I call my mom about once every two weeks now. Since the baby’s arrival, this frequency is probably the most that I can tolerate while still being sane. I recently found out that my uncle, my dad’s brother, had to have hip surgery; one hip had to be completely replaced. My cousin drove him to the hospital while a neighbor picked him up and offered to stay overnight with him to help him out since he’d have limited mobility. My parents have known about the hip surgery this entire time but never called or suggested they come over to visit or help. I knew this would be the case: my dad has a terrible relationship with his one living brother, and he holds grudges against him from their high school days. But eight years ago, when my dad had his heart surgery, my uncle was kind and visited him twice, once in the hospital and once at home. Nine years ago, when my brother died, he took my dad out to eat for his birthday the week after the funeral. He seemingly tried to forge some kind of relationship, but my dad is so socially awkward and blind that he couldn’t see that.

My mom was aware of the surgery, so she asked me about it. I asked her why she had to ask me when she could just call or text him herself. She got pretty angry and basically went off on a tangent, ranting about almost all the things my uncle has done that have been rude or mean or taken advantage of her and my dad. For a while, I just zoned out and did my work as she vented. I’d heard most of these stories before multiple times, but she loves to repeat herself and show she’s always the victim. I don’t doubt the truth in any of these stories, but I also don’t see a reason to constantly talk about the past. It wouldn’t hurt to drop off a single meal for his brother, but I know my dad wouldn’t do it. Grudges run deep with both my parents; forgiveness is not something they believe in.

I never suggested they bring something, though. But she got angry at me and said I’m asking too much to ask her to bring something for him.

“Ummm, do you hear anything that I say on the phone? I never asked you to do anything,” I said, while rolling my eyes internally.

“Oh, you didn’t?” my mom responded. “Well, you should forgive me! I’m disabled!!”

That sounded a bit facetious and sarcastic at the same time, but I let it go.

My mom wasn’t happy about the fact we were planning to hire a nanny. She kept saying over and over that “your own blood” takes care of your baby the best. When I asked if she was suggesting that I quit my job, she told me she didn’t want that, but what other option would there have been…? When she found out we finally hired one, she immediately asked me what the nanny’s race was. When I told my mom she was Jamaican, my mom responded, “Does that mean she’s Black?” She said the world “Black” in a near whisper. Why do Asian people of her generation always do that?

I told her to stop being so racist and that there was nothing wrong with Black people, or specifically, having a Black nanny. I told her we obviously vetted this person through not only references but also a trial, so we knew she’d be a good fit for us. My mom was nervous and completely unconvinced. It wasn’t until two weeks passed when she felt more at ease… after I let her know that Kaia greets our nanny with a smile each morning when she walks in.

“Can you send me a picture of what the nanny looks like?” my mom asked. “I want to see how dark she is…. I mean, what she looks like.”

“WHAT?” I responded, incredulously. “What is wrong with you? It doesn’t matter how light or dark skinned someone is, and who cares what she looks like if she’s getting the job done?!!!”

“It’s a reasonable request,” my mom insisted. “I just want to see what the nanny looks like. She takes care of my granddaughter all day, so I have a right to know what she looks like. I’m not prejudiced. I’m a Jehovah’s Witness. Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot be prejudiced.”

Uh-huh. Sure, they can’t.

Since my parents found out I was pregnant, they have been insanely overprotective and obnoxious about pretty much everything. They are not shy at all about criticizing me and my decisions, or about telling me when they disagree. One of my mom’s favorite things is to tell me she has more wisdom than me, so I should do what she says…. right. When I went to get the Covid vaccine last May, they both admonished me and said that I was being selfish, only thinking about myself being able to go out to eat and socialize as opposed to thinking about my unborn baby (it was actually the opposite, but hey, they have more wisdom than me!). When I got the COVID-19 booster shot, my mom got even more pissed, saying that I had no idea what risk I was putting my baby in just weeks before labor and delivery. And when I was in San Francisco back in August, Chris was holding back and trying to be very patient when my mother was fussing over me about literally everything: she got mad when I leaned over the dining table to get a dish during dinner, she did not want me bending down, and she obsessed over me eating cold foods. This was all annoying, but I expected it. And since we were only in San Francisco for one week, I put up with it. If I actually lived in the same city with her and had to deal with her fussing over me this much, I probably would’ve told her to take a hike and learn science. 

So, since the baby has arrived, I have tried to communicate to my mother that I’m not going to deal with her ridiculous nonsense. I stopped responding to all of her 5 million daily calls, and I tell them constantly to stop freaking out and that I’m doing what I’m going to do, and I am not going to listen to them. Chris particularly likes to egg them on by trolling them. He takes pleasure in getting reactions out of them because they are that predictable.

The latest episode of this was when one morning, Chris woke up to check on the baby before a feed to see that she had broken out of the swaddle that he had done in the middle of the night. It honestly looked like she was stuck in a big bag and trying to wiggle her way out. He thought this was absolutely hilarious, so he decided to take a video of it, completely aware that this was something that would totally piss off my parents and make them think that we were irresponsible parents to their grandchild. He immediately uploaded it as an unlisted video to YouTube, and that afternoon, he sent it via our group text that he created facetiously among my mom, dad, him and myself.  He laughed evilly and was just waiting for a reaction. 

Well, I took a nap after nursing the baby that early evening for just an hour. And when I woke up, I looked at my phone to see that there were two missed calls, one from my mom and one from my dad. There were also two voice messages, again, one from my mom and one from my dad. In addition to that, my mom sent me a direct text outside of the group text, asking me why I had covered up the baby’s face… She would not be able to breathe. I did not bother listening to the voice messages from both of my parents as I knew that they would be accusatory and irrational. Instead, I quickly looked at the audio transcript on my phone to see that both parents had accused me of suffocating my child – entirely predictable. The funny thing was, the way that my dad started the message was, “Yvonne: there is a video showing that the baby has her face covered.“ Well, considering that it was uploaded to my account, doesn’t he think that… I would know that the video existed?! Granted, they did not know that Chris used my phone to send them this video link, but considering that this is my YouTube account, why does he make it sound like there is a random video out there showing that our grandchild is about to suffocate that I would not be aware of? It’s as though this was news or something that we had no idea about, and that just seemed senseless.

I responded to my mom’s direct text with my usual sentiment: stop freaking out. And then, I ignored both the voice messages as well as the missed calls. On top of that, the next day, I refrained from sharing any photos or videos with them. I cannot deal with their nonsense.

And the more that I think about it, the more ridiculous my dad‘s involvement in this is. To give you some context, my dad has not called me directly probably since September of last year. Even after the baby arrived, he never had any direct voice contact with me until this call. He has only sent me these basic 1 to 2 sentence emails. He has also sent me a handful of texts, but mostly in response to videos and photos that I sent of the baby. The most substantial text he has sent is, “Nice,” or “interesting,” or “very good.” So as you can see, he is not particularly interactive or talkative or… Really involved. 

And when I really, really think about it, it’s ridiculous that he even has these responses considering the fact that he was not really even actively involved in my life while I was a child or my brother’s life except to criticize us. Sure, he paid the bills and made sure we had a roof over our head, but in terms of day-to-day interaction, there was a little to none unless it was a put down. When I think back to my childhood, there was never a time when my dad spent any quality one on one time with either my brother or me. He really did not know us, our interests or hobbies, nor did he make any attempt to show he wanted to build a bond with us or be interested in our lives and development. In fact, he spent more quality one on one time with my pet parakeet. Every night, when he would get home from work, he would spend about 30 minutes to one hour downstairs in the bird’s room, talking to Willie my parakeet, playing with him, and having one on one time with his favorite child… my parakeet Willie.  He never did that with Ed or me. In fact, he barely even said anything to either of us when we were at the dinner table. How does this even make any sense? So now, fast forward to 36 to 43 years later, and he suddenly has all kinds of opinions about my child, his grandchild! And that, when I think about it, is very infuriating. 

So no, I’m not going to put up with them.  And no, I am not going to deal with the fact that they have zero sense of humor and are stuck in their ways, and think that their parenting is the best. Because as you can see from the above, it is clear that their parenting is not the best.

I had been dreading my cousin and his family coming over. They live fairly close, just right across the park on the Upper East Side, but his entire marriage and the way he and his wife have raised their son just screams dysfunctional. She blames him for everything, and he blames her for everything. Each sees themselves as a victim and the other as the reason for their misery. It’s truly a match made in hell, and you wonder how these two people even got married and had a kid together. There is very little joy in meeting up with them. The last time I had seen them, I went to help them move from their old apartment on the Upper West Side to the new place on the east side. Every time my cousin asked his wife a question, she would ignore him. When I would ask her something or tell her something, she’d immediately respond. Well, nothing had changed, as this same situation repeated itself when they showed up today. It was made even more awkward by the fact that their son was with them, and he is not totally all there. The baby was clearly with me, and he asked where the baby was. He had no interest in seeing or really interacting with my child at all even though he claimed he did when he walked in. And his mother was constantly grabbing and holding him even though he’s almost 10 years old. All of them kept their masks on the entire time, and seemingly were too scared to touch anything in our apartment in fear that we would likely give them COVID. They wouldn’t even take a glass of water from us to drink. My cousin barely even looked at my child and was on his phone almost the entire time.

So yeah, that was a fun and riveting visit. At least they dropped off two brand new play mats for my baby.

My one cousin who lives in New York has suggested that he, his wife, and son come to our apartment to visit our baby for the first time. While in regular circumstances, this would be a happy visit, in my circumstance, or at least, with my cousin’s life, this is not a happy visit. He has a miserable work life and and arguably worse family life, and he complains like no one else I’ve ever known in my entire life. Woe is always him, and he’s always a victim. Chris can’t stand him for obvious reasons and does not want him coming over. So the easy way to push this visit out is to blame the rising rates of positive Omicron cases and to say we are holding off on visitors due to this, which my cousin would easily understand. I can’t use that excuse forever, but at least for now, I can keep his negativity at bay from my family.

In general, whenever I have been invited to a wedding or baby shower, if the couple has a registry, I will always buy a gift from the registry or give cash. This makes the lives of all of us much easier: we know that the couple will like and appreciate the gift because, well, they themselves chose it. And there’s no guesswork needed, nor is there pressure in terms of how creative you can get with the gift. I recently finished reading Adam Grant’s book Give and Take, and in it, he succinctly says that if you are a giver (in other words, a good human :D), you will buy a gift off a registry or give cash. What you will not do is try to go off registry and buy something else… because in that case, you are thinking about yourself and your own orientation and what you think would be best for them. And in sum, a gift is supposed to be about the recipient, NOT the giver.

So it was weird when I received a long-winded email from my uncle when he wanted to explain that he didn’t get us something off our baby registry and decided to go with something else. While I am always appreciative of gifts and do not expect gifts (I mean, I’m not forcing anyone to get us a gift), this was just odd. He said that given the ongoing pandemic, he wanted to get us something fitting, which ended up being… an automated soap dispenser with soap refill. “This way, both parents and baby will keep safe,” he explained.

A soap dispenser isn’t baby or mama related directly, and his rationale for going with this just seemed so strange and out there. In addition, we already have an automated soap dispenser, so why does he think this is such a superior gift compared to any of the items I had added to our registry? The most absurd part is that he purposely didn’t even check off the “this is a gift” box on Amazon and just had it sent without a tracking or order number (he admitted this when I told him the item came already open/seemingly used), and without the ability to return or exchange it. My uncle has sent me many gifts from Amazon previously over the years, and he had always checked this box off before. So in my head, I wondered if he did this purposely and/or even facetiously.

Regardless, we were able to return it and get Amazon credit for it, but in the back of my mind, I wonder what real rationale he had when he did this and if he was trying to send some weird message to us in doing so.

When I originally set up the baby gift registry, I knew my mom was going to pry and try to find out who gave me what and basically calculate the “value” of each gift. Granted, she’s not that computer savvy, so it’s not like she’s going to make me send her specific links for who bought what off the registry, but that’s just the kind of person she is. When it’s come to pretty much every event, whether it’s a birthday, graduation, wedding, when she finds out what someone has given me, she has either opened up the envelope (amazing and classic her) or gift, or done a mental calculation in her head of the value of the gift. For her, gift giving is purely quid pro quo — if she’s given the person a gift of say, $100 in the past, she expects a gift of that value in the future for herself or for me. It’s pretty exhausting and infuriating.

So when the baby registry gifts have been coming in, she tries to ask who has given what, but I give very broad-stroked responses, “Oh, she bought the baby swaddles and bibs,” or “He got the baby a bunch of toys.” I don’t tell the quantity or the exact item name because I know she will try to get my dad to open the registry and actually do a calculation.

When I give a gift, I just want to give a gift. I don’t want to obsess over what that person will give me for a future event or expect a “payback” in the future. I used to think similarly to my mom since that’s what I was taught and what I knew, but my thinking on gift giving has evolved. I will give a gift if I want to do it. I should feel good doing it. I should feel good about the item I’ve chosen to give. I don’t really expect something of the exact same value in return. At the end of the day, not everyone is of the same means as me, and others have more or less, so gift giving is what it is, and I’m grateful for anyone to give me or my child anything because at the end of the day, no one “owes” me anything. Also, not all “gifts” are physical or can have an exact dollar amount assigned to them. That’s not a concept that my mom can quite wrap her head around.