A Mom Hung A Breastfeeding Selfie On Her Nursery Wall — And Her MIL Yanked It Down
The mother of twins asked Reddit if it was wrong for her to get upset and start a fight.
The relationship between a woman and her mother-in-law can be... challenging. Finding healthy boundaries and mutual respect can be hard when sometimes your husband’s mom just can’t quite let go of her precious baby boy or maybe just can’t keep her wacky opinions to herself.
For one mom, it was the latter.
Posting to Reddit’s “Am I The A—hole” forum under username u/throwRAtitsaho, a 28-year-old mother of twins explained that being a mom was her dream come true after struggling with fertility. She explained that since she was just so honored and happy to be a mom that she “went all out” on her nursery decor.
“There’s a black and white picture of me breastfeeding the twins framed on one of the walls. I love it, my husband loves it and my mum loves it,” she wrote.
However, in not-so-shocking news, her husband’s mom was not a fan of the photograph.
After dropping by one day unexpectedly (strike one), the mom let her in because she believes that, at her mother-in-law’s core, she is a loving grandmother. “I let her in because although she can be a bit annoying, she loves her grandchildren and she’s happy that we finally managed to have some babies,” she said.
The mom took her MIL into the nursery to see the babies, and that’s when she spotted the black-and-white photo.
The twins woke up, and the mom began breastfeeding them in front of her mother-in-law, who began to express her complete disdain for the photo of her breastfeeding her children.
She wrote, “She couldn’t shut up about the picture. According to her it’s gross and inappropriate. I know breastfeeding with your t*ts out is a bit weird to the older generations, but this is my nursery.”
Things take an even worse turn when her mother-in-law actually took the pictures off the wall.
She continued, “She kept saying that I should take it down, and then actually took it off the wall herself. That’s when I snapped. I put my son down, and I took the picture off her. I said ‘you can either deal with looking at my t**s or get out of the room.’ She got extremely offended and left the house.”
Soon after, the mom’s father-in-law called and berated her about her choice of words and language used, calling her “disgusting.”
The mom, claiming she has “postpartum distress” and just could not tolerate her in-laws’ rudeness and complaints, added that her husband did go to her defense against his parents. However, he also told her that she “should’ve picked [her] words better.”
She drew a hard boundary after the incident and told her husband to tell his mother that she wasn’t welcome in the twins’ nursery ever again. However, the MIL is still demanding an apology and FIL said the mom is being a “total cow.”
Unfortunately, for these in-laws, they seem to be in the minority when it comes to public opinion on breastfeeding. A survey toward breastfeeding from SummerStyles, quoted by the CDC, revealed last year that 69.2% of respondents agreed with the following statement: “I believe women should have the right to breastfeed in public spaces.”
And that’s in a public space! Not someone’s home where they are entitled to do pretty much whatever they want.
The response from fellow Reddit users tended to side with the mother of two on the thread as well, which now has over 6,000 upvotes and 800 comments.
The top comment, from u/Bright_copperkettles, now has more than 13,000 upvotes. They said, “Send him a pic of you breastfeeding with the caption ‘moo’. When I was breastfeeding I felt like a literal cow, so that gives me a chuckle.”
Another user offered some advice and said, “NTA [not the a**hole]. Perhaps your in-laws shouldn’t be allowed over when your husband isn’t home. That way he can stand up for you and pick the words himself, since he is concerned about your phrasing.”
Several users noted irritation toward the original poster’s husband for not being more upset about his parent’s behavior. “Hubby needs to contact his family and lay down the law of how it is going to be, and if they don’t agree then they don’t get to come over or see the kids,” one user wrote.
Another echoed, “Your husband should come down on his parents HARD, not criticize your choice of words.”
It sounds like the poster’s in-laws need to apologize, fall in line, and keep their mouths shut while they’re in someone else’s home, especially when they’re doing something like feeding their babies the equivalent of liquid gold.
