I thought I’d share a story with you all that happened a few weeks ago but has occurred several times since BC was born. Perhaps it will spark a volley of stories and we can all feel better knowing we’re not along in dealing with the in-laws! Luckily for me, the incident revolves around my husband’s nana, or my ‘grandmother-in-law’ and not my mother-in-law who is in fact fabulous. My grandmother-in-law has mentioned several times since BC was born that I shouldn’t let him cry as it will cause a hernia. Now of course we all know this is ridiculous and I let it go without mentioning it or causing a scene.
Well it happened again last weekend when poor BC was trying to sleep after a very busy and over stimulating family lunch out. He was having a little grizzle at having to go to sleep and she turned to me and said ‘Oh he’s crying, I’ll go and cuddle him’. Ah… no, he’s OK! (If we picked him up and cuddled him because he doesn’t want to go to sleep, what message would that be sending? Of course we’d never let him scream in distress but I could hear that he was crying because he was tired, therefore the solution is to sleep, not to have a cuddle and then when I put him back down he’d cry again anyway! BC is an excellent self-settler but of course it is a bit trickier when he’s been out all morning, passed around and over stimulated and is now over-tired and sleeping in his porta-cot, not his normal bed). Anyway, back to the point…
So I said, ‘no, he’s OK’ and he grizzled for a few more minutes so she gets up to go to him and I said 'No he’s OK, he’s just over tired, I’ll give him a few more minutes and then I’ll check on him. She says ‘lucky I’M not his mother’. EXCUSE ME! What is that supposed to mean? But still, I did not rise to the bait. Then she says, ‘you really shouldn’t let him cry, it will cause a hernia’. So again, I explain that some babies are born with abdominal or inguinal hernia’s, and they are not caused by crying although if the hernia has yet to be seen, it is certainly more obvious when crying (or any other form of physical activity that strains these muscles) but the activity itself DOESN’T cause the hernia and it would have appeared anyway, even if there was no muscle strain. BC then went to sleep but I avoided her for the rest of the afternoon because I was so angry that she would question my parenting. I don’t critisise or question the way you raise your children so what gives you the right to question me?
The next day, unbeknownst to be at the time, she sends my husband an email with two attachments, one on hernia’s and one on mother’s who believe they can understand their baby’s cries. In the email she says that the article proves that crying can cause hernias and says that she found the one on crying interesting and she ‘particularly found the one on loneliness or boredom cries interesting but then again, you might have been right too about the overtired cry’. Now I didn’t know about the email as my husband had the sensible foresight not to fire me up again!! But then that night she phones me to see if I got her email and wasn’t it nice of her to show me that she was right? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! >:(
Now the article she sent through was from a paediatrician at the Harvard Medical School and said EXACTLY what I said about hernias, (crying doesn’t cause them but can make them appear although they would have done so anyway…) She goes on to tell me it is a matter of opinion! UH NO IT ISN’T! It is a medical fact! I told her I was hurt by her comments that ‘luckily I’M not his mother’ and she tells me that she is hurt because I’m hurt! What is that!? Grrr, so anyway, the moral of the story is…? I don’t know, but I sure feel better for getting it off my chest. Thanks for listening!
