My parents were pretty strict with Ed and me growing up. From my perspective, in their eyes, it seemed like we could never do anything right and were constantly fucking up something. If I had a dollar for every memory I had when one of us was getting scolded, yelled at, told off, lectured, slapped, hit, or beaten with a fly swatter, I’d have a pretty cushy investment account on my hands today. So it was a weird transition to hear some of the things that came out of my mom’s mouth when it came to how I parent my own child… and how lax she is.

While on the phone with my mom with Kaia there, sometimes Kaia runs around and gets in potentially unsafe territory, so I have to use my stern voice with her. I am not necessarily yelling, but my tone has become more strict and direct. My mom has scolded me and told me not to yell at her, saying it will scare her and wasn’t good for her. Welp, that’s interesting. Does she suddenly have total amnesia over all the times she yelled or hit us as children for the most benign and objectively not wrong actions we did?

Then last week after I gave Kaia a shower, I told her she had to go to the bedroom after so I could blow dry her hair. She had to go do it immediately. Well, Kaia is stubborn and wanted to do things her way, so she said she wanted to go say hi to Popo first before blow-drying. I said no again. She started crying and yelling. Then Kaia ran off, right into my parents’ bedroom and into my mom’s arms.

“What did mommy do?” my mom said to Kaia, holding her and rubbing her back. “What did she do to make my Kaia cry?” Then, my mom turned her eyes up to glare at me. “What did you do to her? What did you do to make her cry? Don’t make her cry!”

As my mom stared up at me, so did Kaia. Kaia’s eyes turned cold, and she started mimicking my mom from her perspective. “Yeah! You made me cry! You made me cry!” Then, she started sobbing even more to get more sympathy and cuddles from my mom. What a little hack.

Okay, at this point, this was clearly an act. My mom was obviously exacerbating it even more, and this was not helping at all. I told my mom that I needed her to blow dry her hair first before coming to say good night to her and my dad, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. At her age, she needs discipline. But of course, it’s not up to the freaking grandparents to instill discipline; it’s up to the parents! I grabbed Kaia and pulled her back into my bedroom to blow dry her hair.

Grandparents will rarely be strict with their grandchildren. It’s just the way it is. But I will never forget the double cold glares I got from both my mom and my child at the exact same time. Talk about manipulation!