When I got pregnant with my second child, I gave my husband a warning: nothing brings out family dysfunction like the arrival of a newborn baby.

Now, every family has its issues. Everybody has toxic traits. But a familial unit that’s maintained a relative stability for decades seems to immediately collapse into chaos the moment someone pushes out the latest fruit on the family tree.

Really, it’s a phenomenon that ought to be studied.

I was blindsided when my son was born, and I thought I could prepare us both for the arrival of our daughter.

The preparations failed.

Each time I brought a child into this world, I watched my entire village, fully grown adults, devolve into a frenzied flock of seagulls fighting over a french fry. Only the french fry was my baby. And instead of finding myself held and supported through the phenomenal transition into motherhood, I became a ghost as everyone else battled for the top spot in my newborn’s life.

The top spot which is held by me. Hi. I grew that little creature. In my body. From scratch.

This is, apparently, a selfish statement.

Welcome to the Grandma Olympics!

I was a single mother when my son entered the world. I had gotten pregnant after a sexual assault, and chose to proceed with the pregnancy and keep the baby. This came with a hefty dose of trauma, and navigating the PTSD while also becoming a mother for the first time was an extreme-sport level experience.

It didn’t help that my labor was complex. I fought for thirty-one hours before my blood pressure plummeted and my baby’s heart stopped. He was ripped from me in a violent emergency C-section and immediately rushed away to the NICU.

We spent five days in the hospital, and then I was home, a clunky bandage slapped over my belly, a massive diaper on my butt, milk leaking through my shirt, a baby in tow. A mother.

Naturally, this was the perfect time for my mom and my aunt to develop a heated rivalry.

My aunt had no grandkids, but she’s always said I was like a daughter to her. With my son being fatherless (and also extended-family-less), I remember telling my aunt that I thought of her as my son’s other grandma.

She sighed mournfully and responded, “No, don’t call me his grandma. I know I’ll always just be second place to your mom.”

Okay.

From that point on, everything was a competition, and the prize was my baby.

I was losing sleep, watching my son’s chest rise and fall, praying, with a heart frozen in fear, for him to take his next breath, and my mom was asking why she hadn’t been invited to see the baby that weekend.

I was breastfeeding my son, shaking violently in agony (he had a bad latch), and my aunt was calling to yell at me for accidentally double-booking her visit and needing to reschedule.

I was celebrating my first birthday as a mother, and my aunt left in a huff after she didn’t get to hold my fussy baby who only wanted to nurse. My mother dissolved into tears because her experience of my birthday dinner was ruined.

Everything became about who got to see the baby, who got to hold the baby, who was Most Involved, who the baby smiled at, who the baby liked best, who had the best advice. My aunt took every visit to my mom’s house as a personal offense. My mom took every parenting decision that I made as a public statement on her parenting…and took offense.

I was bleeding, but as the new mother, I was expected to field all of these emotions and do so expertly enough that everyone else felt seen, heard, important, and loved. It was made very clear that it was my job to validate everyone else’s position in my child’s life.

Meanwhile, I had developed postpartum OCD and was starting to hear voices.

That was also my job to manage. Everyone got help with their feelings except me.

Surviving this time took a lot out of me, and unfortunately, my relationships with my family were forever changed. I once saw this sentence on an internet post: “You’ll never forget how the people closest to you treated you postpartum,” and it stuck with me.

I knew I’d have more kids someday, and I was determined that it would be different.

Enter the #BoyMom

Five years after the birth of my son, I’m now married. Our daughter was born in July 2026. This time, I thought I was ready. I gave my husband the warning. I planned. I prepped. We came up with a list of boundaries that we felt was fair.

I was not prepared for the Boy Mom™ that is my mother-in-law.

Before my daughter was even born, she acted like my husband was the one carrying a baby. Had he had enough to eat? Had he slept enough? Was he OKAY? How was he feeling? Eat this! Let me fix you a plate! Have some more, you look peaky!

Oh, your wife? She can get her own. She’s fine.

After the baby was born, I was a non-factor, or at most, an annoying barrier between the baby and her grandma. My husband was the Daddy, and I was the surrogate who’d given a small assist in propagating the family line.

Meanwhile, my husband was the new parent being celebrated. My husband was being loved on and supported through this transition. My husband’s experience was centered.

(Reader, my husband’s experience was sitting in a chair while seven layers of tissue and muscle in my body were sliced apart to surgically remove the baby that I grew. He wrung his hands as my spinal block wore off and I began screaming that I could feel that. He held his breath when I sprung a hemorrhage. His hands shook as he held our baby before I could, while my life pumped out of me and doctors raced to keep enough fluid in me to keep my heart beating.)

I’m sure it was stressful, and his journey as a parent shouldn’t be overlooked. But I did not, in any way, anticipate this dynamic. I didn’t anticipate feeling like I’d disappeared. I didn’t anticipate struggling in silence, waiting for someone to see me. I didn’t think I’d be expected to toddle around serving coffee in a bloody diaper while my mother-in-law anxiously asked my husband if he’d been getting any sleep.

I wasn’t ready for the wedge it would create in our marriage, or the resentment I would feel.

On top of this, we were being bombarded with a constant stream of expectations. Visiting schedules, family events, traditions, holidays, hospital visits, who gets to do what, and every single request came with BIG FEELINGS.

Boundaries had to be restated again, and again, and again, and were repeatedly pushed.

We stated that there would be no visits in the hospital. Every day we were in the hospital, we received multiple requests from family members wanting to show up.

We said we would be needing some time to adjust and bond–ALONE–after leaving the hospital. His mother wanted to show up the next day.

We requested help with anything other than holding the baby–the only thing anybody wanted to do was hold the baby.

And every time we said no, somebody was offended.

Every time we made plans with a family member, somebody else was offended.

Whenever I wanted to hold my own baby, somebody was offended.

The baby’s asleep? Offended.

And worst of all, if someone had the baby, and I–the mother–moved to take the baby back? O-F-F-E-N-D-E-D.

All this offense built into tension, the tension into resentment, and the resentment into guilt. Suddenly, there are problems with family members that we didn’t have before.

And once again, I’ve found that it’s expected to be our job as the parents to validate everyone’s relationship with our baby.

My baby is four months old, and I still don’t feel like I’ve had a single moment to heal.

Babies are not public property

I know people see these posts on postpartum and feel discouraged. Everyone is excited about a new baby. New babies represent life, possibility, joy, and hell, they’re cute!

That baby is a part of a new generation. Their birth is the start of a new relationship, a chance to pass down traditions, tell stories, make memories, and experience the warm fuzzies of love and attachment. Everyone wants a piece.

I understand that excitement. I really do.

Unfortunately, I also think that babies become the unwitting recipients of a lot of adult emotional baggage. Where there is limitless possibility, there’s projection. A grandmother might see a baby as her chance to try again and really experience all the cuteness and softness of infancy–without the challenges of motherhood and postpartum. A relative might see an opportunity to feel included or important. Someone who has a complicated relationship with the parents might see the baby as a fresh start. And of course, there’s love.

When boundaries get in the way of all these big feelings, we run into entitlement. People have big ideas about their relationship with baby, and it feels like a violation when those ideas don’t immediately come to fruition. Suddenly, access to the baby feels like an important right, and denial of that access feels like a loss of control and a loss of status in the family.

This is where people need to realize; a new baby is not a prize for being the most involved or enthusiastic relative. They aren’t a place for you to correct your past wrongs. They don’t exist to validate your need to be loved.

Your desire for a relationship does not equate to your right to have one.

The baby is a person, in their own right, and so is their mother.

All Hail the Selfish Mother

The more I think about these experiences, I realize that we have a very odd relationship with motherhood.

Mothers are sacred and celebrated; at least in theory. We praise the selfless mommy, talk about her strength, how much she gives, and we tell childless women that they won’t ever be complete until they walk the road to reproduction. We cradle pregnancy, treating it as a delicate time worthy of extra support and care.

But the moment the baby enters the world, they become a coveted inheritance and the mother a communal resource. She is not allowed to enjoy her own baby that she spent time growing and birthing. She exists to nourish the baby and the family. She is expected to meet the needs of not just her children, but every other person who wants to bond with them.

A mother’s selflessness becomes mandatory. She must sacrifice her sleep, comfort, body, career, privacy, and her time. She must sacrifice her sanity. And if the extended family wants to come over on a Saturday, she sacrifices that too.

Her bonding time with her own baby becomes a negotiation, and if she objects, the conversation very quickly becomes about her attitude.

She said no? She’s being difficult. She’s being controlling. She’s keeping the baby away. She’s making everything about herself. She’s selfish.

I discussed this in a TikTok video, and sure enough, a grandma hopped into the comments to tell me that I was being ungrateful and unfriendly.

Let’s pause. Because actually, these are wild accusations to make about a person who’s just spent months of their life growing another human and torn their own body apart to bring that human into the world.

Can you imagine if someone had open-heart surgery and then got told they had a “bad attitude” if they weren’t plucky and ready to entertain a week later?

I think we need to leave behind the idea of the selfless mother, and adopt the cultural outlook that new mothers should be selfish. They should be coddled and cared for. The baby is fine. But the mother needs to be filled with love and support.

Finally, my notes

1. Postpartum is not a family reunion.
2. The most important relationship with a new baby is the mother’s.
3. The best thing we can do for a new mom is stop making her responsible for managing everyone else’s experience with the arrival of her baby.
4. Wait to be invited.
5. Bring food, do laundry, wash dishes. Ask her how she’s doing, and listen to her when she answers.
6. Don’t pressure her to let you see or hold the baby. When she is ready, she will offer.
7. Your feelings are your own to manage. Stop making them her problem.
8. The baby isn’t going anywhere. Have some patience, and you’ll get your chance to bond!

I used to think a new baby would bring my family together. I was extremely disappointed in that regard, and I think I’ll probably be processing it for the rest of my life. The words I saw online were true: I will never forget how I was treated during this incredibly vulnerable and difficult stage.

However, I did learn about the kind of mother I want to be, and, god-willing, the kind of grandmother I might be in the future. I want my children to understand that loving someone does not entitle you to unlimited access to them. Maintaining relationships with family or friends should not mean sacrificing your own comfort or health. Love is a gift we give, not a toll we collect. Family is meant to be a source of support, not a management obligation.

And finally, their mother is a whole person in her own right, not just the body that birthed them.