Sister angry I “yanked” my nephew’s arm and told him off

Tbh your brother in law probably thought best to avoid you potentially hitting him.

You seem the type

There was a best selling novel adapted into a miniseries about a not totally dissimilar situation.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slap_(novel)

Gentle parents are out in force. I don't see an issue with what you said, and I took would have held his arm or taken the coaster. I wish more parents parented their kid's, if you work in a school you'll understand the type of behaviour and lack of boundaries the new generation of children have.

If he didn't like the what you said, maybe he could have been watching his son, and intervened before he smacked the dog in the face. Not all dogs will be as tolerant as yours.

I think BiL is the one who should apologise.

He wasn’t paying attention to his son and left OP to deal with it. When he realised he should have been the one to intervene he covered his arse with OP’s sister and left OP to take the blame for his version of what happened, when in reality she potentially prevented the child from being bitten. It’s true what they say on MN - no good deed goes unpunished.

If SiL is refusing to visit while OP is there, that’s her business. If l were OP I’d move out rather than be made to apologise for the actions of a lazy arsed dad who couldn’t be bothered to supervise his young son with a dog in the room.

It’s literally AIBU by the op.

And yet all those people are in the 43% that you started off by berating the OP for not listening to over the majority that agreed with her.

That wasn't my point. I was imagining what the sister and BIL might be like as primary school parents. "Oh I'm sure he didn't mean it. He's just spirited!"

Christ and as usual people have gone wayyy OTT on this one.

Let’s be honest here, you don’t teach a child not to hit animals by doing the whole “we must be kind,” speech, you do it often by force because the child is hitting the animal at the time.

There’s potentially only one chance to get this right. The child was lucky not to have been bitten in this instance, and if they had been the same posters calling the OP a child abuser would be calling her irresponsible for having a dog in the first place and demanding it be put down. Would be defending the sister and saying that she would be right to never set foot in the house until the dog was dead.

It’s like crossing a busy road. If a child tries to run out in the road do you say gently “no no little darling, we mustn’t run out in the road,” or do you, in fact, grab the child firmly from stopping it from running out. It’s the same with the dog.

Being firmly grabbed and told no isn’t going to scar a child for life. A dog waking up and snapping because it’s been hit over the head might well however.

True.

Interestingly you think you need to protect your dog, but not your nephew. You doi sound very angry and bitter and passive aggressive and what you said was very OTT.

True! 100%

Yeah fair. All of that is ridiculous. I've actually found this thread really interesting because it's not black and white these sorts of things, but hate people's tendency to go to the extreme. Anyway, I am going to try and extract myself 😂 not how I intended to spend my Saturday morning haha.

Well totally agree with you on that one!

I don't know. We left the EU on a narrower margin in a equally flawed poll where there was no understanding of the details of what we were voting for! 🤷‍♀️

Quite!

I have SIX nieces and nephews all close in age by two older sisters. See them all the time.

when they were little I never once had to "step in". Their parents were on it, capabale , alert and responsible.

if I did, and got the tone wrong or something, it would have been "that's a bit harsh, next time better this way. Suppose you don't know cause you're not a parent" And that's that.

The sister is over reacting. Massively.

Whether or not the OP handled the situation appropriately, the lazy arse BIL was the parent on duty and he should have taken over. Even if it had already happened and he was genuinely distracted, he should have said something to OP if he was unhappy about how she dealt with it, instead of doing a Pontius Pilate, then running to his wife to tell tales. What a gem of a dad. And husband.

he was a 2 year old. Stop trying to say he wasn’t

We don't know how the family works.
OP has admitted she is considered the black sheep, she was hungover too, already annoyed with BIL.
I can see how this played out.
Dsis is probably annoyed that she moved back and upset the apple cart, now this.
I am the black sheep in mine, no judgement. When DSis had her DD 23 years ago. I gave her lots of annoying parenting advice 🙄 until I became a parent, Dsis is much nicer than me, I'd have said fuck off 23 year ago.

I totally agree @Worriedsickmostofthetime and most importantly OP prevented a potential - nasty even if unlikely scenario - of a dog bite.

I’m young at heart

No, all of that is ridiculous and just Mumsnet at its worst.

And I wouldn't like somebody hitting my dog in the face.

If I were the OP I'd want to instigate a calm conversation with my sister in which I expressed my perspective and would try to understand hers so that a compromise can be reached. They sound like lovely close sisters that are just caught up in the moment.

Of course, I get that
But what I'm saying is she's causing an issue for what sounds like a brilliant auntie usually who loves and cares for her nephew and provides free childcare. The child put themselves in danger and OP intervened. An auntie who didn't care wouldn't do that. The main point of course being that she didn't yank the child, the father stirred the pot with this nonsense after doing nothing to intervene. So I think the sister has much more of a DH problem than she has a Dsis problem.