I’ve just had a baby. It’s making me see what my parents did to me in a whole new, painful light.

Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.

Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and I had our son about six months ago, and I’m reconsidering letting my parents meet him over the holidays as planned.

Both my parents smoke, and although they have agreed to wear new clothes they put on just before they meet him so that their clothing doesn’t reek of smoke, I am finding that I can’t stop thinking about health and safety issues around their smoking in my own childhood. I know that the type of get-together we’ve planned will not harm my baby. But that doesn’t ease my mind.

The fact is that my brother has a scar on his neck from cigarette ash that burned him when he was a baby, and I was sick throughout my childhood with asthma and respiratory issues (I was even hospitalized once). I was shocked by the improvement in my health almost as soon as I moved out. The frequent pneumonia ended; I discovered I could safely enjoy exercise for the first time in my life. These days, I’m down to one inhaler I rarely need.

If there was something I was doing that hurt our son the way my parents hurt me, I’d like to believe I’d move mountains to quit. But my parents never even made a failed effort—and this is all despite the fact that two of my grandparents died of smoking-related causes, and there was certainly social pressure on them to quit. I’ve gone from, “Addiction is complicated and I love my parents, but they can’t change,” to “F these people, they put their two kids at risk.” How do I figure out what to do here?

—Anti-Smoking Mom

Dear Mom,

Having a child changes you, both in ways that are predictable (your schedule is turned upside down, as are your priorities—to name just two) and in ways that come as a complete surprise (I won’t even take a stab at an illustrative list for this: There are far too many to mention, and they may be different for everyone). One of the surprises for you is a reconsideration of your own childhood and your parents’ parenting of you. This particular category of surprise is not uncommon. There’s nothing quite like contemplating the utterly vulnerable, perfect, beloved brand-new human being in your arms to make you suddenly aware, in a way that’s impossible to brush off, of the mistakes, deep flaws, failures, and bad decisions of your own parents in your infancy and childhood.

I think it’s fair to say that many revelations about one’s old childhood—like yours—do not constitute new information. Like many adults, until now you managed to compartmentalize the past—your parents’ smoking, the harm it caused you, and their failure to even attempt to quit—in a way that kept you from feeling (at least consciously) hurt, bewildered, and angry. Your son’s birth cracked that compartment open. Now the question is: What to do with that opened-up Pandora’s box of feelings?

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Don’t try to tamp them down (they’ll just pop back up). Once opened, the box cannot be closed. So feel your feelings, as unpleasant and destabilizing as they are right now. Talk about them to anyone you’re sure will be a good listener—compassionate, kind, and disinclined either to debate you or egg you on (or to try to “fix” you). Your husband might be a good place to begin. Your brother might be too. But don’t underestimate the value of talking to good friends—people who love you but have no personal stake in the issue at hand. And, of course, if your parents are the kind of people who can be talked to frankly and openly without getting defensive or going on the attack (I won’t simply assume they’re not! I am ever-optimistic!), have a conversation with them, too. But if you find that you are consumed with rage, are becoming depressed or extremely anxious, then talking to a therapist would be an excellent idea.

Once you begin to deal with the feelings about your childhood that have bubbled to the surface, you’ll be able to confront and make a decision about the issue at hand. Letting your parents meet their grandson—and, beyond that, allowing them to be in his life—does not have to be tightly entwined with how you feel about your own childhood: It can be decoupled from that, if you wish to decouple it.

I want to be clear. I’m not saying you must introduce your baby this winter as planned. If you are still too hurt and angry to do that, put it off. Don’t force yourself to go through something that will further pain you. Make an excuse if you like. Or if you’d prefer to confront things directly, tell your parents the truth (no matter what kind of people they are), letting them know you need time to work through this, and set a tentative future date. You can always postpone that date if you need to.

It seems your parents are open to making an effort where their grandchild is concerned (there are plenty of grandparents who would be offended by being asked to change into new, clean clothes!), and I gather you’d be seeing them in your own home or on neutral grounds for the holidays, not in their smoky, smelly house. I would hope that they’ve committed to not smoking in his presence (if not, go ahead and lay down those ground rules). So the questions to consider are these: Do you want your child to have a relationship with his grandparents, or not? Do you want to continue to have a relationship with your parents, or not? If the answers to these questions are yes, you’re going to make sure both these things happen—if not now, then eventually. And if you’re uncertain about the answers to these questions … well, then, be patient with yourself. Give yourself grace.

—Michelle

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