'Grandparenting'

Many mothers I know who have to place their children in the care of caregivers face the same tussle - that of differing disciplinary doctrines and child-rearing philosophies from the caregivers'. Worse, if those caregivers are of family. Too lax discipline, too strict, when and how much ice-cream/candies/tv, mealtime philosophy yada yada....... From what I gather and from personal episodes, there are enough examples to fill a book.

It's probably one of the laws of nature that grandparents spoil their grandkids. After all, there's little consequence. At the end of the day, kids go home to their parents who must unfortunately provide some balance or worse, undo the damage of over-indulgence.

In the one week we've been here in Finland, I'm facing this issue for the first time. While my MIL who is really sweet and kind has taken over most of the job of playing and taking care of minibeanie, I am beginning to wonder if the luxury of sleeping in is a double-edged sword. In this one week, minibeanie has become much more vocal (which is a good thing undeniably) but in a wilful way. Now, I don't know if it's just the start of the 'Terrible Twos' phase but it feels more of a struggle getting him to end his playtime. Or I suspect, it could be my doting MIL who has real difficulty in saying no to a toddler. Oh well, it's only for 2 weeks and our MIL does respect the boundaries that we set.

I suppose I'm thankful that I'm in a position that where it comes to domestic governance, I don't have other vested parties other than my husband. It will be awful if I've to deal with a conflicting parenting doctrine on a daily basis. It's also a law of nature that there's always only one queen bee in the hive.


minibeanie is 1 year, 10 months, 2 weeks & 6 days old
microbeanie is 26 weeks 4 days in utero