Scalded son, mother punishing grandparent, is this reasonable?

[vr6lee]

My mother had an accident with my son, to cut a long story short the kettle ended up being pulled from the worktop by my son while in her arms, this ended up scalding the bottom of his leg and top of his foot ending in a skin graft.
My mother is devastated and has really struggled with whats happened. But my girlfriend is not helping at all. She has said she doesn't want her near my son again and will never look after him again. I have talked her round and my mun has been able to see my son a few times. There is tension between my girlfriend and my mother now so I have offered to take my son up to my mothers so she can see him as she really does love him to bits. But my girlfriend has poo poo'ed this and says the only way she is seeing him is at our house when she is present.
I think this is undermining me as a father as I have said I would be present at all times just to ease her mind, but I can now only come to one conclusion and that she is doing this to punish my mother by making it as difficult as possible for her to see her grandson.

My question to other mothers is do you think this is fair behavior or is she being very harsh.

Thanks in advance for any opinions.

Lee

I'm with the 'Accidents will happen' set, but then my DC are older so I think you see things a bit differently.

And why does the mother have the last say in this situation? Mr Theo says that he would not be happy with this. I hate his family for the way they tried to emotional blackmail him against leaving home to go to uni and have made him feel guilty ever more but I refuse to go but they still see our lot

^
While OP trivialises his GFs worries, or allows his parents to, he wont gain any trust form her. Ultimately what does he want? The battle of who's right and who's wrong to be won at any cost? Or to help his GF overcome her intense anxiety and bring her and his mother together? So sad to read so many comments talking about his right to do what he likes with his child as he is a parent too. I would hope that my DH would try to understand my anxiety and help me through it rather than take our child and drive off full of his sense of right ^

I cannot believe the lack of sympathy being shown towards the mental state of the mother of this child, who is not here on the thread to put her side remember, after someone in whom she had placed trust burned her baby son's legs badly enough for skin grafts just 10 weeks ago.

Me too, fluffyraggles.

I wouldn't leave my child alone with anyone (friend,relative, childminder, neighbour, uncle etc) who's neglect led to such an accident

I doubt they are as old as mine, GreenShadow. Why, I'm practically in the MIL bracket.

LtEve, sue 'em all, that's the only way you can sure you've found someone to blame, and thus ensured your DD's finger can heal, which it wouldn't do without any blame.

And the only thing my toddler has choked blue on was a salt-free organic rice cake...

By the way I think the OP is very set in his original opinion and so we might be wasting our breath

sp He doesn’t not have a say it’s just mine is more weighted because I will know what she’s already had etc.

So are your kids allowed unlimited amounts or sweets sugar etc?

I have one son. He has meals and snacks including sweets. I don't think about what carbs he has had that day, or how much veg or of he has had his daily calcium intake or his 5 a day.

When we go to mums he has sweets/chocolate etc and has meals. I have no issue with this

The GP give extra sweets I’ve got no problem with that (salty food at 5 months and off food is something else don’t get me started ), my point was just people said up thread the main carer has no right to assume any additional status as a decision maker (for trivial day to day things), I do not agree.

SP, we are not talking about a bump on the head

We are talking about serious burns and skin grafts. Bumps on the head are dealt with kisses on the head and cold compresses. I don't emotionally react when MIL brings the children home, having bumped their heads. I comfort her about it, because she's generally more upset about it than them, and children rush abut doing that.

I would feel quite differently if I had to spend days with a child screaming in pain, who needed skin grafts for a preventable accident. But I would still love her, because with MIL, I would trust it was an accident. I would still be entitled to be clingy about it and not want to let them over there for a bit. And she would respect that. So would MrJessie. Because they're nice and they realise that neither they nor I are robots.

However, if FIL did it, my trust would take a lot longer to be restored, because he has a history of carelessness (fortunately, I'm married to a sane man, who entirely recognises his father is a arrogant dipstick). Which is why, although FIL's never noticed, both MrJessie and I supervise him and refuse to let him take the children on his own. If MrJessie rode roughshod over my feelings just because he could, left the children with FIL, a child was injured, and dismissed my feelings, then MrJessie would be a bastard.

But no one is saying his feeling or trump hers, well at least I'm not.

Or to leave them alone.

But he is the child's father and if she dosent trust him even though he appears to have done nothing in relation to this accident then this needs to be worked on?

I stated earlier that my nanna did similar with my brother. It was an accident, my parents knew that and they didn't stop trusting her.

A child does not belong to just one parent.

That is your FIL though, you said yourself he is careless. OP hasn't said that.

What about the park for eg or a cafe or playing Center where you could meet your mum, if it's the house.

Meh we don't know too much here.

LittleThorin I wouldn't trust the OP, based on his posts. It's all "poor little mumsy, why does my girlfriend want to punish her". Punish?

I can now only come to one conclusion and that she is doing this to punish my mother by making it as difficult as possible for her to see her grandson.

He doesn't have to come to that conclusion at all. He doesn't have to view it as a conscious decision to punish poor ole mumsy... He could understand that she's frightened!

I agree with posters who've said the problem is more about parenting together than the specifics of this incident.

By way of illustration: My parents are pretty lax when it comes to child safety. They allowed my brother's kids to do some potentially risky stuff - the DC were okay, but the risk had been unrecognised - and his wife put her foot down about leaving DC alone with their grandparents. My brother was mightily pissed off about this. SIL called a mini-conference. We other sibs pointed out to DB that our parents are 'eccentric' (ahem!) and, while we all made it adulthood without major physical injury, that was no thanks to their lack of vigilance. After this, a conclusion was reached that my parents would be allowed free & open relationships with their DGC but never alone. This continued happily for 20 years. We didn't tell the parents, just did it. They commented on it now and again, but it never became an issue.

From your second post, OP, it does rather sound as though there are problematic areas in your relationship with GF; maybe subtle readjustments aren't possible in your situation. But I do think you should try.

I feel some sympathy for the MIL as well though.

As far as we know it was a one off. It was an accident that happened once.

I give up.

Can't you just give your girlfiriend some time? In a few years they will be fine but why the rush?

I'm sorry but I think there is a massive difference between an incident and an accident. I think your MIL was careless in the extreme to allow a situation to arise where a 10 week old got such severe burns.

Of course she must feel terrible and over time she will have that lovely relationship with her grandson.

Of course over time your girlfriend will get over the terrible shock of such an awful thing happening to her child.

However, I think you need to let your Girlfriend take her time.

This isn't about undermining you but is about you appreciating how your girlfriend feels.

OP

I don't think you have explained what happened in enough detail.

I scalded myself a few months ago. It was something that could not have been predicted, my back went in to spasm.

On the other had my mother used to regularly smoke, make cups of tea and iron with a child on one hip.

My mother is lucky no child was scalded/burned, but it is just that luck.

I think that is the difference. If your mother has, more than once, gone against your (both you and gf should be sying the same) wishes on child care then does something that could be predicted and therefore prevented which has harmed your son then it is a different matter.

Have you backed your mother against your gf in the past? Over the sweets?

No, SP the OP hasn't said that. He is quite firmly on poor ickle mumsy's side. It's pretty revealing that the only explanation he can see for his girlfriend wanting his mother to only see their child at their house is "punish[ment]". He has said, however, that his mother has a history of ignoring his girlfriend's wishes, but hastily defended that. ~He's not being objective in the slightest.

I think that if we asked his girlfriend, it is possible that his girlfriend might give us quite a different back story here.

Day Baby is 10 week old. Its 18 months, its been 10 week since it happened

I've come to this thread late.

My child was scalded in an accident.

Burns treatments are absolutely horrible and they go on for months and months and months. My child was 18 months when it happened and the pressure treatments didn't end until he was 4 and a half.

Thats months of painful dressing changes where your child will cry and cry with pain. Months of painful massage, months of fastening your child into pressure garments when they beg you not to.

A scald is not a bump on the head. Its an absolutely AWFUL injury and for him to have needed skin grafts it must have been a bad one.

So lets get onto skin grafts shall we? They are painful operations as well. More and more and more pain for your child that you HAVE to put them through as you have no choice.

Then you have to get your head around the fact that your beautiful, perfect child is scarred for life where the burn happened and scarred for life from the skin graft.

It's taken me years to get over it. YEARS. His girlfriend will be coming to terms with dealing with a sick and injured child. Coming to terms with a scarred and hurt child. Coming to terms with her child going through absolutely intense and vile pain.

He should give her a fucking break.

Of course he is sticking up for his mum. He understands it was an accident and trusts her enough. He just wants to be able to take the child to her house! Its not a big ask!

Its been 10 week since and he has gone along with his GF and he is now asking for one thing. How is that been on his mums side? Its not like he wanted to do it straight away. He has been respecting his gfs wishes.

Been a mum doesn't mean you make all the decisions.

SP - as stated above 10 weeks is only the start of getting burns healed.
Stop thinking weeks and think months and years.