Mother-in-Law Tells Young Parents She’ll Call Her Grandchild ‘Whatever I Want,’ Calls Newborn ‘My Baby’

A new mom says she’s getting increasingly frustrated because her mother-in-law keeps calling her baby “my baby.”

In a post on Reddit, she explained: “Me and my partner have a young baby. My MIL refers to the baby as ‘my baby.’ This seemed to bother my partner more than me at first, so we thought about how we could address it.”

She added that when it happened again recently, her partner gently corrected her mother: “But I’m your baby! [Baby’s name] is your grandbaby!” The couple had planned to handle it lightly without starting conflict.

But the mother-in-law didn’t take it well.

“To this, my MIL replied, ‘I will call the baby whatever I want,’ in kind of a mocking way,” the new mom wrote. “My partner then said, ‘We want relationships to be clear to [baby]. We don’t want to confuse.’ MIL just laughed and dismissed it, saying she even calls her dog her baby and that it won’t be confusing.”

Now, the mom admits: “The ‘my baby’ thing bothers me too.”

Other Reddit users chimed in. One person wrote: “To be honest, the real issue isn’t her calling your baby ‘my baby.’ The problem is that she’s ignoring your partner’s boundaries. Your partner explained they didn’t like it and gave a reason, and MIL brushed it off. That shows she doesn’t care how your partner feels — and that’s not okay.”

Another added: “That was expert steamrolling for such a simple request. Your partner asked her to stop, she dismissed it, and then doubled down. That means it’s time for consequences.”