2025-10-16 – Health – www.theguardian.com
There could be so many different reasons behind this choice, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Maybe what you really mean is you feel hurt to be left out
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My brother and sister-in-law have a new baby a few months old. My sister-in-law won’t let anyone hold the baby, although the grandparents on both sides of the family were allowed one-off holds. At family events, as soon as the baby makes the slightest cry, her mum whips her away to a room as far from everyone else as possible. Usually they leave shortly after that.
No one says anything to her, to avoid confrontation and the “new mum” factor, but only allowing the baby contact with her parents seems like it will build problems later on. It is already difficult in the moment for everyone else, my brother included. The natural inclination is to engage with a very small baby. It’s such a short time they are like that. Already everyone else has been left out – there’s a sense of…