{"id":365194,"date":"2025-11-08T19:24:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T19:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/365194\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T19:24:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T19:24:37","slug":"ive-just-had-a-baby-its-making-me-see-what-my-parents-did-to-me-in-a-whole-new-painful-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/365194\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ve just had a baby. It’s making me see what my parents did to me in a whole new, painful light."},"content":{"rendered":"

Care and Feeding is Slate\u2019s parenting advice column.\u00a0Have a question for Care and Feeding?\u00a0<\/strong>Submit it here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Care and Feeding,<\/strong><\/p>\n

My husband and I had our son about six months ago, and I\u2019m reconsidering letting my parents meet him over the holidays as planned.<\/p>\n

Both my parents smoke, and although they have agreed to wear new clothes they put on just before they meet him so that their clothing doesn\u2019t reek of smoke, I am finding that I can\u2019t stop thinking about health and safety issues around their smoking in my own childhood. I know that the type of get-together we\u2019ve planned will not harm my baby. But that doesn\u2019t ease my mind.<\/p>\n

The fact is that my brother has a scar on his neck from cigarette ash that burned him when he was a baby, and I was sick throughout my childhood with asthma and respiratory issues (I was even hospitalized once). I was shocked by the improvement in my health almost as soon as I moved out. The frequent pneumonia ended; I discovered I could safely enjoy exercise for the first time in my life. These days, I\u2019m down to one inhaler I rarely need.<\/p>\n

If there was something I was doing that hurt our son the way my parents hurt me, I\u2019d like to believe I\u2019d move mountains to quit. But my parents never even made a failed effort\u2014and this is all despite the fact that two of my grandparents died of smoking-related causes, and there was certainly social pressure on them to quit. I\u2019ve gone from, \u201cAddiction is complicated and I love my parents, but they can\u2019t change,\u201d to \u201cF these people, they put their two kids at risk.\u201d How do I figure out what to do here?<\/p>\n

\u2014Anti-Smoking Mom<\/p>\n

Dear Mom,<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having a child changes you, both in ways that are predictable (your schedule is turned upside down, as are your priorities\u2014to name just two) and in ways that come as a complete surprise (I won\u2019t even take a stab at an illustrative list for this: There are far too many to mention, and they may be different for everyone). One of the surprises for you is a reconsideration of your own childhood and your parents\u2019 parenting of you. This particular category of surprise is not uncommon. There\u2019s nothing quite like contemplating the utterly vulnerable, perfect, beloved brand-new human being in your arms to make you suddenly aware, in a way that\u2019s impossible to brush off, of the mistakes, deep flaws, failures, and bad decisions of your own parents in your infancy and childhood.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s fair to say that many revelations about one\u2019s old childhood\u2014like yours\u2014do not constitute new information. Like many adults, until now you managed to compartmentalize the past\u2014your parents\u2019 smoking, the harm it caused you, and their failure to even attempt to quit\u2014in a way that kept you from feeling (at least consciously) hurt, bewildered, and angry. Your son\u2019s birth cracked that compartment open. Now the question is: What to do with that opened-up Pandora\u2019s box of feelings?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n <\/p>\n

    I Divorced My Husband for a Selfish Reason. Now My Son Is the One Paying for It.
    \n <\/a>\n <\/li>\n

  2. \n
    \n This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only<\/p>\n

    I Had a Baby After a One-Night Stand. I\u2019ve Just Learned Something About Their Father That I Hope They Never, Ever Find Out.
    \n <\/a>\n <\/li>\n

  3. \n <\/p>\n

    Help! We Tried to Help Our Mess of a Daughter With a Generous Gift. Big Mistake.
    \n <\/a>\n <\/li>\n

  4. \n
    \n This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s One Thing I\u2019ll Never Do in Bed. Most Women I Date Do Not Take It Very Well.
    \n <\/a>\n <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Don\u2019t try to tamp them down (they\u2019ll just pop back up). Once opened, the box cannot be closed. So feel your feelings, as unpleasant and destabilizing as they are right now. Talk about them to anyone you\u2019re sure will be a good listener\u2014compassionate, kind, and disinclined either to debate you or egg you on (or to try to \u201cfix\u201d you). Your husband might be a good place to begin. Your brother might be too. But don\u2019t underestimate the value of talking to good friends\u2014people who love you but have no personal stake in the issue at hand. And, of course, if your parents are the kind of people who can be talked to frankly and openly without getting defensive or going on the attack (I won\u2019t simply assume they\u2019re not! I am ever-optimistic!), have a conversation with them, too. But if you find that you are consumed with rage, are becoming depressed or extremely anxious, then talking to a therapist would be an excellent idea.<\/p>\n

    Once you begin to deal with the feelings about your childhood that have bubbled to the surface, you\u2019ll be able to confront and make a decision about the issue at hand. Letting your parents meet their grandson\u2014and, beyond that, allowing them to be in his life\u2014does not have to be tightly entwined with how you feel about your own childhood: It can be decoupled from that, if you wish to decouple it.<\/p>\n

    I want to be clear. I\u2019m not saying you must introduce your baby this winter as planned. If you are still too hurt and angry to do that, put it off. Don\u2019t force yourself to go through something that will further pain you. Make an excuse if you like. Or if you\u2019d prefer to confront things directly, tell your parents the truth (no matter what kind of people they are), letting them know you need time to work through this, and set a tentative future date. You can always postpone that date if you need to.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    \n Nicole Chung
    \n My Childless Friends Keep Buying Extremely Embarrassing Gifts for Our Baby. I Want to Tell Them to Stop.
    \n Read More<\/b>\n <\/p>\n

    <\/a><\/p>\n

    It seems your parents are open to making an effort where their grandchild is concerned (there are plenty of grandparents who would be offended by being asked to change into new, clean clothes!), and I gather you\u2019d be seeing them in your own home or on neutral grounds for the holidays, not in their smoky, smelly house. I would hope that they\u2019ve committed to not smoking in his presence (if not, go ahead and lay down those ground rules). So the questions to consider are these: Do you want your child to have a relationship with his grandparents, or not? Do you want to continue to have a relationship with your parents, or not? If the answers to these questions are yes, you\u2019re going to make sure both these things happen\u2014if not now, then eventually. And if you\u2019re uncertain about the answers to these questions \u2026 well, then, be patient with yourself. Give yourself grace.<\/p>\n

    \u2014Michelle<\/p>\n

    More Advice From Slate<\/p>\n

    My children (10, 8, 6, and 5) have been attending school virtually since March. Our 5-year-old misses his friends and the in-person nature of school, but has been doing very well in long-distance kindergarten. He\u2019s always been a little bit behind (within normal parameters) for self-regulating and similar skills, but he\u2019s not regressed too much. My mother-in-law moved in with us in August, for the foreseeable future, and my partner and I have noticed that she treats the 5-year-old differently than she did the others at the same age, especially when it comes to discipline.<\/a><\/p>\n

    Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Care and Feeding is Slate\u2019s parenting advice column.\u00a0Have a question for Care and Feeding?\u00a0Submit it here. Dear Care…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":365195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[600,246,210,251,4757,5597,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-365194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-advice","9":"tag-family","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-kids","12":"tag-parenting","13":"tag-slate-plus","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115515719367952517","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}