My 5-year-old son has gained a lot of weight just over the past year. I do my absolute best to set healthy eating habits and encourage physical activity. The biggest issue I’m facing is my parents.
I’m a young single mom currently in nursing school, so I rely heavily on my mother and father for school drop-offs and pick-ups. I am extremely grateful for their help, but they do not respect the boundaries I set for my son. It’s been a recurring issue — they simply don’t listen.
When I ask my son if they let him drink juice or soda, he usually says no at first, but eventually admits that they told him to lie to me. This isn’t new behavior, either. When he was supposed to transition from bottles to regular milk, they hid bottles from me and ignored my wishes then, too.
When I confront them, they get mad, yell at me, and make me feel horrible. They pretend to agree with my rules, only for me to find out later they lied. I don’t think they fully understand how serious this is: my son’s A1C has been trending higher at every doctor’s appointment (from 5.4 to 5.6).
Despite my hesitations, I let them take him on a 10-day vacation recently while I stayed back to work. When he returned today, he looked like he had gained 10 pounds. His chest and stomach looked noticeably swollen.
For context, growing up in their house, I was obese most of my life. I was prediabetic by 15, and my mother even started the weight loss surgery process for me when I was 16 (I didn’t actually have surgery until I was 20).
It makes me so angry and upset because they know I need their help — but instead of supporting my parenting, they do what they want, jeopardize my son’s health, and even coach him to lie. I feel trapped between needing their support and wanting to protect my son’s well-being.
What can I do in this situation? I’m genuinely at a loss.
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Do you have no other alternative for child care? I would seriously consider seeing if you can go elsewhere or not have him with your parents as often. Being 5 years old, this is a critical time in life to develop healthy eating habits. Do you have a YMCA near you? They usually have a program for families if funding is an issue. If your parents are repeating the same thing with your son, as they did to you, I honestly feel like this situation will continue. They sound like they need professional help to understand these choices are not ok for your son’s health or a relationship with you.
Try to find outside care. Does your school have an early child education program? They often have daycare centers. Ask in local mom groups for resources for low income families.
I’m sorry you’re going through this.
I’m going to give you some real, honest, Mom-to-Mom advice.
Grow a backbone.
If you do not stand up for yourself, and in turn your son, your parents can potentially harm his health. They have already taught him to actively lie to you about food, what else could they teach him to lie about?
The hardest part of parenting is breaking the intergenerational trauma we carry. This same pattern played out when you were a child, now you have to break it. Remove any permissions with his childcare that your parents have, and make sure staff understands that he cannot leave with them. If you cannot be there to monitor what they are giving him, he cannot go. Use any other form of childcare you can, but you cannot let your parents have him any longer.
And also, take him to the pediatrician, have them document his weight, his A1C, your concerns, all of it. If CPS gets involved, or they start pushing for grandparents right, then you will have his health documented, for any court or social worker to see.
This is going to sound ruthless, and it is. But if you are not ruthless in protecting your son, he will be harmed.
This is so distressing. I don’t think I have any additional advice to give you as what you have had recommended to you is good advice.
If they can’t get it through their thick skulls that they are killing him with kindness there is a serious issue. I do remember reading a long time ago about how fattening kids up can be a form of self medication for parents and grandparents. You may want to look a little into that because there could be additional problems.
I just wanted to stop in and give you a psychic hug, because I am a mom and this would start to scare me. In many ways this is abuse. This isn’t just crossing boundaries. They are being medically negligent.
The advice to seperate your son from them and give the restrictions on the time they spend with him unsupervised although hard is good. It’s being a responsible parent. And although they may be hurt. Your child’s health is a priority.
You absolutely have to stop relying on them for childcare. They are killing your son slowly. That is horrific behavior and you’re the only one who can protect him.
My daughter became overweight as a child due to a similar situation. At one point her grandparents moved away and she stopped visiting grandparents for a couple of years. During that time she thinned out significantly. When the grandparents came back into her life she gained all the weight back plus more and now that she’s a young adult she has bad eating habits and continues to be overweight.
The biggest issue her weight has caused for her is that she has no self esteem and is in a horrible relationship bc of it. I have no doubt that if she was not overweight she would have good self esteem and would not accept the behavior she accepts from her partner. This is only one of many issues that have surfaced due to her weight.
Put him in an after school program and cut the grandparents out except when you are present.
They don’t care about your parenting wishes and are so disrespectful of you that they’ve told your son to lie to you.
They’re undermining your authority as a parent, which means they’re not a support system for you. Find another way.
Find other arrangements because they have proven that they will never change.
People are eho they are. Some expectations we hope that we will get from them are us having false hope or wanting a relationship with people that don’t really exist. They have shown you they will carry on doing what they are doing. They have shown you they will ignore you and do their own thing. They have shown you that they are teaching your son to lie to you.
But you still give them access, you still give them the ability to take him away on holiday – Your rules and boundaries are meaningless to them – just noise from your mouth because there are no consequences and they know you can’t do anything about it because you rely on them and they they in control.
The money you’re saving (daycare) will be spent with doctor’s appointments, hospitals and treatments later ☹️ it’s time to set boundaries AND CONSEQUENCES as well.
It is YOUR fault. If you can’t go to school right now then STAY HOME if you can’t afford a baby sitter. Your child’s health should be more important.
It should be to them too but it’s not sadly.. so you need to remove him from their care unsupervised
Or get a job, maybe 2 instead and pay for childcare with a reputable place that feeds healthier options. I promise you they are out there
I don’t mean to sound harsh I just don’t want to sound like it’s ok because it’s not
>>what should I do
Look for alternative care options.
You already know how they parent. They aren’t likely to change just because you want them to. If you want something better for your son’s health, it’s going to be up to you to create it.
THEY WONT CHANGE.
THE CHANGE YOU NEED TO MAKE IS THAT HE DOESN’T SEE THEM ALONE ANYMORE.
You need to find new carers for him, period. Your parents have never respected you as his mom and they never will, but this is more than them simply crossing boundaries – *they are putting your son’s health at serious risk*. You need to step up as his mom and put a full stop to this *for his health*. You need to grow a spine and stand up for him because he doesn’t have anyone else.
You dont let them near your son. They are killing him. Your job is to keep him safe.
I am not a parent. But as a newly diagnosed diabetic, you do not want to go down that road. It will be a life long battle.
He is only 5 and you acknowledge he is already heading for pre-diabetes. 5.7 is the beginning of it.
Update me
See if your using school has a creche. Then stop allowing your parents to mind him….ever. they are now low contact because they are willing to sacrifice his long term health for their selfish feelings.
My sister had a similar situation with her parents in law, they told her son (4) he should lie and fed him sweets and soft drinks. The problem was, he got a sugar rush and was unbearable for next days.
My sister and her husband went low contact after they had a long discussion, his father said, my sister is crazy and needs psychological help. Her answer: I listen to the professional not some self thought wannabe psychologist.
Now my nephews are visiting their grandparents only with their parents. (The older one doesn’t like sweets, so there was no problem with him)
This is a fear I have about my in-laws, as my husband was very overweight as a child. My baby is only 4 months and exclusively breastfed but when she’s older I’m sure they’ll babysit her more frequently. I guess I’ll have to make sure that we set boundaries regarding food early on.
It’s time to be the parent, sorry I know it’s difficult. They are shortening your child’s like and he will have a miserable one if he has a weight problem. They can’t be trusted to behave, so then it stops.
I mean…juice and soda aren’t going to make him pile on tonnes of weight. I would definitely get bloodwork done. Thyroid, blood sugars, etc. (I know you mentioned HbA1c but that only looks at one thing).
They would need to be overfeeding him in the extreme to gain so much weight so fast.
If it is simply lifestyle related then feeding him a filling, nutritious breakfast, packing him with a proper lunch (no school meals) and an after school snack.
And lastly have a very firm word with the parents about the implications of deviating from your instructions.
They are harming your son, and so are you by allowing it. Stop being a bad mother and stop them taking him. It’s easy, tell childcare they aren’t allowed to pick him up and if they refuse to leave, childcare can call the police. Don’t let him go on holiday anymore with them either, no more unsupervised access.
Being blunt but you’re acting like you’ve thought of nothing and have run out of ideas, you’ve just sat back and let it happen to make your life easier. Life isn’t easy, being a parent isn’t easy, if you wanted an easy life you shouldn’t have had one. You need to sort this out, they will never ever learn or care.
You need to find someone else to take care of your son before your parents do something very reckless.
Your parents are destroying the health of your son, the same way they destroyed yours.
Feeding him into the range of adult-onset-diabetes while he is still a growing little child is horrible, it has long term effects for your son!
Nobody should need a weight loss surgery at auch a young age, like you. They did that to you and now they try to do it woth your son. This is not love.
Can’t you see that this is abuse? In such a harming and horrible way?
If it was something else – like them cutting off finger for finger over the course of a few years – would you allow it? No, of course not.
Then why do you allow them to give your beloved son a lower life expectancy, metabolic syndrome and every risk that comes with that? Why?
You need to protect him, nobody else can do it.
Hey OP, I see you’ve had some great replies and advice on this, and I’m not a parent so I’m not gonna comment on that specifically. What I wanted to know though, is if you have problems actually just talking to your parents about what’s important to you? I know some people of older generations tend to not listen to their adult kids and still think they know what’s best, even though you as a parent knows what’s best for your own child.
Have you tried an open and fully honest conversation with them? Maybe it might help to get a mediator involved? Or failing that, if you have trouble getting through to them (which seems the case), try writing them a letter. Point out the pattern you’re recognising with how you were brought up, your weight issues etc, and how they’re doing the same thing to your son when you are entrusting them with his care. The fact they’re ignoring your wishes and boundaries to win favour with your child, is making you resent them and fearing for your child’s health. They need to understand just how serious this is, and how serious you are. Tell them you no longer trust them to look after your son as they’re encouraging bad habits in him and going against your parenting style.
I absolutely agree with the others in that they need to be cut off from being able to pick him up. Have him stay at the YMCA until you’re able to get him. No doubt, your parents will kick up a fuss, but stay strong. You’re the parent here in charge of your son’s health and wellbeing.