Hi, I need some advice on how to navigate this issue in the nicest way possible.First of all, I love my parents, they're great, I had a good childhood, I was very close to them and my sister and I spent quality time with them while growing up. They were always there when we needed them. On the other hand, they were also very controlling over us, especially my mom. Example: I was already in my early 20's I still had to let her know I was going to cut my hair so she wouldn't get mad for doing it without her permission or I wasn't allowed to go out to a bar with my friends without their consent.We're originally a Latin American family, I think it's a cultural thing.By the time I was 25, I decided I wanted to move away. Not only did I move away, I moved to a different country to spend the year abroad. I ended up in the USA. I met my husband about two months after having moved here and we married within 10 months of knowing each other. We have two toddlers and one baby due in a few weeks.My parents come to visit once a year, usually for about 2 or 3 months. Baby #3 is due in early Jan and my parents are coming to help out, it'll be a c-section so the help will be nice.The good things are that my mother loves cooking so she always takes care of the cooking, both of my parents are retired elementary school teachers so they can be very good with our kids. Financially, they support by splitting the cost of groceries and stuff like that. My husband and I are able to get out of the house on dates easily after the kids go to sleep and my parents do house sitting, they help out with the cleaning in general.The bad stuff, they have a pretty bad habit I'd say about using their iPads. I don't have a problem with this though, the problem is that they do this from 10:00 pm to 4:00/5:00 am every single day. They're awake at night, all night long. I've told them this before and they just tell me if I need them just to wake them up during the day. They like sleeping in till noon, and they take regular naps throughout the afternoon, they're fully awake by 6:00 pm and then up all night again.I'm a stay at home mom, so when they come I like having the company. I can take care of my house on my own, I do it all the time so when they come the thing I look forward the most is their company. But they're like teenagers you have to harass to have their devices put down and go to sleep at a decent hour. I find it annoying they sleep all day or most of the day, and if they're up, usually they're tired and lifeless and escape to their room to nap whenever they can.I don't wanna feel intitled to their time and help but it just feels irritating. On top of that, cultural thing or not, they disagree with my parenting so I have to hear it here and there that I should be doing this, I should be doing that, you're doing it wrong, let me do it, listen to us, etc...They went as far as telling me, my kids lacked maternal warmth as infants that's why they're autistic. They insist I co-sleep with them, give them what they lack and they'll get better!? (I realized then, it's gonna be hard to reason with them if they think I made my kids autistic because apparently I didn't love them enough) Plus some other "attachment parenting" things they're really big into.The reason why I get along so well with my in laws is that they respect me and my cultural differences. They never nag me or judge me for doing something they haven't seen before. They treat me like an adult and they compliment a lot on the way my husband and I are raising our kids.My parents have a hard time understanding and accepting change. Cultural thing or not, my parents seem to expect to have some authority over our kids and over us still. They don't say openly and as an order but they comment and insist in hopes I do as they say.I have no problems saying no. I usually ignore and keep on doing what I want to do. This has caused our relationship to be stressful, I realized I get very anxious when I know they're coming to visit, they reallly wanna have a saying in my household and over my kids and I've lived on my own for six years now and I refuse to take orders, I like being independent.My husband, while he's annoyed by their night schedule, doesn't say anything. And since he doesn't speak Spanish, he never hears the nagging. But he pointed out that he always hopes having my parents here will cheer me up, but he has noticed that instead, their presence makes me more stressed out than normal.If I tell them this I have the feeling they won't understand and feel sad about me changing a lot for moving here to the USA, they resent the fact that I've changed, they seem to resent my now, home country and feel like I lost my roots. They'll likely stop visiting or do it for a week or two, and we do have some good moments still.How do I approach this without insulting them and hurting their feelings? I really want them to understand me. I don't want to feel stressed out anymore, I have plenty of stress raising my kids. But I'm afraid I'm gonna lose them completely, they're still my parents and all the family I've got left.Edit: I should also mention, we lost my baby sister last year. So it's a rough patch we are all going thru right now. They were like this before though, it just got worse. I see a psychiatrist weekly, I've been very good at getting myself out of the depression losing my sister caused, I do pottery, coloring, I had sleep train myself to treat the insomnia problem I developed and I'm doing pretty good at moving on and pulling myself up. My parents don't believe in therapy and they don't help themselves, so it's emotionally exhausting trying to drag them out of the house to do stuff and cheer them up. It brings me down.tl;dr: I'm almost 32, married and with two kids and my parents still wanna boss me around when they visit, and as guests, they sleep a lot. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2hBzcUv
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