Grandma pushes her only child not to stop at an only grandchild

Hi, Carolyn: I’m an only child, which was always my parents’ plan. I grew up yearning for a sibling and sometimes whining about not having one, and was always told that x, y and z were the reasons. I was around age 13 when I accepted it and stopped resenting them for it.

Now I am the parent of an only child, almost 4, and my mother hounds me almost daily about when I am going to give her a sibling because it would be “so good for her.” She is neurotically fixated on this, and it drives me up the wall.

I can’t work out whether she was lying to me about the benefits of being a one-and-done family when I grew up, or whether her attitude has just changed. Either way, I hate that she decided I didn’t deserve the incredible gift of a sibling but is more than happy to tell me I must give one to my child.

Aside from telling her to back off, which I can do, do you have any thoughts on what this means and how I can handle it? — Only Child

Dear Only Child: No thoughts that I have will be as useful as your mother’s.

But you haven’t asked? It’s such an obvious contradiction that I’d expect at least one of you to have mentioned it — the first time your mom ever lobbied for Grandchild 2.

So I’ll start here: Do you have any thoughts on what it means that you’re asking me instead? When you can try this (or something like it)?:

“It’s confusing to hear you push for a sibling when you gave me so many reasons you stopped after having me. Are you willing to talk about this?”

Unflinching, but gentle, is the balance you want. Because it’s possible your mom wanted to have more children, even more than you wanted her to, but they couldn’t. Or their marriage couldn’t. Or they could but your dad vetoed it. And they didn’t want to dump this much reality on their lonely, inquisitive child.

Or maybe the reasons she gave you were true. Valid enough that I have another question for you: Any thoughts on why you still don’t take your mom’s reasons for an answer?

Her desperation now would actually make sense — as Act II, where Act

I was either her private heartbreak or your public loneliness or both.

Look at me, having thoughts anyway.

You have absolute standing to tell her to back off. She’s so over the line that I’m surprised you didn’t steer her back to her side of it immediately. But doing it now, amid so much history and so little communication, seems like a missed opportunity. Whatever happened back then, you’re both still carrying the pain. I hope you’ll summon the courage to speak of it plainly with her.