I need "grandma fever" explained

[tarheels]

MIL knows better, but occasionally she'll drop a comment about how she's desperate for a grandchild and wants to hold a baby sooo badly. Apparently last summer, she actually wrote a poem about how neither of her DILs hear their biological clocks ringing and the family will disintegrate into dust because we aren't reproducing quickly enough. She read this out loud to her SILs (our aunts) at our annual family picnic, but I was outside and missed it. My SIL was piiiissed.

What? WTH are you talking about? Get a hobby. Adopt another dog. Hold your friend's grandbaby. The status of my uterus is none of your business.

So do any of you have mothers or MILs demanding grandchildren? This feels different than "You guys should have kids" because she's saying, "I want to hold a grandbaby" and "I wish there were children around." Or maybe it's the same thing, she's just intelligent enough to word it differently It does seem like it's so much about her though since the comments are always about holding a baby and being a grandma and never about us.

Obv, us TTCing is super top secret. The only people who know are you strangers on the internet. If MIL heard, we'd never hear the end of it.

[FastHands]

Ugh that is so frustrating!!
We get subtle hints from MIL, but I pretty much standardly ignore her on everything. My mom has said things, and I know she and my dad would be great grandparents and I look forward to seeing them in that role... but my mom knows we needed to take care of a few things first before we would consider TTC, so she doesn't push much. She does NOT know that those things have already been taken care of. lol

[winecheery]

Miraculously, no excessive pressure from mom or MIL. They want grandkids like whoa, but they're gracious.

Other older women in my life, not so gracious I'm putting on a GREAT show, making everyone think we're not ready to ttc, and that we're still waiting. And that I'm still on the pill. Yes, I've been asked that.

OH! I had my 8 year old students heckling me the other day!

It was my first class with this group, and I was telling them a little bit about me, and I'm all "I'm winecheery, I live in a house with DH and two kitties and I love ice cream etc"

Their responses...I shit you not, verbatim: "Oh so you're married...but no kids??" "Why don't you have kids??" "But you want kids, right??!"

To be honest coming from them it was kind of adorable in a way...but seriously?! Even kids heckling me!!!

[winecheery]

Oh and your MIL sounds effing obnoxious. I bet she thinks she's being subtle.

[rt2008]

Yikes, I could not handle that! Thankfully, there's no pressure on us from either of our parents because we each have a sibling that has a kid. However, occasionally we'll get questioned about kids from DH's brother, because his kid "needs cousins to play with".

[HoneySpider]

Oh yikes, that is horrible!

My parents would say things here and there but since SIL got pregnant, no one focuses on me anymore. So pressure's off for now.

My mom was actually getting annoyed by HER friends that would ask her which one of her kids she thought would give her the first grandchild. And brother and SIL just got married last year so not like it's been a while. (3 years for DH & I since we got married)

[HoneySpider]

Ok off topic but is there an abbreviation for brother?

I am always writing brother and SIL. There's got to be something shorter I'm missing.

[berbles]

My MIL pushed a little bit, a while back. Then they lost their house and lived with us for a year. I haven't heard a PEEP about grandchildren since then! Smoking weed and binge drinking, FTW!

[HoneySpider]

Oct 2, 2012 16:32:33 GMT -5 berbles said:

My MIL pushed a little bit, a while back. Then they lost their house and lived with us for a year. I haven't heard a PEEP about grandchildren since then! Smoking weed and binge drinking, FTW!

Lol! :Y:

[thoseareradishes]

My parents already have a few grandkids (including one that they primarily take care of), and so do my in-laws, so no pressure there. My sisters are getting antsy for me though

[berbles]

I think the person who bugs me the most about having kids is the owner of the nail salon my mom and I go to! LOL! We've been going there since before I was married (5 years ago) so she's like GET ON IT ALREADY!

[Deleted]

Both my parents and his parents already have grandkids, so we're not getting too much pressure. I think people are curious, but thank God that for now they are keeping it to their own d*mn selves and not asking. TTC is super-top-secret for us too.

[statlerwaldorf]

There was a little pressure on us when we first got married. There had been a baby gap in our family between the generations. I was the first to get married and have kids.

[berbles]

We were trying to keep it secret, but with my new IF issues/surgery(ies) I think our cover is mostly blown. Well, at least to our families.

[Cheesecake]

Before my parents ever mentioned anything, I let them know that if either one EVER says something, they can be sure they'll NEVER get to hold a grandbaby.
It's bad enough to constantly hear about their friends becoming grandparents, no way I could deal with that pressure.

But I have a pretty disturbed relationship with my parents anyway, this would probably be too extreme for most people.

My ILs are fortunately WAY too polite to ever bring up us having children.

Sent from my phone, please disregard typos

[lauree1183]

Before we even got married at 21 and 22 MIL was talking about grandkids from us. We were very firm that it would be ten years. We didn't want to get her hopes up and wanted her to realize it was going to be a while. After about a year of hearing that she finally stopped bringing it up.

Now pretty much all of our friends have kids and I think she very much realizes that we will begin trying soon. She has two grandbabies under two from BIL but they are a 3 hour flight away so she is beyond excited to have local grandbabies from us eventually.

[TemperanceBrennan]

My MIL use to bring it up every time we saw her. Then my H made a big deal out of it once, now she doesn't bring it up as much. He is an only child and all of her brothers and sisters have grandchildren, so she is pretty anxious to have some of her own. We've been married for a long time so I kind of understand why people keep asking, but really, it isn't anybody else's business. Once she was holding a baby and said "See, I can do the grandma thing." My response was "yes, that is what we are worried about."
I do want to say, I have a very good MIL, I lucked out. But, she gets a little excited about grandchildren.