My extended family don't get on. So how do I bring them together to celebrate the birth of my child?

With advice from Shakespeare, Austen & The Brothers Grimm.

Sleeping Beauty’s baby blessing - not ideal.

Dear Emma,

My partner and I (long-term couple, unmarried) are expecting our first child in the summer. My father, full of the joys of becoming a granddad, wants to get the baby blessed as a way of 'getting the whole family together'. In principle, this is something both me and my partner are down for, as it acknowledges the baby's Catholic heritage without going full-christening (which is not something we want for our child) and 'getting the family together' would be lovely for my dad, who has not yet met my in-laws. Now, the issue is that both me and my partner have separated parents: whilst mine get on in a 'I can tolerate you' sort of way, my partner's parents do not speak, and there continues to be some explicit animosity. One of the reasons we plan to elope rather than get married (if we do eventually want to sign our names on a dotted line) is to avoid the whole stress of devising the best mad tactical solution to getting everyone in the same room together. So, in a nutshell my question is: is there a way to honour our baby's being-in-the-world with our whole family without a) pissing anyone off, b) upsetting anyone, and c) wishing they would all f*ck off and disappear? How do we keep it joyful?

NewMother

Dear NewMother, congratulations on your first child! That’s huge, and the care and generosity your message shows suggests to me that you are going to be a wonderful parent. However, I don’t envy you the complex family dynamics that this blessing ceremony might bring. Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about the politics of bridesmaid-choosing for so long I make myself physically sick, and I don’t even have a marriage on the cards.

To summarise, you want to get warring family members together to honour your beautiful baby. Well, part of me wonders whether it might end up being easier than you think. Your predicament reminded me of an awkward social occasion in Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, which is greatly smoothed by the presence of a bubba. Our wry narrator observes: 

‘A child ought to be of the party on every formal visit, by way of provision for discourse. In the present case it took up ten minutes to determine whether the boy were most like his father or mother, and in what particular he resembled either, for of course everybody differed, and everybody was astonished at the opinion of the others.’

A baby is a ready-made ice-breaker, conversation-starter, and situation-harmoniser - particularly when the baby is YOUR baby, meaning family members will be extra invested in coo-ing. On a darker note, warring families also made me think of Romeo and Juliet, and the way that huge life events have the capacity to bring people together. The bitterly feuding Capulets and Montagues are, of course, finally united by the tragic death of their two children. By the end, Montague wants to honour the daughter of the Capulet family he’s always despised:

‘I will raise her statue in pure gold, / That while Verona by that name is known, / There shall no figure at such rate be set / As that of true and faithful Juliet.’

I think Shakespeare was right to observe the way that the really big stuff can rock us out of our old ways of being. Sometimes it takes a terrible tragedy - or, on a more hopeful note, the birth of a beautiful new grandchild - to set old grievances aside, and remind everyone what’s important.

But perhaps you think I’m being optimistic - and perhaps I am. It is at this point that I want to remind you that being a grandparent is a privilege, not a right, and you should not have to accept any divorced adults in the room ruining this extremely special day by snarking at each-other. In your letter, it seems like all your mental energy is going toward pleasing your parents and in-laws, when really this ceremony - if you want to have it - should primarily be about you, your partner, and the baby. I think the real shame would be if your parents or in-laws' bad behaviour ended up causing tension between you and your partner at this gorgeous moment in your shared life. So my main advice is to do whatever you can to remain a united front on the day, whether that’s discussing ground rules together beforehand, staying joined at the hip if you need to, or just making sure that any weird stuff they do makes you smile knowingly at each other from across the room. Pride and Prejudice is the set text on embarrassing families, but it’s actually an earlier social scene I want to allude to here - when Mr Darcy famously tells Bingley at the Meryton ball that Elizabeth is ‘not handsome enough to tempt me’. Instead of being cowed by Darcy’s wildly rude behaviour, Elizabeth relishes it:

‘She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous.’

It is my life goal to delight in anything ridiculous. It makes you impervious to social harm. (And I know it’s vulgar to enjoy the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice, but that scene where Lizzy is telling Charlotte Lucas this story under the stairs, and they’re laughing their heads off, is perfect to me.) What I’m trying to say is, if you can keep your person on side, you might be able to metabolise any prospective rudeness into a story that you laugh about, rather than one that aches to look back on.

Of course, ideally rudeness is avoided altogether, so here’s my final suggestion. Your situation made me think of literature’s most iconic baby blessing: nope, not the birth of Christ, Sleeping Beauty, of course. In the ancient fairytale recorded by The Brothers Grimm, a Queen gives birth to a girl ‘so beautiful that the king could not contain himself for joy, and he ordered a great celebration’ - aww, just like your dad. All the wise women in the country are invited, bar one: in the Grimm version, this is because the royal family only have twelve golden plates (just buy some more plates?). As I’m sure you remember, the day ends badly when the uninvited woman turns up and curses little baby princess to prick herself on a spinning wheel. But before that, things are going well, and I think it’s because every guest has a job, which allows them to play to their strengths:

‘The wise women presented the child with their magic gifts. The one gave her virtue, the second one beauty, the third one wealth, and so on with everything that one could wish for on earth.’

Could you perhaps give everyone at your baby blessing something to be in charge of, which acknowledges their unique gift? Could they bring a dish, do a reading, or be in charge of making drinks? I’m just reading about baby blessings now, and it sounds like sometimes parents or family members make ‘promises’ to the child, like vows in a wedding. Could you ask each grandparent to come up with a promise? I wonder if doing something along these lines would help in several ways at once. Firstly, it would make each guest feel special, thereby distracting them from their grievances. More importantly, however, I hope it would remind them all why they came: to honour your precious new child. I know they’ll be worth honouring, NewMother. Good luck.

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