“What’s wrong with her?” “Why is she so shy?” Comments that piss me the F off
A rant. All the boomer-aged adults in my family constantly make comments about my daughter being shy. Usually those comments are dripping with adult-level judgement. Like “what’s gotten into her today?” when she doesn’t want to hug a great aunt she hasn’t seen in 6 months. My daughter is not shy, in fact she’s very social and has advanced language development, but she likes to stick close to mom and dad in large group settings. Shes 25 months old and we just brought a newborn home, so she is going through some big changes. She only wanted to be with daddy at a large Mother’s Day brunch today and I (her mother) completely understand that and helped support her to be comfortable in the loud environment. You want to know who didn’t understand? The older women in my family. My own mother looked my daughter in the face and said “Hugs for grandma? No? Okay then 🙄. What’s wrong with her today?” Similar comments came from her uncle and a great aunt “What’s wrong with her? Why is she making shy?”
I typically respond by saying nothing is wrong with her, she’s just two and she’s a human with emotions that change day to day. But I’m so close to snapping the next time I hear one of these comments. To be clear, these comments happen frequently. Basically any time my daughter doesn’t behave in a way that perfectly strokes someone’s ego. It’s like they all want to be the beloved one who my daughter chooses to snuggle at these gatherings. And it makes me so angry that grown women tie so much of their own self worth to a toddlers behaviour. Anyone else get comments like these? Do I continue to let them go or do I come to my daughter’s defence more than I already am? Or am I missing the forest for the trees? Any advice welcome.