Reply To: Baby Shower Advice

Little bit of an update on boundaries: my mom was talking about giving me my old baby clothes for my daughter, and how she has all these things in the attic so I don’t need to get anything really because she’s saved almost everything from when I was a baby. 1) I know mice have been a situation in the attic over the years & none of these things/clothes have been gone through or moved around in any way in probably 10 years. So I doubt these are in good shape to begin with. 2) I’m in my mid 20s, hand me downs from siblings or cousins or friends’ children are great and welcome but why on earth would I want my daughter to have all of my old 20+ year old clothing? And isn’t that completely strange when an entire wardrobe of hand me downs comes from your own mother? Like not an item or two – an entire wardrobe. I don’t want my daughter photographed in the same clothing I was photographed in, so we can be going through family photos years from now and see how we’re both in the same outfits. Again, in my opinion hand me downs from siblings or cousins are cool, but your own parent?!

So anyways, I point blank told her no, no, no. It’s strange. My reasoning for it being strange. And no. She clearly disagrees with me and doesn’t understand my problem / thinks I’m being too uppity. If she winds up giving me all my old clothes which will be musty and probably have touched mouse droppings from 15 years ago – I will be washing them and dropping them all off at Salvation Army. She will flip out surely, but I’ve told her no. So. Yeah. I’m feeling good about my little no & plan if she disrespects the no. And I know this is a little thing to even be proud of so that’s kind of sad that I’m proud, but oh well. Proud of myself anyways, haha.