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

your GF has been through a terrible experience caused by your mum, albeit not deliberately. It's only been 2 and a half months. That's hardly any time at all. She's gone from not wanting your Mum to see DS to seeing DS when GF is there too in your house, which she knows is safe. It will take time to move on to trusting your mum again, and you can't rush that because you've decided your GF should be ready to.

Most importantly, if you 'fix' the problem between your GF and Mum by engineering it that your Mum sees DS without having to deal with your GF's (perfectly reasonable!) upset, then that's not going to speed up your GF getting a workable relationship with your mother.

Why is it a problem that your mum has to come to your house? you say it's a tense atmosphere, but that's not going ot be fixed by removing your Mum and your GF from each other.

Give your mum chance to prove to your GF that she's trustworthy. Give your GF chance to see your Mum is sorry and is making an effort with her. (Assuming your mum is making an effort!).

Then step back and let them fix this, it's not your job. The next logical step is not contact at your Mum's house, but somewhere outside the home (park, soft play etc), without your GF there. That might be far more acceptable as a starting point for your GF.

Lol at the primeval comment. If anyone did that to my child by accident, they would only ever be allowed closely supervised contact in future - if I could face seeing them again tbh. Instincts are instincts. That of a mother to protect her child is so strong that mothers will die for their offspring. That's how the human race evolved. If we didn't care that much about our children, it would never have had a chance! Your child is scarred for life, because your mother didn't take enough care. He's got months and months of horrible, excruciating pain to go through, and you just seem like you don't care. How can you even be arguing about access, when your child is in so much pain every day?

Go help with changing the dressings, help soothe your son, deal with the reality of the damage day in and day out. When your GF sees you chipping in, sees that you really understand how serious this is, then she'll trust you in full charge of him.

oh and as a guide, I would say it will take half again time for your GF to 'get over this' than it takes your DS to get over it. If he's not better yet, then she's not going to be over it for a long time.

You and your GF need to be an absolute team and your GF needs to know this.

10 weeks is a very short time and your GF is going to be hypervigilant for a long long time.

What's worse for you is your GF already doesn't get on with your mum, she' already sees your mum as interfering and the circumstances of the accident could be seen as your mum being careless about safety.

I appreciate your mum is very apologetic and guilt-ridden now and loves your son enormously. But given the previous history, what to your mum seems like wanting to make up for what she's done and make sure her grandson is getting better is just going to look like even more interfering. From your GF's perspective, why does your mum need to make sure he's getting better - that's her job!

So your mum needs to back right off. She needs to ensure she keeps her mouth buttoned about anything your GF does she thinks is a bit bonkers. She needs to obey all your GF's parenting rules even if she thinks a bit of custard or a sweet won't do any harm. If she can only visit at your house, when GF is there she needs make sure GF knows she understands perfectly why this is and she would have done exactly the same if it was her baby.

If she does all of this, then eventually GF might relax a bit. Again if this relaxation comes with rules - eg your mum's house needs to be childproofed all over, no kettles on display let alone switched on, whatever, she needs to go along with them without question.

If you and your GF start to argue over this, it could be a dealbreaker for her. Part of being a couple is that you put your parents second, and after you've had kids third. Your GF will need loads of time and reassurance.

It's probably going to take time OP.

I think the bulk of opinion is against your point of bire on here, and you can see by some of the comments now upset she may be feeling.

I would give some more time, maybe get your mum to visit at the house and in a while maybe a neutral place like a park and should there be no drama I would imagine she will feel better about the house in time.

Because I do think it would be unfair to not take him there, forever more.

OP, you and your partner have been through an extremely traumatic experience, not just with your child having to go into hospital and have the skin grafts but also having to support him through what has probably been painful and horrible experiences of the burns and grafts being treated. Ten weeks on, your partner is likely to have been focused on taking care of your son rather than processing her feelings, and if she is as traumatised - not upset, but traumatised- as very many mothers would be, then she may well be stuck with some very powerful feelings that are causing her a lot of distress, and she may not be able yet to be logical or objective about this.

Rather than try to get her to appreciate your mother's feelings, I'd put aside the whole matter of visiting and give your partner the chance to talk to you about how she is feeling and how she's handled the past two months, to have those feelings listened to and to be supported. Sometimes where parents have been through this kind of nightmare they handle it in very different ways and it can be very hard to talk to or support each other in the way the other one needs or would LIKE to be supported.

Your mother must feel terrible, I have every sympathy for her and of course she needs your support too, but she hasn't been through what you and your partner have. Your partner has good reasons for how she is feeling, she needs your help and support with that. Re establishing contact with your mother isn't your first priority here, that may be the end step. Not the first.

There seems some hard faced mothers on here, you need to evolve from prim-evil ape like attitude to join the rest of the civilised rational human race who can give compassion and forgiveness.

Really? On MN? Nice. If I was your girlfriend I'm not sure I would have handled it quite as she has but maybe rather than focusing on taking your DC to your Mum's you should just be inviting her to yours for now. Your girlfriend has said this is fine and if you DM really wants to see her GC she'll do this, don't see how it is such a big deal.

In saying that if I was your girlfriend I would be questioning why I was with such a rude, chauvinistic man. "Join the rest of the civilised rational human race"? I'm assuming your not including yourself in this "civilised human race" giving that your last post is hugely uncivilised and ignorant.

Pull up your big boy pants and learn that an opinion different to yours doesn't make someone "hard-faced". If you really can't handle it then maybe you should seriously rethink your description of yourself as laid back because quite frankly throughout your posts you sound like a child stamping his feet wanting his own way without thought to the person who is meant to be your partner.

Low ceilings and a grandad playing. We were thrown up and down in the air.

I mentioned that and then said I forgive him as it was an accident. Just as people mentioned doing other things to their children yet I'm the one you keep quoting?

Keep quoting all you like

I think your gf is being unreasonable myself. Your mum made a mistake that's all. We've all done it. I can understand not wanting her to mind the baby now, but to dismiss the idea that you can supervise is wrong. You are both the parents, you were both shocked, you both love the baby. It isn't only women that feel the natural instinct to protect their child. Maybe your girlfriend is letting her emotional side take over the rational.

My SIL is a great mum to my nephews and niece. Last summer she had a picnic outside for one of the kids birthdays. It was a cloudy day and the youngest spent 90% of the time asleep in his car seat with a bit draped over to block the sun. However come that evening it became apparent he had got pretty bad sunburn. The poor bugger had blisters on his shins and forearms. I stress again, she is a great mum who has never put a foot wrong and does everything for her kids. She was beyond devastated. One mistake was all it took. These things happen.

Not quite sure why he should support the GF when he feels she is wrong?

That smacks of keeping quiet & burying the issue....

Although the burn was very severe, Have any if you injured your own child? I posted on the thread about mum who let baby roll off bed. I was too busy telling off ds1 and didn't strap ds2 into pushchair, in park.Fell out onto concrete. Huge bump. A&e.
Must be the only MN'er who has ever done anything so negligent, right? Noooooot.
Can't wait for op's gf to do similar.all those saying that they would never let mil see child again? God. You are very sanctmonious aren't you? Parent if the year?
But mil was more than careless. The burn was a very big error of judgement. Does mil realise this, OP?

Oblomov quite a few of us has posted our own stories of accidentally injuring our child or someone else doing it. They got a bit buried under pages of sanctimonious shite...

I don't think we are being hard-faced. I think we are all soft and squishy and empathising with a mother who has a badly-burned child who is still a littlie.
Did you read Keema's posts?
Were you at the hospital and are you changing dressings?
You are being very cold and distant, expecting the woman you love to get over her feelings and move on because that's what you have been able to do.

Something Loads posted and I'm the only one who is getting quoted about it

There seems some hard faced mothers on here, you need to evolve from prim-evil ape like attitude to join the rest of the civilised rational human race who can give compassion and forgiveness.

He's right though! The comments directed at him and his mum have been awful and unwarranted.

His mum made a mistake - she didn't pour the water over him deliberately it was a terrible accident, for which she is sorry and should be forgiven and allowed to see her GS for the sake of their relationship.

Personal attacks and name calling are uncalled for! He wants advice - My mum always said - if you have nothing nice to say don't sat it all - perhaps some on here could adhere to that advice also?

OP, you're a twat.

Suddenly it all becomes clear eh ?

32? How long has it been since you moved out of your mum and dad's place, just out of interest?

It's simple. She doesn't trust your mother to care for her child because the last time she did he ended up needing skin grafts. And she doesn't trust that you 'overseeing' would make jack shit difference because despite your 'awareness of risk', you aren't willing to put your gf's requests before your mum's, and so wouldn't prevent her if she wanted to take charge with your child while she wasn't there. You wouldn't even see it as a problem.

It's abundantly clear you're going to end up splitting up- you seem to have zero respect for her as a mother. You see your parents as your actual family, rather than the one you are failing to commit to. Your loss.

Some if the comments about his mum were uncalled for.

Some of you thought he had his priorities wrong, fine.

Sometimes I think people get so carried away arguing with each other they get a bit too vitriolic.

Ood I saw others posting things. Which was why I added mine. And as you said, others seemed to get buried in the sanctimonious shit !!!!

Jim I get you think he should be more supportive but I do not get how this translates into him begin untrustworthy to prevent an accident to be honest.

Doesn't it give you a warm fuzzy feeling SP?

I know what civilised is, unfortunately several people on here are clearly not!

I may well have sounded unhinged on the last post, but read my previous posts, I didn't ask for an opinion on me so don't give an answer to a question which was not asked! Stop being troll's!

But thanks for the sensible answers, its given me some good idea's for sorting the situation.

Some of the comments have been harsh. You didn't ask for opinions of you yourself ... but since you're part of the situation (stuck in the middle of two hurting women) it was inevitable that your part would be scrutinised.

My mum always said - if you have nothing nice to say don't sat it all - perhaps some on here could adhere to that advice also?

I think they absolutely could, along with the OP by the looks of things.

OP, you're a twat.

OP this is a personal attack (just an example of a few) You can report this sort of thing as MN doesn't tolerate this kid of behaviour!

jim perhaps you could try - 'I don't agree' ? not as rude don't you think?