Grandma Asks Why She Can't Kiss Newborn Granddaughter as New Mom Warns She'll Take Baby If She Does (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

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When new mom Devon Stephen prepared to bring her newborn daughter into the world, she knew she would have to set some boundaries with her loved ones.

“The thing about true boundaries is they aren’t set in place to punish anyone, but they are usually there to protect someone,” the new mom, 26, explains to PEOPLE.

Stephen posted a video to TikTokreinforcing her no-kissing boundarywith her mother. In the clip, the grandmother asked if she could kiss the top of her newborn’s head, and she was met with a firm reiteration of that boundary from Stephen, who said no.

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“[These are] some various serious rules,” Stephen explained calmly to her mother. “If your face gets closer than it is right now, I’ll have to remove her.”

The video shows just a 14-second snippet of the interaction, but Stephen says her mother has been incredibly respectful of this boundary.

“I wouldn’t dare have kept my mom from kissing my babies,” one commenter noted.

Devon Stephen setting a boundary with her mom.Devon Stephen/TikTok

Devon Stephen/TikTok

But others, whose parents didn’t set a similar boundary, note the consequences they face now.

According to theNew York State Department of Health, babies who contract HSV (herpes simplex virus) require hospitalization for up to 21 days, and the infection can still causebrain damage or even death. Because of this, the department recommends that anyone with cold sores not kiss babies.

But for Stephen, the decision to implement a strict no-kissing policy is also a personal one. She explains she has a nephew who was “born with a medical condition that has meant that as a 2-year-old, he’s had more operations than I can count on my hand.”

“So no matter how ‘controversial’ some people think it is to tell a grandma she isn’t the exception to the no kissing rule, I’m going to do whatever I can to avoid making my daughter sick,” she states simply.

“As RuPaul once said, ‘What other people think of me is none of my business,’ ” she says, quoting theDrag Racehost. “People saw a 14-second clip of an interaction that in my family is totally normal. I am the older sister who sets boundaries, my mom is the mom who needs boundaries, my younger sister who recorded the video is my unpaid social media manager (posting it to TikTok was her idea), and my dad simply exists to have a good time. So to us, it was hilarious.”

source: people.com