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

[SilverApples]

Perhaps being a primary teacher has made me more aware?
If a child was hurt in my care because of my negligence, I'd be facing a shitstorm from parents and SLT and everyone else, to go along with my guilt.

[pigletmania]

Oh Venus is psychologies good? I have an Msc in health psychology and want to continue once dc are older

[SPsMrLoverManSHABBA]

I fucking despair at this site sometimes, I really do. What a bunch of hard faced, self important people there are on this thread

Exactly!

[Asheth]

I can see all sides. Accidents do happen, however careful the carer. It only needs a second of distraction for an accident to happen. My DS scalded himself aged about 14 months on a cup of tea, while both me and DH were present. But we were distracted for a moment (trying to work out how a new toy worked!) and DS was able to get to the cup without us noticing. Of course we felt terrible, but accidents happen and no one ever said that we weren't fit to care for him! We forgave ourselves your mother should be forgiven.

However your GF's reaction is understandable. When we got back from hospital I announced that I was never drinking tea again! But after a few weeks I would drink it if he was asleep. Then gradually i got comfortable drinking it when he was around. Now (10 years on) I happily make cups fo tea for him without even thinking about it!

I think for now you should accept what your GF wants. Then build up to all going to your mother's house. You don't say how long ago this happened, but to start with your GF will be very very protective of your DS. It will take time for your GF to get over it and probably also for you and your DM. So support your GF and allow her to come to terms with it in her own time. And one day she will forgive your DM and be happy for your DS to visit her and even be looked after by her again.

[pictish]

Venus - yet despite all that education, you still make bold sweeping statements for which you have no basis. How interesting.

[curlew]

Good to know you are a properly qualified armchair diagnoser. There are so many that aren't, and they don't realize the potential dangers of pinning labels on people based on flimsy to non existent evidence. You, with all your training obviously wouldn't dream of doing anything like that..........

[MoominsYonisAreScary]

The op isnt suggesting his dm looks after the child on her own. All he wants is to take their son to his dms house due to tension between the gf and his mum probably due to the fact that the gf doesnt really want any contact between their son and the mil

[wannaBe]

my cousin too was burned by a cup of coffee as a toddler. He spent months in hospital with skin grafts etc, he had some kind of spray applied to his skin to cover the burns, which apparently was used incorrectly by the hospital and the result was that he, and about ten other children over a period of approx. twenty years, suffered hearing loss as a result. His father was making the coffe at the time and beats himself up over it even now forty years later. Perhaps the child should have been taken into care eh? except ss weren't at all involved.

Most accidents are avoidable. Amother whose baby rolls off a changing table or a bed is careless because she clearly isn't supervising her child well enough to have prevented it. should we call for her head on a steak? a toddler who runs out in a road and is hit by a car, that's not an accident because the parent wasn't supervising him correctly. Perhaps said toddler (assuming he survives) should then be removed from the care of his by then already traumatised but clearly uncaring parent. no thought not.

Accidents happen. just because they don't happen in your care doesn't make them any less accidents.

[ouryve]

There's a big difference between making mistakes that cause harm to your child and someone else making that mistake. When you make the mistake, you're the one who analyses what went wrong and makes a point of being more cautious and more vigilant and sticks to it because it involves your own child. In the OP's case, she has to trust that her MIL, who already did something very obviously dangerous (as opposed to overlooking a potential danger) would go through that self analysis and make the changes that she would make, herself. That's a big ask.

[pigletmania]

Everyone on here is oerfect and no accidents happen

[DoYouNeedAWahhmbulance]

It might not be a mil thing, there might be other things going on we don't know about. It could have been a genuine accident, the mil could have a track record for being lax about safely, the mum could have asked several times before that the mil not hold the baby next to the kettle, the mum could always have been over-protective and looking for an excuse to stop contact, we just don't know

But a serious incident can make you behave irrationally. My younger dc were staying with my mum when her house was broken into and two men entered the dc bedroom. Thank god they were all ok and it was absolutely not my mums fault but I still didn't let them stay there for a really long time because I just couldn't relax when I didn't feel they were safe. It wasn't about blame it was about needing to know my children were safe

[BunnyLebowski]

I agree Juggling. Obviously any of us or our kids could get hit by a car or hurt in a unpredicted and unpreventable accident.

But that is just not the same as letting a baby near boiling water in the home. That is reckless and irresponsible and totally avoidable.

We have to ensure that we and anybody who looks after out children wouldn't let such preventable incidents occur.

Then we only have to worry about the ones it's impossible to avoid.

[fuzzywuzzy]

My answer would be no different whichever relatives care the accident happened under.

Why do poster automatically assume we would answer differently?

The gf is allowing contact she's not being unreasonable at all. What would be considered serious enough for the gf's fears to be justified if not a skin graft?

Maybe some posters think they'd be fine straight after such an incident, I know for myself I'd be utterly traumatised and wouldn't want to let me baby out of my sight certainly not cheerfully hand him over to the care of the person who'd been so careless in the first place and scarred my baby for life.

Also was the OP around when the accident happened at his mothers, if so I think it's understandable that the gf is unhappy with his suggestion to supervise visits.

[SilverApples]

Well said, Asheth.
No responses from the OP about the state of the relationship prior to the incident, or the age of the child yet.

[SomethingkindaOod]

Why has the thread suddenly become about the Op's relationship with his Mother and his gf? For all people know they could have all had a great relationship before this happened. He isn't deferring to his mother at all, it sounds like he's doing his best to try and keep everybody happy at the moment and is getting caught in the middle.
OP if this is a recent accident I would go with your gf for the time being. She's naturally upset, protective and probably feeling guilty that she wasn't there at the time. That's normal and will fade over time. Encourage your mum to go along with it and let them rebuild the relationship between them at their own pace (and be prepared for your DS to have 2 very very overprotective women in his life for years to come). I'm not trying to tell you to butt out exactly but this has to be done between them.
Yes, refusing to let you be there without her is undermining you, I would be upset about it too but in the short term you might have to go with it until your gf starts to get over the initial shock and anger.
Oh, and yes there probably is an element of punishing your Mum btw.

[DontmindifIdo]

SP no- not at all, this was a completely forseeable and preventable accident. if the OP sees this as just an accident, then he doesn't see that behaivour was wrong and therefore couldn't repeat it. I would be reluctant to let DH take the DCs out without me if he was so incapable for assessing risk.

If DH could see risk but would not take action and instead defer to his parent's view that it was fine, then nope, not going there without me to say "no, that's not acceptable" - if the OP's GF fears her DS would be in a house with no adults who can properly assess risk or would be prepared to step in and stop other adults taking risks, then I would insist on being there too.

As it it, both my MIL and my DH are perfectly aware of risks and I'd fully trust them to look after DCs. My Parents, on the other hand, no so much, I haven't and wouldn't leave my mum in sole care of my DCs because I know she's more of the "baby's bounce" and "you can't protect them from everything so I'll not bother protecting htem from anything " school of thought.

If I went against my instincts, left my mum in charge of the DCs and somethign like this happened, I'd fully expect DH to be relunctant to let my mum see the DCs, certainly not alone and question my judgement if I didn't see what she did as all that bad or her fault.

[SilverApples]

'Everyone on here is oerfect and no accidents happen'

Nope, I think you will find that many of us are making a finer distinction than that. Many accidents are avoidable with a few basic precautions.
Some are not.

[gotthemoononastick]

Curlew ,I think the syndrome is called Complex Inferioritis coupled with good old Green-giantitis (jealousy)

[DontmindifIdo]

oh and I didn't say he did defer to his mother, I asked if he did, because if he does, his GF wanting to be there too is even easier to understand, if she thinks he wouldn't "be in charge" of the DCs when at his mothers house, then him being there is irrelevant, it would effectively leaving MIL in charge of hte DCs again.

I know a lot of men who take their DCs to their parent's house and then just sit on the sofa, leaving Granny to look after the DCs. Fine if Granny is a safe pair of hands, really not if she's not.

It's a reasonable question to ask.

[SomethingkindaOod]

Pictish this site can be quite an 'anti DP/DH' place too on occasion...
Where does the OP say that he was there? So many assumptions, Grandma could have been looking after the boy while the OP and his gF were out having lunch, while the gf was having an hour or 2 to herself and the OP was at work. There does seem to be one or 2 posters trying to blame him for this as well IMO..

[SPsMrLoverManSHABBA]

DontMimd It was an accident! Most accidents are preventable!

I have held my son while near a kettle. I would make his bottles up while hoping him in the other.

People come on here and mention how babies have rolled off the bed, that's preventable by not leaving them alone on the bed. Should they not be allowed to be in a house with their baby because of that?

Its simply because its the MIL and its a female that is saying no. If a man was telling his wife the same it would be different.

He would be called controlling, that she as the mother knows best etc.

MN is full of fuckwits lately.

[AskBasil]

I think we need far more info about the Mil's attitude to safety etc.

Jumping on "you all hate Mils is not v helpful. we know nothing about the relationship dynamics here or the approach to childcare

[pictish]

it sounds like he's doing his best to try and keep everybody happy at the moment and is getting caught in the middle

No...it's that he suffers from an Oedipal problem...haven't you read the expert opinion of our in-house psychologist?
He has a gf for God's sake - he is supposed to give up having any regard or sympathy for his mother forthwith - there's a new boss in town and he'd do well to remember that.
Or some fucking shit. God knows!

[HeadfirstThroughTheTimeVortex]

Lot's of posters have stated they would feel the same if it has been their own mother so I don't agree that it's a typical slate the mil MN response.

I think the issue here is an anxious mother needing time to deal with this.

I do feel for the mil and I agree that this accident doesn't make her incapable caring for her GC.

[DontmindifIdo]

(and to redress the balance, I know a few woman who do the same with their parents, treating visiting hteir parents houses as a break)