MIL attitude issues

[partofthecure]

We adopted a child this year. My MIL is really old school and doesn't get the need for a different style of parenting with a child who has a trauma history.

Today I lost the plot with her for calling our wee one "naughty" over a normal behaviour for a three year old (throwing a toy on the floor) as we've been working hard on not labelling or shaming.

Other gems from today:

"She's too intelligent to ever be with a family like that” (referring to birth parents)

“Oh, seems like it’s just me that’s not allowed to give you sweets then!” (I gave her a Jaffa cake, not a bloody whole box of jelly babies like she’s tried to!)

“I’m buying her a toy kitchen for Christmas” and when I said, she already has one, she rolled her eyes and said “well this one will be from me, not some foster carer she doesn’t know anymore, so that’ll be better”

She and I have never gotten on but this today has sealed a deal for me and I've told DH she's not welcome here again, nor will she ever look after our DD alone. He agrees she was awful today but thinks it's a step too far to not let her babysit or come round.

AIBU?

I understand where you are coming from. Your MIL's comments are completely out of order. However, she cares about your child and wants to be important for her and that is valuable. So I would keep trying to educate her.

If she is a retired primary school teacher, could you give her books on how to teach adopted children like "Becoming an adoption friendly school" or "Inside I'm hurting"? You could say you are getting prepared and if she could please read them, you would like to know what she thinks. All these books cover the basics and might help her understand.

Or maybe you could convince her to go to a family and friends workshop, eg. www.pactcharity.org/adoption-support/training/family-and-friends-training

I would not leave my child alone with her though.

I am an adopter. I think the examples you are giving of your MIL being inappropriate do not warrant such an extreme response from you. I find your response of cutting her out disproportionate and cruel. As other people have pointed, the issues you raise are things we all have to navigate as adopters. I really dislike the fact that my MIL and FIL are always trying to give sweets to my children. I dislike the fact that they often try to tell me how I should raise my children and how I should discipline them. I also dislike the fact that they don’t have an really good appreciation for their circumstances as adopted children. However, it would never cross my mind to cut them out from my children’s lives. At the end of the day I am their parent and it is me who educates them and raises them. My MIL and FIL can say whatever they want, but it’s not really up to them. More than once I have had to set boundaries including in front of my children, which has been upsetting for my MIL and FIL, but that’s life. As the parent, I am the one in charge and that’s the only thing that matters.

And it is obvious that you don’t have a good relationship with your MIL, which is really the cause of your extreme reaction. However, your adopted child deserves all the love and support they can get, including from their grandmother, and you need to be the adult and just sort it out with your MIL. Just have a chat with her and let her know what your boundaries are as the parent.

I have an adopted child, a mother in law who doesn’t understand our parenting and I think you’re being incredibly unreasonable. So what with the new kitchen and the sweets, she is trying to be her Grandma and love her. For what it’s worth I found most of the workshops a complete waste of time!

Yabu and unnecessarily mean imo.

It's hard as on the one hand some of the things she's doing are wildly inappriate but on the other hand she clearly loves your child and we should be teaching our kids to be tolerent and not give up on relationships when they become strained. I would LOVE for my in-laws to give enough of a sh$t about my dd that I had to tell them off for giving her too many sweets tbh but it seems whatever I do they just don't care. Trust me this is a gutwrenching position to be in so don't force it on your family unless you have no choice. I have always said with my in-laws that no matter how strained things get I want to be able to look my daughter in the eye when she's grown up and sincerely tell her that the choice not to be in her life was their's and not her's. Yes your MIL's behaviour shouldn't go unchecked but cutting the ties completely is neither helpful nor necessary IMHO. Your child has suffered enough loss already.... Good luck xx

Their's and not our's* (as in my dh and I did everything we could to facilitate a relationship)

How you deal with things can help stop escalations, so for example when you said your LO already had a kitchen you could maybe have suggested something else sort of similar like a shop or a carpentry table, or say your LO would really love things to go with her kitchen like an iron and ironing board or standalone washing machine or more pots and pans. You could also explain that it is important to keep the foster parent things so that your LO does not feel that she was abandoned by the first people who cared for her, as your MIL may need the clear explanation in context. You could also ask your DH to ask her to not mention BPs in front of her - would she listen to your DH?

Your MIL is going to be around because of your DH, so I think it best to think up strategies about how to manage visits. Instead of visits at home could you make visits about an activity in public like going to a park and cafe, where your MIL is more likely to behave well?

Also the smile and nod technique for some things, and choose your battles.

Also, think about why your LO is throwing toys, with this age it might well be to do with communicating something, whether a desire to throw, or play with a ball, or frustration about something.

Yabu. She is trying to bond. I do think you need to have a proper chat about things and the way you would like to parent and put in some boundaries but all of you examples do not sound toxic to your child, only you.

I have a sister in law that speaks about her MIL in the same way. She is my MIL too. I love her despite difficult behaviour after the arrival of my BS (I let time pass and she and her both calmed down). My children love her too. She gives them too many sweets, feeds them waffles and nutella for breakfast, allows them to watch scary movies, buys tat from the corner shop. No doubt calls the youngest naughty from time to time. I allow none of that. People on this thread have provided very good advice and commentary. I hope you take time to reflect on it because creating that sort of ultimatum/loss in a family on the basis of the examples given seems like bonkers to me.

I do think you need to have a proper chat about things and the way you would like to parent and put in some boundaries but all of you examples do not sound toxic child, only you. authorityapk.com/mobdro/ vidm.fun/vidmate/

An interesting thread. I'm an adopter and how I would love for my family to be showing this much interest for me to be getting annoyed over. Sweets, thinking about Xmas presents, wanting to be involved with baby sitting etc... I wish I had this problem 🤣🤣

Why are you dismissing her years of professional experience? Is it because you dislike her anyway?

@Buttercup54321

Why are you dismissing her years of professional experience? Is it because you dislike her anyway?

Working in a field doesn't mean you're an expert in it. My SIL is a nursery nurse but her kid was constantly sat in a corner doing nothing as an infant and pretty much permanently glued to an ipad now as a toddler and at age 3 barely talks.... Am I going to take childcare advice from her? No thanks...

@partofthecure, I think you’ve been given an unnecessarily hard time on this thread. You would probably have been given a tonne of support on the ‘mainstream’ parenting threads, where people are generally given the airtime and permission to vent about annoying relatives. Adoptive parents, on the other hand, are expected to be a combination of Mother Teresa, St Francis of Assisi and the Pope all rolled into one, so when we display any normal characteristics, like losing our shit at ignorant rellies, we get told off by society.

I’m a single adopter twice over, so no MIL - of either the annoying or non-annoying variety - but I did have to reign in my own parents in terms of their desperation to ‘claim’ my first child as one of our own, which, as in your case, involved casual denigration of her foster carers and birth family and a desire to almost erase them from her back story. It came from a place of them feeling threatened in their love and a need for them to try to build an instantaneous bond with my DD.

We all on here know the importance of good quality life story work to promote the positive wellbeing, sense of self and healthy self-esteem of adopted people. Hearing endless negative comments about their birth parents or foster carers, in my opinion, adds to the sense of shame and idea that they’re spawned from ‘badness’ that so many adopted teens, in particular, can feel.

Also, just because your MIL was a teacher, doesn’t mean that she understands anything about adopted children vis-a-vis children in general. If all teachers knew everything there is to know about working with adopted children and young people, then none of us here would have any issues with our children’s schools! I’m 14 years into this game and I know many, many adopters, both in real life and virtually, and I can count on the finger of one finger the number who have not experienced difficulties with teachers, schools and education in general.

Similarly, my adopted teen has a binge eating disorder, so I’d be very cross about ANYONE undermining her dietitian-controlled diet and attempting to buy her affection by giving her unnecessary sweets.

@UnderTheNameOfSanders speaks a lot of sense, in my opinion.

I think that the venting about annoying relatives was fine, it was the proposal to cut her MIL off completely which was being discouraged because the transgressions were not very extreme!!

@crackooos, I didn’t read it as the OP cutting off MIL completely, just that she didn’t want her in her home or to have her babysit her child. These seem to be generally accepted boundaries on Mumsnet where in-law relationships are fraught. The child also has an adoptive father who presumably could instigate visits to his mother’s home and maintain the grandparent relationship.

smaug One of my suggestions upthread was to try to meet up outside the house, in a park or theme park or cafe as if relationships are tense it is easier in public, and prevents a dramatic fallout, sometimes. But I think most of the comments here are in line with the sort of comments you'd get on mainstream MN, to be honest. I don't think extra high standards were being imposed.

When we adopted, an older relative was a bit negative about the process and wouldn’t come to any information sessions and we found it quite disconcerting as he said he was pleased for us.

He’s turned out to be great with the kids (like with his own) and a great source of support. He’s also now told us that he was taken into care for a short period in the 50s and talks about quite shocking traumatic experiences.

I think I’m trying to say that people carry a lot of baggage about their own childhood and sometimes saying inappropriate things is a reflection of that.

I’m not saying let her look after your kid, but it’s worth gently correcting her and chipping away at negative behaviour because she may be a pain in the arse, but she’s a person too, and your husbands mother.

Oh, seems like it’s just me that’s not allowed to give you sweets then!” (I gave her a Jaffa cake, not a bloody whole box of jelly babies like she’s tried to!)

smaug One of my suggestions upthread was to try to meet up outside the house, in a park or theme park or cafe as if relationships are tense it is easier in public, and prevents a dramatic fallout, sometimes. But I think most of the comments here are in line with the sort of comments you'd get on mainstream MN, to be honest. I don't think extra high standards were being imposed.
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@spiceagent11403

smaug One of my suggestions upthread was to try to meet up outside the house, in a park or theme park or cafe as if relationships are tense it is easier in public, and prevents a dramatic fallout, sometimes. But I think most of the comments here are in line with the sort of comments you'd get on mainstream MN, to be honest. I don't think extra high standards were being imposed. VidMate | Bluestacks | spicemoney.win

smaug One of my suggestions upthread was to try to meet up outside the house, in a park or theme park or cafe as if relationships are tense it is easier in public, and prevents a dramatic fallout, sometimes. But I think most of the comments here are in line with the sort of comments you'd get on mainstream MN, to be honest. I don't think extra high standards were being imposed. [url]vidmateapp.win/[/url] | [url]bluestacks.red[/url]

Why does this thread keep getting resurrected? The OP hasn’t been here since the middle of October. I suspect she doesn’t want any more advice…..