u/Prudent-Teaching2881

My son will be 1. He will not remember any of it. We are already strapped for cash after having bought a house recently and then an already well in advance planned trip to visit my parents abroad. My husband wants to have a party. I don’t think it’s sensible. He is already in a lot of debt from borrowing from family to do our house up. I’ve said I’m happy to invite his mum, dad, their respective spouses and my husband’s siblings to our house for cake. But my husband (and his mum) seem to want to hire a hall, order catering, invite the entire extended family, splash a load of cash and just make it into a huge thing. And I know we will either end up borrowing money from my husband’s stepdad to whom we already over £4k to or it will come out from my earnings. If we half arse if my MIL will cause a massive drama and it will not be enjoyable for anyone and if we go all out how her and my husband are expecting it will be too expensive for my husband’s wage alone. My MIL says she will help us pay for it, but it’s not even her own money that she’d be using it’d be my husband’s stepdad and, as I said, we owe him a lot already. Not to mention I won’t be able to invite any of my own family because my MIL would make a massive deal out of this too if she is paying for it because this is exactly what she did on my wedding.

I just don’t think it’s necessary or sensible to have a massive fuck off party for a 1 year old who won’t remember and probably just wants to play with his aunties and uncles rather than be paraded about and passed round like a toy to random extended family members he has never met - a small little get together in our home that we can afford without having to remortgage the house is fine in my view. I hate that I’m being pressured into this when I will likely have to end up dealing with the fallout. I’m the only one considering the actual repercussions and feasibility of having that party. It just feels like a lot of hassle and the one who is meant to be benefiting (my son) won’t have any fun whatsoever. My MIL and husband just want an excuse to show off to their extended family.

Had a friend since high school, we weren’t friends during high school but we were friendly. Then during uni we reconnected and became friends, in fact, there was a whole group of us who reconnected and became close friends during that time. We all graduated, I got married, moved away, had a baby etc. but I still always met my friends and made plans with them as a group and individually too. This one friend, I thought we were pretty close. I invited her to my wedding. She even brought her husband to meet my son. She was at my baby shower. She invited me to her wedding too but I gave birth to my baby the same day so couldn’t attend. I still sent gifts and stuff though. All of us friends are in multiple group chats across multiple platforms. Anyway, a couple months after she got married I noticed that she unadded me on Snapchat. I thought maybe it happened by accident so I requested her. It’s been over 5 months and she hasn’t accepted the request. Then she left a groupchat with me and 3 other girls who were the closest out of the larger group. Her reasoning (after one of the other girls asked) was that she felt that it was better that she left the group as the remaining 4 of us were closer. I sent her Eid wishes and she never replied I thought maybe she is busy with married life. But today I messaged her on Instagram and she has unfollowed me or blocked me. And it’s only me she has unfollowed or blocked because I asked my other friends if she had unfollowed them or still spoke to them. I’m so hurt and confused. I don’t know why she didn’t just say if I had done something to upset her. I’ve been singled out from the entire friend group for no apparent reason.

How often do your in-laws come around to visit? Mine specifically come to see my son, which I completely understand because they love him, but they want to come over CONSTANTLY and it’s becoming exhausting.

The biggest issue for me is that they don’t always properly ask. They’ll just say they’re nearby and want to “pop in”, as though that automatically means they can come over. I’m quite blunt with boundaries, so if it doesn’t suit us I’ll say, “Sorry, we’re busy today, you can come another day.” But then they’ll start asking my husband instead. He does say no, but because he’s their son, they’ll bombard him with texts and calls and keep pushing. And it isn’t even just his mum. It’s his dad and members of his extended family too. Sometimes it feels like everyone is messaging at once.

I also recently had a miscarriage. I’m still in a lot of pain and obviously it has been very distressing. We’ve only told my MIL. She has helped us, which I genuinely appreciate. She watched our son when we had to go into hospital five days ago, and she also cooked some food for me afterwards.
But the day before the miscarriage, I had my FIL, his wife and their kids over. I was already suffering with really bad early-pregnancy symptoms. I felt extremely sick and completely exhausted. I invited them over for 6pm and they stayed until MIDNIGHT. I repeatedly tried to make it obvious that I needed the evening to end. I put my son to bed, started clearing everything away, changed into my pyjamas and literally told them I was tired. They still stayed.
Then yesterday my husband’s cousin had a birthday party and my FIL wanted our son to go. I’m still bleeding, I’m in a lot of pain, and I genuinely need my husband around at the moment. I’m struggling with basic things like cooking, cleaning and even walking up the stairs because I’m in so much pain. The miscarriage has also, for some reason, triggered anxiety disorders I already had which had previously been very well controlled.

Despite all of that, my FIL kept telling my husband to “try” to come to the party. He said I looked fine the last time he saw me and basically suggested that my husband should just leave me at home and bring the baby without me. I found that incredibly frustrating because looking fine does not mean I am fine, and I don’t think anybody else gets to decide how much support I need after having a miscarriage.

Just to put the amount of contact into perspective, in the last week alone my MIL has been to our house FOUR times. She has also had my son by herself for two nights in a row. My FIL, his wife and kids have been to our house once, and then today he wanted to “pop in” again simply because he happened to be in the area. Yesterday he was pushing for us to drop everything and attend the cousin’s birthday party. And now, on top of that, MIL wants to come to our house again today.

And I’m just at the point of thinking: why can’t we be left alone in our own house for a bit? We have our own lives going on too. Not everything can revolve around when the grandparents want to see our son.
We have NOT been withholding him from them. Quite the opposite. We absolutely want our son to have a good relationship with his grandparents. I want him surrounded by people who clearly love him, and I appreciate that they want to spend time with him. I’m not trying to stop that relationship at all.

But surely wanting a relationship with your grandchild doesn’t mean you get unlimited access whenever you feel like it? I can’t constantly be expected to accommodate people, have visitors in my home, change our plans or hand over my son simply because somebody has decided that they want to see him that day.

Sometimes we are busy. Sometimes the house isn’t ready for visitors. Sometimes I don’t want to host anybody. Sometimes we just want to spend time together as our own little family. And right now, five days after a miscarriage while I’m still bleeding, in pain and struggling physically and mentally, I especially don’t want people constantly turning up or pressuring my husband because they want access to our son.

I don’t think asking people to arrange visits with us first is unreasonable. I don’t think saying “not today, another day” means we’re preventing anyone from having a relationship with him. I just want people to understand that he is our child and this is our home. We’re allowed to decide when we’re available, and “no” shouldn’t result in multiple texts, phone calls and attempts to get the other parent to change the answer. Just a rant!

Does anyone have a masoor dhaal recipe that doesn’t use onions? I don’t have any onions on me right now and I’ve never made dhaal before, but I’m craving it a lot. I also don’t have a pressure cooker or anything.

If I had to explain my view to someone I would say I’m a hadith skeptic as I don’t outright reject them - if they align with the Quran I’d accept it as truth because the Quran is the criterion upon everything so if anything said the same thing as the Quran I’d accept that specific thing it said as truth - if that makes sense. I’d also say I follow the Quran alone.

Does it ever scare you that you might be wrong? How do we know we are right when it only makes sense to us? Everyone else seems to have accepted the mainstream way of Islam is correct. We are a minority. What if we are wrong and end up in hell?

Struggling with the feeling that I could be wrong about my views of Islam.

This was not the plan at all. My husband and I didn’t want another child for like another 5 years until our first was in school, so I’m lowkey shitting it. But hey ho.

Does anyone have any good recommendations for double pushchairs that for a 13 month old and a newborn? It needs to be reasonably affordable, I would like if you could attach the car seat onto the frame too, and for the basket to be a reasonable size.

First baby is called Habib. We don’t know if we’re having a girl or boy yet, so we are looking for options for both. We really liked the name Noorah for a girl, but a relative named their child a very, very similar name so we don’t want to use that name anymore. We like to use unique, but not strange, names. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I just found out I’m unexpectedly pregnant again 7 months pp. Probably going to need a double pushchair, so I’d appreciate if you guys could share your recommendations so I can focus on the less stressful aspects of the fact that I will soon have two under two.

I’ve done such a stupid and dumb thing and I’ve ended up pregnant 7 (almost 8) months pp after a c-section birth. I feel so stupid and angry at myself rn.

Can someone please tell me their success stories of having with a small gap like this? I really need some reassurance because I’ve convinced myself it’s all going to go wrong and I’m going to die.

When I had my baby my MIL hosted a party with her entire extended family 3 days postpartum. I was expected to come down and pass my baby around like a parcel for the whole day. The entire of my husband’s extended family turned up and not a single one of them had the decency to think how inappropriate the invite was. I got zero rest because people were also turning up in my room to ‘see the baby’ but we were both fast asleep.

My FIL - who is not welcome in MILs house - decided he wanted me to visit him. So in the dead middle of winter 7 days postpartum I was TOLD I needed to go to his house so he could meet his grandchild. I had just had a c-section and could barely walk down the stairs let alone travel to visit him.

Both MIL and FIL had barged their way into the hospital too even though I had requested they wait until we were out of the hospital. Not to mention, my husband’s uncle said he would come and find me in the hospital because he worked there so he could ‘see the baby before everyone else’. I am so glad I went to a hospital further away on purpose because that meant nobody knew where I was for the first couple hours and I got some peace.

My MIL and FIL have ignored all the rules with our son and then get offended when we no longer trust them around him. FIL and that one particular uncle of my husband’s have both sworn at my husband for upholding boundaries.

We’ve recently moved into our own home. Now we are getting bombarded by my husband’s relatives to invite them to our home. My MIL alone has turned up unannounced to our house 3x in the last week and is still asking to visit again. I told her no. And now she’s arsey with me. My husband’s stepmum got very passive aggressive when I told her we weren’t ready for visitors - like we moved in 2 weeks ago, we have barely had time to unpack and you want us to invite you around to eat? My husband’s cousin actually triangulated pressure to visit our house to my MIL who has now been pressuring both myself and my husband to ‘keep family ties’. Maybe relatives should consider US as well, not just the other way around. Now my husband’s grandparents are saying they want to visit ‘today or tomorrow’. Like did you never consider the possibility that I’m busy today or tomorrow?

And let’s be honest, hosting is always left to the DIL. The things my husband think are not important are always commented on by his family so I’d rather host when I have the bandwidth to deal with them. I really don’t like any of them that much because they are SO overbearing. I’m not their daughter or their granddaughter or their cousin or their niece. They feel entitled to my time and effort, but they don’t treat me like I’m part of their family. I’m so overwhelmed by them. Literally every argument my husband and I have is because of them.

IMPORTANT CONTEXT: we have moved into our own place about 2 weeks ago, prior to that I was living between my own parent’s house and my in-laws house. My in laws and parents houses are 4 hours apart from each other. Our new house is less than 5 mins down the road from MIL.

I have finally moved out of MILs house. Me and her are getting on a lot better because our time together is limited and I can leave whenever I want. I invited her, her husband and her kids to mine a few times for dinner. I am not okay with unannounced visits.

Anyway, this weekend I am extremely busy. Tomorrow I am going to IKEA after work to buy shelves for my pantry and I’m going to sort my pantry out tomorrow because we have things overflowing into the kitchen and it’s just not safe with a newly mobile baby. Then on Sunday I’ve invited my FIL, his wife and kids over for dinner so I have to prepare for that on Saturday as it’s the first time they are coming over and I want to organise something nice for them. Not to mention we only just moved into our house 2 weeks ago and we have a lot of small jobs to do and organising to do too. Furthermore, my son is newly weaned off breastfeeding and he’s extremely fussy and I barely get any sleep nowadays.

My MIL came over on Monday, then on Wednesday and she ‘left her bag here’ and came back again today. I heard her asking at the door if the baby was awake and my husband told her he wasn’t so she left. All of these were unannounced visits. It’s so jarring that she lives just down the road and can basically keep an eye on whenever we are at home and just turn up then.

Today she asked me over text if she can come tomorrow to play with our son.

Now I don’t want to host her or for her to come when I’m busy, I don’t trust her with my son alone because of things that have happened in the past, but I feel like saying no is going to cause bigger problems and my husband and I cannot cope with any more stress. I just don’t have the bandwidth to cope with everything rn and she’s just adding to it.

I’m not saying she can never come, but not tomorrow. Not this weekend. She can come next week when we are a bit more free and don’t have other things going on.

One for the ladies here, seeing as the men had a lot of say on that other post.

For me, not having a provider mindset, not wanting to be an active parent, engaging in any of this red pill nonsense, making any misogynist jokes, expecting me to be the sole person cooking and cleaning, me to financially contribute, expecting me to live with your parents.

A couple years ago when I was getting married, my husband’s family were coming to meet my family in my grandma’s home. Every family gathering happened at my grandma’s house. My uncle also lived in this house and basically took care of everything. Anyways, a few weeks beforehand everyone decided to help out and renovate the home because in our culture we have quite a few wedding events and it would mostly all be held at my grandma’s house. We all rallied together to paint the home, give it a deep clean and fix some things that had been broken. Everyone chipped in, aunties, uncles, cousins, my own parents and siblings. The uncle who lived in my grandmas house was basically project managing everything which is fair enough, but he didn’t really help out physically that much. Then my mum suggested that we all take a break for an hour and eat food, my uncle said no because we are on a time limit. Somehow from that the conversation became a bit heated. My uncle said to my mum that it was his house so what he says goes. He swore at her and told her if she didn’t like it she could f-off home while the whole family was sat watching. I also mentioned that to everyone when they came to talk to me about it, everyone watched while my mum who is the oldest person in our family barring my grandma was being insulted and belittled and sworn at by her youngest brother who she basically brought up. I obviously can’t tolerate someone swearing at my mum, idc who it is, so I said to my uncle that it wasn’t his house and it was my grandma’s house and that he needs to stop speaking to my mum like that. My uncle shouted back at me saying it’s his house and he pays all the bills. My uncle kept yelling at my mum and then my mum said ‘okay if you keep speaking to me like this I’m leaving’ and she did. I followed. I took my siblings too. After that, I refused to speak to my uncle. I said if he apologised to my mum (not to me), then yeah, I’d reconcile with him, but he refused. I’ve had multiple family member over the years try to convince me to reconcile and let go of the grudge. But to me it’s not a grudge, it’s about the principle. If I am present, my mum is my mum, not your sister. What happens privately between brother and sister is not my concern, but I’m not about to tolerate someone insulting MY mum in front of me. I am civil with him, but I don’t go beyond that. I don’t invite him to my home. I don’t speak to him regularly. I don’t ask to meet. I moved about 4 hours away from the rest of my family, he is the only relative of mine who lives nearby, but I still don’t make an active effort to include him in my life. It’s now been 3 years and I still don’t talk to him because he has never apologised. He’s still my uncle and I love him, we had a great relationship prior to this event because he’s only 13 years older than me. It’s a shame we don’t talk anymore. Recently, he has moved homes and is now living less than an hour away from me. I have no family close nearby. I have other family members encouraging me to make up with him, but I’m on the edge.

Do you think I acted inappropriately? Do you think it’s time to let it go?

I resent the idea that having guests is like having angels in your home or welcomes angels into your home. I hate that idea so much. The ONLY people who actually do the work for ‘guests’ when they turn up rudely unannounced or just ‘check in’ is women. Men sit down and have a natter, get served tea, get served food, while women have to drop the other 100 things they planned to do that day and cook courses upon courses of food, clean, serve, host and then at the end of it still hear shit being talked about them behind their back within their family circles because someone judged their home/life.

And what’s worse is women get pressured into accepting it and just dealing with it because apparently having guests is like having angels in your home. What happened to Islam advocating for our right to PRIVACY and AUTONOMY? Why doesn’t that apply for guests who think it’s okay to turn up at your door on a random Tuesday evening when you’re a working mother, it’s your kids’ bedtime and you’re in the middle of trying to get them to sleep, do the laundry, wash dishes and then also entertain and host your guests too?

Even if a man does help, the house is always considered a woman’s domain so anything out of place gets commented on and judged.

I will never ever answer the door if a guest turns up unannounced. Idc if you can see me inside.

My son is 7 months, every time I breastfeed him he pinches, scratches and digs his nails into my breast. It hurts so bad. I have tiny cuts all over my breast and they just feel so sore and bruised. I’ve tried cutting his nails short, but somehow he still manages to dig his nails in and it hurts. I’ve tried redirecting his hands, but he pretty much fights with me to get his hand back onto my breast to continue pinching or scratching or digging his nails in. Once or twice I have yelled out in pain and it has scared him and he started crying and I felt so guilty and bad. Has anyone else experienced this and found a solution? I really don’t want to stop breastfeeding but I feel this may be the last straw for me.

I was just watching Brooklyn 99 and I realised in series 6 I think the actor playing Gary is the same one who is playing that temp worker who had a history or philosophy degree (I can’t remember), and then peed in the store.

Has anyone else noticed? I just thought that was a nice little crossover of two of my favourite shows.

Ali G, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, has made a new Instagram account and there’s rumours he is going to make another Ali G film.

I just watched a reel saying that Ali G is a racist caricature of a black man and of black culture. I was always under the impression that Ali G is poking fun at white boys trying to act black, with ‘blaccent’, with the clothing etc. especially considering his full name (Alistair Leslie Graham), the fact his grandma is a white woman, all his friends are white etc. and it came across to me that Ali G was portrayed as a British White man. But maybe I misunderstood. I don’t think it’s racist, but I do think it is a satire of cultural imitation and media stereotypes of the younger generation.

What’s your thoughts?

My husband has had a word with my MIL and she’s sent a message to me saying she’s sorry for taking the photos, she knows I don’t like it and she won’t do it again. But I’m a little annoyed at my husband because now it just looks like this wasn’t a joint boundary. I feel a bit thrown under the bus. Am I overreacting? Is this the best I’m going to get as a solution?

I had my first baby about 6 months ago. Very soon after having our son, my husband and I decided we want a small age gap between our son and our next and final child. While I do agree with his reasoning and I am happy to go ahead with it, part of it worries me too as I will likely be solo parenting for a majority of the day everyday.

Pros:
\- every single set of siblings we have seen that are close in age (I’m talking 1-3 years gap) have been very close and have an amazing relationship. I recently went on holiday with family with my two cousins who are 14 and 16 and it was like they were best friends. My own siblings are 7 and 10 and they fight loads, but they are extremely protective and loving towards each other too. My husband and I both have huge age gaps with our siblings, so perhaps this is a little bit of projection on our part as we would have loved to have sibling closer in age to us. Both of us grew up pretty lonely and more like third parents than as siblings.
\- it teaches kids to share, to be empathetic, to be thoughtful of others (I don’t want my son to have only child syndrome)
\- I can get parenting little children over and done with quickly than if I had a larger age gap which would mean I will have to start all over again and it will undo all my work of fixing my health and al my weight rather than doing it one after the other
\- it means we don’t have to repurchase everything all over again, most of what I bought for my son was gender neutral specifically so we could use it again for another child, but things often get forgotten about or lost in storage and I’ve looked after things like his car seat and pushchair and would be happy to use them again for our next child.
\- they can learn off each other, if I’m teaching my eldest to be potty trained then my youngest will naturally want to copy those things too and it will be easier to teach those same skills again very close together than years apart.
\- they will have similar routines, similar bedtime, similar meals, enjoy similar outings etc.

Con:
\- I will have to miss out on yet even more time from work which puts my career on the backseat for longer and I’ve worked really hard to get where I am right now.
\- I’ve put on a lot of weight and I am keen to get it down, but pregnancy and postpartum and breastfeeding do not help at all
\- I don’t have a good relationship with my in-laws and I don’t have much other family near by, but I know if I have a smaller age gap between my children I will 100% need help from others
\- pregnancy was extremely difficult for me, I had extreme pelvic pain called SPD, I had really terrible morning sickness and severe gestational diabetes too so I literally couldn’t eat anything, but was always hungry it took a massive toll on my mental health
\- my husband and I love to be spontaneous, which is hard enough with one child, but with 2 it would be so much harder to do an impromptu day out or a last minute trip away. That’s something that makes both my husband and I happy and gives us a fun break from day to day life. While my husband might be happy to sacrifice this for a bit, I do worry if it takes the fun out of our life if we can’t do that anymore.
\- I have ADHD and was medicated not that long before I found out I was pregnant with my son. The meds really helped me, but getting pregnant again means having to come off them very soon again and I liked how I was on them. I felt confident and organised and regulated. Not to mention, my memory is not where it was prior to getting pregnant. I feel like l have the memory of a goldfish now.
\- looking after a toddler and a baby is very, very difficult. Although it isn’t the same at all, I have occasionally babysat for my aunty who has a 4 year old and a 2 year old while also having my son with me. It’s a nightmare. I’m done out by the time she is back and she only ever leaves us for about 2 hours 😭😭
\- It means less 1-1 attention for both babies. I won’t be able to give my full attention to either. My son isn’t jealous (it’s a bit early to tell, but he isn’t bothered if I hold another baby or something) but I feel a little guilty about the fact that he may not understand why my attention has shifted onto a new baby rather than him. That makes me kinda sad.

I’d like some input from parents who have big age gaps and smaller age gaps so I can weigh up the pros and cons that maybe I haven’t thought out.

I’m not really open to discussing whether our rule is reasonable or not, it’s our rule and we have decided on it because that’s what we want for our child.

My MIL and her family all post on TikTok and Instagram and on their WhatsApp stories etc. they have people on these accounts that we don’t know mostly because their accounts are public. We do not want our son being posted publicly at all. We don’t think it’s safe.

My MIL is well aware of this rule. Her children are well aware of this rule.

We had a family bbq tonight and the family were taking photos of everything, which is fair enough. I did not want my child to be recorded so I turned his face away from the cameras. I had to tell a few family members not to record me or my son when I noticed them trying to record us. I got up and left the area at that point as I didn’t want anyone to be put out because of our no recording rule. It’s a family bbq and everyone is free to do what they want to do, but they’re not free to record me or my son so I moved away.

My son is playing on the swing with one of his cousins, my MIL tells me to take a photo, so I do. She does this because we’ve previously said we will take photos on our own phone. We want to capture memories too, but in a safe and controlled way. The world is extremely disgusting and once a photo leaves your camera roll and is sent to someone else you don’t have control over where it can go and it may end up into a evil person’s hands. That’s our reasoning.

We’re happy for grandparents to see one time viewing photos of baby or to view his photo album whenever they come around, just not have digital pictures of him as they have shown they can’t be trusted to respect our rules. MIL has repeatedly sent photos out to people of our son and post him publically despite us asking her not to. Because of this and to be fair, neither set of grandparents get normal photos now.

Anyways, at this point everyone is gathering together for a family photo, MIL tells me to join in. I am holding the baby, looking for my husband so I can pass him the baby so he won’t be in shot. I can’t find him, but because I am stood slightly in frame (without realising), she uses that as her opportunity to take many pictures of our son on her own phone. If it was a case of it having slipped her mind, fair enough, but she literally asked me to take a photo of my son 10 minutes prior to this. She did it on purpose! She got her golden opportunity.

Not only that, but about 30 mins later she tried to feed my 6 month old cake and custard. We don’t give him anything sugary, I take so much effort to feed my son healthy, natural and safe foods and she took one second to bypass me on that. Even though she asked me outright if my son could have it and I very clearly said no, she gave him a spoon of it anyway!

I was and still am so pissed off at this. Why can’t my husband’s side of the family just respect our boundaries? They don’t have to agree or understand, but he is our child and we have his best interests at heart.