Mom fires grandma from babysitting 1-year-old twice a week after she secretly stops taking her to toddler art classes: 'She describes it as chaos'

One thing about parenting that can come as a surprise is the difference in opinion on how to raise kids between parents and grandparents. Most involved moms and dads can acknowledge that times have changed since they were children, and that there are probably things that they want to do differently from their parents. Whether this will be accepted by those older family members, though, is another matter altogether.

Rejecting the ways that your own kids want to parent can happen for many reasons. A lot of grandparents are stuck on what was considered the best thing to do back in their day, or they worry that the way their children want to go about things is going to have an adverse effect on their grandchildren. Sometimes, it is as simple as feeling like whatever parenting strategy their kids have adopted is an inconvenience that they do not want to deal with. If they are involved in the childcare of their grandkids, they think that they should get a say in how they are raised, right down to the smallest of habits. While some parents may find this helpful, others cannot help but feel that it would be better if they kept their opinions out of it.

via Kateryna Hliznitsova (Unsplash+)

_{^{A little girl sitting in a high chair reaches out to the finger paints in front of her while her mom sits beside her, smiling}}
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In this story, the mom of a 16-month-old had just gone back to working part-time. As a result, her mom had been babysitting her daughter twice a week. On these days, the toddler was supposed to go to a 2 hour class at the recreation center, which involved playing with other children and making art.
The mom felt like her daughter loved the class and truly benefited from it, but the grandma disliked the mess and thought that there were other things to do that were good for her development. When the mom realized that she had not been taking her granddaughter to these classes, she decided to replace her with a paid babysitter. The grandma was complaining, and she wanted to know if she had taken things too far.
Am I wrong for “firing” my mom from childcare over a $5 class?

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via Kateryna Hliznitsova (Unsplash+)

_{^{A little girl sitting in a high chair uses finger paints on a piece of paper as her mom sits beside her}}
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via Kateryna Hliznitsova (Unsplash+)

_{^{A little girl smiles as she sits on a table and eats cereal}}
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