to check on their own grandson. My father-in-law has seen him MAYBE 10 times in the 15 weeks my son has been alive. He works five miles away from us. Never stops on his way home from work. (Also calls my son fat whenever he does see my baby, but that’s a tale for another day 🤬) I really struggle with the fact that they don’t seem to show much interest in him. When he was very little we brought him to their place several times and they were never home. I am frustrated by their lack of interest, but I’m not going to beg them or force them to be in his life. If they wanted to, they would be involved.

I am just so conflicted. I feel guilty at how much they have spent on our son and feel that we should repay them (and we have tried, but they don’t accept money). But I’m also bitter over the fact that they don’t spend time with him when they live so close. Why spend so much money but no time? Why not spend time with him instead of money on him? I’m so uncomfortable with the money situation, and I told my husband that he had to tell his mom that no, we won’t have the stroller, and no, she cannot just buy it for us. I almost feel like because they’ve spent so much on him, that they will feel entitled to time with him when they so choose, like they’ll expect us to let them have him when they want him because of how much they’ve spent. I’m just so frustrated and uncomfortable with the whole situation. Yes, my son has everything he needs and is well-provided for, but my husband and I could’ve paid for everything ourselves and then I wouldn’t have this guilt. We don’t need handouts and I don’t want them, they make me feel like a crappy mom because I’m not the one providing for him. 😖😖😖 Buy I don’t know how to explain this to my in-laws and make them understand that I am serious about it. We need boundaries, but then they say things like, “We’re going to buy it and there’s nothing you can do about it.” I just want to be taken seriously.