Single mom here. I live with both my grandparents, mother, and brother. It’s a full house but plenty of space for everyone. I’m working on paying off some debts so I can move out on my own with my baby. Growing up I always watched my grandmother shame and undermine my mom. I never really listened to my mom or respected her. I’d always take my grandmother’s word over hers. I’m now a mother to a 15 month old. Her father is a severe alcoholic and not in the picture so I depend on the family that I live with quite a bit for babysitting. My grandmother shames me for almost everything I do as a mother. She’ll even use my daughter as a tool to do so. She’ll say things like “tell mommy to put another shirt on you” “tell mom you want some juice instead of water” “tell mom to stop being such a ‘B’.” She refuses to watch my daughter more than 4 hours a week so I can work (which is fine), but also will not allow me to hire help within the home so I can earn more money. My grandmother’s last child was about 40something years ago. Her opinion is a bit dated. I’m not claiming to know everything about parenting but I do have access to books, the internet, lactation specialists on call...etc. My grandmother has no education on things like sleep training, breastfeeding difficulties (never did it and refuses to hear anything I say about it), or well known studies on child development that were not available back in her day. Yet she has very strong opinions on all of these topics. She will talk over me and never hear anything I have to say when I’m trying to defend my reasonings for the things I do as a mom. Last night my daughter was crying at 3:00 am and she comes into my room yelling and blaming me for waking the entire house up (no one else was awake). She said that I need to care more for my daughter and stop neglecting her. She told me that it was my fault that she was up crying because I took her off the bottle too soon and need to put her back on formula (my daughter never liked bottles. Completely refused them at 12 months and now refuses any other milk besides breast milk.) I’m trying to get my daughter back on a good sleeping schedule after her having the flu and waking up every couple hours to be comforted so I’m sleep training. So yes there were some tears last night.

I’m doing my absolute best with the information that I have. I work extremely hard and show my daughter the love and compassion that I never received. Single parenting is hard enough, but I feel like it’s even harder when you’re constantly being shamed by someone that you live with. I moved in with family to receive help but I feel that living here is extremely detrimental to my mental health and confidence as a mother. I’m hoping that I only have to live here a few more months before I have a much more solid foundation for my daughter and I but I’m having trouble coping in the meantime.