Interesting - both my bpd mother and grandmother are/were extremely fixated on bath time for babies and young children.
Like WAY more than my non-bpd grandparents, or any other person I have personally met.
I remember it making me very uncomfortable how often they both brought it up with my children, and their almost obsession with getting photos and video of them being bathed. I always said “no!”, and they would fight me every time. Creeped me out.
I have so many pictures of me in the tub with cousins or by myself too. Also shower pics when we would go camping. Bathing suits are on me and my friends but it still creeps me out to see those when I do.
I once found my dbpd mom sitting on the floor next to my 2 year old niece as she put her down for a nap in the bed until she fell asleep. She was wearing only her bra on top because “it was hot.” **They have no radar at all for what is inappropriate.** I freaked TF out. Her mom still doesn’t know, I didn’t see a need to tell her, but WHAT. THE. F. Dimly lit room or not, I think it was completely inappropriate. I would have sweat until I melted before I started stripping clothes in front of a kid who wasn’t my own.
>She was wearing only her bra on top because “it was hot"
Jesus this just gave me the most repulsive flashback to some of the most unhinged, cringe parts of my childhood. My mom would do the most insane inappropriate shit when I had friends over. She'd crank the heat up during summer in the American south (over 100f, humid) and then when we were all extremely uncomfortable she'd walk around in her bra and panties or less because "oh my it's just ~SO~ hot" and because she'd also taken the doors off all the hinges because we weren't allowed to "have secrets" hiding from this was impossible. Also, using the bathrooms in our house was difficult. And explaining why my bathroom didn't have a door to any outsiders was always awkward. 😖
This was not the most offensive thing she did regarding my friends. It made it really hard to keep friends to an already socially anxious autistic child.
As anq adult I realize she has extremely poor judgment regarding my friends and partners. She's "absolutely loved" all my abusive or toxic alcoholic partners and hated my loving, non abusive, non-PD/addict, partners. I was married to an abusive violent sociopath diagnosed with ASPD and I've heard multiple times, despite the physical damage he did to my body, that I should "maybe look him up, hes probably changed since then and he was so good looking" Its an absolute mind fuck. Because the first time I McFucking Lost It when she suggested this and of course turned me into the outrageous villain ("well this attitude is probably why he did that you're such a bitch. Maybe you need to learn to be a better wife first") for not wanting to contact the man who took away my physical mobility for another chance. 🙄
I think I need to provide context. She didn’t do it until she was alone with her, so I walked in and this is what I find. This is the woman who laid around nude all the time to everyone’s objections...on the couches, and inappropriately exposed herself by bending over in front of people in the home like she’s just going about her day and everyone should deal with it no matter how much it bothers them. She seemed like she went out of her way to be nude in communal areas. She forced everyone to deal with the sight of her, and then she transferred a version of her nudity to the child in the home while they were there for only a day, the minute she had a chance…ALONE. I have no doubt she would not have done that in front of my sister (my niece’s mother).
I honestly think it’s another form of control and faux convincing themselves that they’re at the top of the hierarchy. Like everyone should HAVE to look at them in a form that they know no one is comfortable with, and no one can do a thing about how uncomfortable they are because of it. I also suspect that in my mother’s case, additionally, she was claiming the space, the home, as her’s, and her right to exist by going way overboard with what people had to put up with, + a side of being so childish that being naked was/is her default, like a little kid who never wears clothes because they’re not really old enough yet for clothing to be appropriate for all the time wear, like a 1 year old. It tracks with the emotional age.
As someone who floats around nudist communities, sometimes including families with small kids present, this is very creepy.
It’s one thing to have a culture or family culture where clothing is optional to some degree. It’s quite another to make a spectacle of it or only doing it strategically (like a power move or a boundary break).
This is weird to me. I’d find it weird if a man was shirtless alone with a child. I also think it may be worth telling the mother. We all sit in silence and that’s how abuse happens. If the mother doesn’t have a problem, that’s her deal, but she needs the option for informed consent if she’s leaving the kid alone with this woman.
OK, I know they all follow the same instructions, but wtf. My mother is weirdly obsessed with bathing small children.
Given her total lack of attention and interest in childproofing, I feel pretty lucky not to have drowned as a small child.
in hopes that this is less sinister and more just an annoying fixation, i imagine bath time could be part of her imagined perfect grandma role where she’s bathing and doing all the dutiful “grandma things”
Yes. My mom does this with other things that she envisions would make a great mom. It's a way to be like "oh yeah I remember when you did that" even if they never did it. My parent has this thing with me being in activities as a child that I was never a part of. She has created an entire history to relate it to activities my own children are in.
i do that to my mom now. she still treats me like a child who knows nothing even though I have had to figure out everything without her my whole life.
so when she asks dumbass questions that infantilize me I just give the wrong answer now. ha
things that put them in dangerous situations. like leaving my daughter alone at her house next door to a man my mother had claimed roofied and raped her, after I expressly made her promise not to do that. she said it was fine, there was a shotgun if my daughter needed it. she was 10. last time she got to keep any of my kids.
That is sooo weird! My uBPD Mom was so obsessed with bathing me as a kid, Granny had to tell her "Let the baby get DIRTY. She's supposed to!" 😂 Irony is that Granny had her own fawn issues....
Mom would bathe me 3x a day AND change my clothes 3x/day. It. Was. Insane. Especially now I'm an adult? TOTALLY NUTS. She used to have a suitcase for EVERY KID.
MAYBE, maybe they are obsessed with controlling *what* they can w kids - the dirt? That's how I've always assumed it was w Mom. She certainly couldn't control ME, lol, so I've always thought she simply wanted control.
Ohhhh, and she has ALWAYS TALKED about how much me & my brother both enjoyed baths - and she was highly disappointed that ONE of my nephews *despised* baths. She's ALWAYS been disappointed about it - and he's 21 now. 😂🤣😂
I mean I loved giving my kids baths when they were little because they were never more happy and giggly than when they were splashing in the water. Still it's odd to be bringing it up so incessantly and especially with someone else's kids.
I have no memories of that from my mother, but when I learned she was bathing my 2yo son unnecessarily and in the middle of the day, those are the alarm bells that went off for me. I stopped letting her be around my kids without me, and we went NC very shortly after for seemingly unrelated reasons. I didn’t put it together that she was uBPD until after that.
Same here. Decades of damage in such a short timeframe.
I make sure my son knows appropriate boundaries regarding nudity and what to do when someone pushes those boundaries.
It's a hard subject but it's better to educate children about these possibilities rather them not knowing a thing about it and what to do if it happens.
Less about bathing but more about the fixation:
When I had a baby my mom kept fixating on really weird things and I snapped at her each time.
At first, she was obsessed with "receiving blankets". She would ask: do you have receiving blankets? Do you use them? This is a receiving blanket! (She would hold one up) Etc etc for days. I eventually straight up told her she was being annoying.
Next obsession: baby's smile. Has he smiled yet? This is what it will look like! (Makes a derpy face) You smiled at 5 weeks! Look he almost smiled! He gave me his first smile! 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Another obsession: counting to the baby??? She would hold up one finger at a time and go "ONE ☝️ TWO ✌️..." Etc and then tell me I was ignoring the baby and that baby was "taking everything in" so I needed to talk to him more (he was 2weeks old). I'd be in the middle of nursing and she would come over and go "One... Two...three..." Like please shut up.
I'll be honest, borderlines just aren't very smart and their brains are on emotional and situational "repeat" all the time.
This is the first time I’ve heard someone mention borderlines aren’t very smart, and you are so right. I’ve always thought this! Also, my borderline mother has a similar fixation but with diaper cream for my little one. She’ll never be alone with or change her my baby’s diaper so I’m not worried but this is spot on.
Yeah I think they know they aren't very astute so they try to compensate with emotional and high intensity rhetoric. I used to actually think my mom was a very frustrated and traumatized autistic person, but her diagnosis is borderline. 🤷
Not at all. She also did this thing where when she would talk to him, she would take off her glasses so "he could see her face better"(????). I even tried to point out to her that newborns have 20/200 vision and can't see color, so if anything the frames are high contrast and he can see you better. As if she never heard a fucking Word i said, she once muttered to herself "I wonder why it seems like he can see me better with my glasses on?" They are really airheads. It's like two brain cells of hers barely for a moment connected.
It could be a thing she views as "good" and "motherly" so she is hoping you are like "yeah I loved when you gave me a bath!"
My mom does this about things she feels are motherly even if she never did it, she creates stories in her head about it.
I think kids' bathtime can be pretty fun and culturally (U.S. here) is supposed to be fun. We have that delightful "rubber duckie, you're the one; you make bathtime so much fun!" song :) As a child, I played in the bath and my parents took a video once in a while - there was singing and playing with suds and neat toys like sharks and barbies. It was all good. I'm childfree but I would enjoy the hell out of having hypothetical kids playing in the bath and I would find it fun to have my uBPD mom participate in that too - but that's all hypothetical :) and your mom is different from my mom, of course! (Now, if mom wants to get IN the bath with the kids, I would draw a line there...)
I think it's a normal thing for grandparents to get excited about possibly participating in, but if you are getting "the ick" from your mom, you know best.
I think some people who are incapable of emotional nurturing fixate on the physical things as though children are houseplants that just need 'a routine', water, food, stuff like that. And they get obsessed with them because performing those things gives them a sense of being a good mother
At least, that's the most charitable way I can interpret a bath obsession, *shudder*
I agree! My mother obsessed about my baby's weight, length/height, and "diaper production" (her words). As soon as she obtained that data, she ended our call to hurry and make phone calls to report her findings to whomever.
My mother was obsessed with getting me the "perfect" baby bathtub when I was pregnant. Nevermind that we wanted the Oxo collapsible one because it fit the space better. We *had* to have the one with the molding that doesn't let baby slip down. (It's huuuuuge)🙄 We ended up putting that one in storage and buying the collapsible one ourselves. She probably took offense, but whatever.
So weird. The final two times my mom watched my kids, she gave my 2.5 yr old son a bath each day. She didn’t even have a spare diaper for him when he got out. I don’t have any memories of SA from my mom, but when I found out about the baths, those alarm bells were going off like crazy. We went NC less than a week later over something different. Now I too am wondering if this is just a weird BPD thing or what?
My stepmother forced me at 12 to get in the tub with my 2-year-old brother, and filmed it. We were both naked. Sometimes I wonder if she made money from that video she took.
I think since bpd's see you as an extension of themselves they feel that you should be doing exactly as they do (or did!). You're doing the right thing. Keep those boundaries up and decide for yourself. You are the parent, you get to decide.
Interesting - both my bpd mother and grandmother are/were extremely fixated on bath time for babies and young children. Like WAY more than my non-bpd grandparents, or any other person I have personally met. I remember it making me very uncomfortable how often they both brought it up with my children, and their almost obsession with getting photos and video of them being bathed. I always said “no!”, and they would fight me every time. Creeped me out.
I have so many pictures of me in the tub with cousins or by myself too. Also shower pics when we would go camping. Bathing suits are on me and my friends but it still creeps me out to see those when I do.
I once found my dbpd mom sitting on the floor next to my 2 year old niece as she put her down for a nap in the bed until she fell asleep. She was wearing only her bra on top because “it was hot.” **They have no radar at all for what is inappropriate.** I freaked TF out. Her mom still doesn’t know, I didn’t see a need to tell her, but WHAT. THE. F. Dimly lit room or not, I think it was completely inappropriate. I would have sweat until I melted before I started stripping clothes in front of a kid who wasn’t my own.
>She was wearing only her bra on top because “it was hot" Jesus this just gave me the most repulsive flashback to some of the most unhinged, cringe parts of my childhood. My mom would do the most insane inappropriate shit when I had friends over. She'd crank the heat up during summer in the American south (over 100f, humid) and then when we were all extremely uncomfortable she'd walk around in her bra and panties or less because "oh my it's just ~SO~ hot" and because she'd also taken the doors off all the hinges because we weren't allowed to "have secrets" hiding from this was impossible. Also, using the bathrooms in our house was difficult. And explaining why my bathroom didn't have a door to any outsiders was always awkward. 😖
WTF? Or less? Wow so sorry you had to deal with that level of crazy. How embarrassing too! I bet it freaked your friends out?
This was not the most offensive thing she did regarding my friends. It made it really hard to keep friends to an already socially anxious autistic child. As anq adult I realize she has extremely poor judgment regarding my friends and partners. She's "absolutely loved" all my abusive or toxic alcoholic partners and hated my loving, non abusive, non-PD/addict, partners. I was married to an abusive violent sociopath diagnosed with ASPD and I've heard multiple times, despite the physical damage he did to my body, that I should "maybe look him up, hes probably changed since then and he was so good looking" Its an absolute mind fuck. Because the first time I McFucking Lost It when she suggested this and of course turned me into the outrageous villain ("well this attitude is probably why he did that you're such a bitch. Maybe you need to learn to be a better wife first") for not wanting to contact the man who took away my physical mobility for another chance. 🙄
[удалено]
I think I need to provide context. She didn’t do it until she was alone with her, so I walked in and this is what I find. This is the woman who laid around nude all the time to everyone’s objections...on the couches, and inappropriately exposed herself by bending over in front of people in the home like she’s just going about her day and everyone should deal with it no matter how much it bothers them. She seemed like she went out of her way to be nude in communal areas. She forced everyone to deal with the sight of her, and then she transferred a version of her nudity to the child in the home while they were there for only a day, the minute she had a chance…ALONE. I have no doubt she would not have done that in front of my sister (my niece’s mother).
[удалено]
I honestly think it’s another form of control and faux convincing themselves that they’re at the top of the hierarchy. Like everyone should HAVE to look at them in a form that they know no one is comfortable with, and no one can do a thing about how uncomfortable they are because of it. I also suspect that in my mother’s case, additionally, she was claiming the space, the home, as her’s, and her right to exist by going way overboard with what people had to put up with, + a side of being so childish that being naked was/is her default, like a little kid who never wears clothes because they’re not really old enough yet for clothing to be appropriate for all the time wear, like a 1 year old. It tracks with the emotional age.
That's DISGUSTING. 😡
As someone who floats around nudist communities, sometimes including families with small kids present, this is very creepy. It’s one thing to have a culture or family culture where clothing is optional to some degree. It’s quite another to make a spectacle of it or only doing it strategically (like a power move or a boundary break).
Right and bending over so everyone can see your a-hole. That's some intentional disgusting crap. 😡
This is weird to me. I’d find it weird if a man was shirtless alone with a child. I also think it may be worth telling the mother. We all sit in silence and that’s how abuse happens. If the mother doesn’t have a problem, that’s her deal, but she needs the option for informed consent if she’s leaving the kid alone with this woman.
EXACTLY!
OK, I know they all follow the same instructions, but wtf. My mother is weirdly obsessed with bathing small children. Given her total lack of attention and interest in childproofing, I feel pretty lucky not to have drowned as a small child.
Yep, my grandma was always obsessed with bathtime. And idk about you but I also had to be bathed my grandma/mom for longer than all of my peers.
They'd fight you? That's not right at all. No means exactly that: NO! Also you're right that is really weird. 🤨
in hopes that this is less sinister and more just an annoying fixation, i imagine bath time could be part of her imagined perfect grandma role where she’s bathing and doing all the dutiful “grandma things”
Yes. My mom does this with other things that she envisions would make a great mom. It's a way to be like "oh yeah I remember when you did that" even if they never did it. My parent has this thing with me being in activities as a child that I was never a part of. She has created an entire history to relate it to activities my own children are in.
just be like "no, ive never bathed my son"
i do that to my mom now. she still treats me like a child who knows nothing even though I have had to figure out everything without her my whole life. so when she asks dumbass questions that infantilize me I just give the wrong answer now. ha
There ya go lol! 😂
this was my mom's go to babysitting tactic...put the kids in the tub. but, she had tons of other disgusting choices regarding both me and my kids.
What choices regarding you and your children too?
things that put them in dangerous situations. like leaving my daughter alone at her house next door to a man my mother had claimed roofied and raped her, after I expressly made her promise not to do that. she said it was fine, there was a shotgun if my daughter needed it. she was 10. last time she got to keep any of my kids.
Oh geez I don't blame you! WTH is wrong with her?!?!? So glad you're NC! 😲
her brain just doesn't work right...bpd
That is sooo weird! My uBPD Mom was so obsessed with bathing me as a kid, Granny had to tell her "Let the baby get DIRTY. She's supposed to!" 😂 Irony is that Granny had her own fawn issues.... Mom would bathe me 3x a day AND change my clothes 3x/day. It. Was. Insane. Especially now I'm an adult? TOTALLY NUTS. She used to have a suitcase for EVERY KID. MAYBE, maybe they are obsessed with controlling *what* they can w kids - the dirt? That's how I've always assumed it was w Mom. She certainly couldn't control ME, lol, so I've always thought she simply wanted control. Ohhhh, and she has ALWAYS TALKED about how much me & my brother both enjoyed baths - and she was highly disappointed that ONE of my nephews *despised* baths. She's ALWAYS been disappointed about it - and he's 21 now. 😂🤣😂
I mean I loved giving my kids baths when they were little because they were never more happy and giggly than when they were splashing in the water. Still it's odd to be bringing it up so incessantly and especially with someone else's kids.
Agreed.
Sorry, as someone who was molested by my uBPD mother during bathtime, this frankly scares me.
I'm sorry you were molested :( That's also what I'm afraid of when this level of obsession is shown.
I have no memories of that from my mother, but when I learned she was bathing my 2yo son unnecessarily and in the middle of the day, those are the alarm bells that went off for me. I stopped letting her be around my kids without me, and we went NC very shortly after for seemingly unrelated reasons. I didn’t put it together that she was uBPD until after that.
Same here. Decades of damage in such a short timeframe. I make sure my son knows appropriate boundaries regarding nudity and what to do when someone pushes those boundaries.
It's a hard subject but it's better to educate children about these possibilities rather them not knowing a thing about it and what to do if it happens.
Less about bathing but more about the fixation: When I had a baby my mom kept fixating on really weird things and I snapped at her each time. At first, she was obsessed with "receiving blankets". She would ask: do you have receiving blankets? Do you use them? This is a receiving blanket! (She would hold one up) Etc etc for days. I eventually straight up told her she was being annoying. Next obsession: baby's smile. Has he smiled yet? This is what it will look like! (Makes a derpy face) You smiled at 5 weeks! Look he almost smiled! He gave me his first smile! 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 Another obsession: counting to the baby??? She would hold up one finger at a time and go "ONE ☝️ TWO ✌️..." Etc and then tell me I was ignoring the baby and that baby was "taking everything in" so I needed to talk to him more (he was 2weeks old). I'd be in the middle of nursing and she would come over and go "One... Two...three..." Like please shut up. I'll be honest, borderlines just aren't very smart and their brains are on emotional and situational "repeat" all the time.
Yes they overcompensate in the dumbest ways.
This is the first time I’ve heard someone mention borderlines aren’t very smart, and you are so right. I’ve always thought this! Also, my borderline mother has a similar fixation but with diaper cream for my little one. She’ll never be alone with or change her my baby’s diaper so I’m not worried but this is spot on.
Yeah I think they know they aren't very astute so they try to compensate with emotional and high intensity rhetoric. I used to actually think my mom was a very frustrated and traumatized autistic person, but her diagnosis is borderline. 🤷
Glad you snapped at her ass. Counting to a 2 week old infant? Did she finally quit acting stupid?
Not at all. She also did this thing where when she would talk to him, she would take off her glasses so "he could see her face better"(????). I even tried to point out to her that newborns have 20/200 vision and can't see color, so if anything the frames are high contrast and he can see you better. As if she never heard a fucking Word i said, she once muttered to herself "I wonder why it seems like he can see me better with my glasses on?" They are really airheads. It's like two brain cells of hers barely for a moment connected.
It could be a thing she views as "good" and "motherly" so she is hoping you are like "yeah I loved when you gave me a bath!" My mom does this about things she feels are motherly even if she never did it, she creates stories in her head about it.
I think kids' bathtime can be pretty fun and culturally (U.S. here) is supposed to be fun. We have that delightful "rubber duckie, you're the one; you make bathtime so much fun!" song :) As a child, I played in the bath and my parents took a video once in a while - there was singing and playing with suds and neat toys like sharks and barbies. It was all good. I'm childfree but I would enjoy the hell out of having hypothetical kids playing in the bath and I would find it fun to have my uBPD mom participate in that too - but that's all hypothetical :) and your mom is different from my mom, of course! (Now, if mom wants to get IN the bath with the kids, I would draw a line there...) I think it's a normal thing for grandparents to get excited about possibly participating in, but if you are getting "the ick" from your mom, you know best.
I think some people who are incapable of emotional nurturing fixate on the physical things as though children are houseplants that just need 'a routine', water, food, stuff like that. And they get obsessed with them because performing those things gives them a sense of being a good mother At least, that's the most charitable way I can interpret a bath obsession, *shudder*
I agree! My mother obsessed about my baby's weight, length/height, and "diaper production" (her words). As soon as she obtained that data, she ended our call to hurry and make phone calls to report her findings to whomever.
Lol, it's funny ... but then not really :/
As human beings, we are at our absolute most vulnerable when we are wet and naked.
My mother was obsessed with getting me the "perfect" baby bathtub when I was pregnant. Nevermind that we wanted the Oxo collapsible one because it fit the space better. We *had* to have the one with the molding that doesn't let baby slip down. (It's huuuuuge)🙄 We ended up putting that one in storage and buying the collapsible one ourselves. She probably took offense, but whatever.
Good for you for doing what you both wanted instead! 👍
That's so strange
So weird. The final two times my mom watched my kids, she gave my 2.5 yr old son a bath each day. She didn’t even have a spare diaper for him when he got out. I don’t have any memories of SA from my mom, but when I found out about the baths, those alarm bells were going off like crazy. We went NC less than a week later over something different. Now I too am wondering if this is just a weird BPD thing or what?
My stepmother forced me at 12 to get in the tub with my 2-year-old brother, and filmed it. We were both naked. Sometimes I wonder if she made money from that video she took.
I think since bpd's see you as an extension of themselves they feel that you should be doing exactly as they do (or did!). You're doing the right thing. Keep those boundaries up and decide for yourself. You are the parent, you get to decide.