To think SIL shouldn't phone me when I babysit for her

[Mrssodapop]

I hope I have better luck on AIBU today I will try to tell the full story from the start. I have babysat sometimes for my brother, looking after his 3 year old dd which has always been fine except I think his wife is very anxious because she always calls while I'm looking after her daughter. Yesterday I looked after their dd all day and she called about half an hour after leaving her to see if she had settled. I told her she was fine and asked her not to phone again because everything was fine and I wanted to get on with the day with all the kids together (I've got 2). She got upset and asked why she couldn't phone and said she might want to call later in the day to let us know when she's on her way back. I said ok but was irritated by her checking up on me although she said she wasn't checking up on me but that she wanted to feel she could call to see how her dd was. Anyway, she phoned after lunch and I didn't pick up and was busy so didn't call back. I picked up her call when she was on her way back (about 4 hours later) but she was very uppity and was upset that I hadn't returned her call. Today my brother phones furious that I told her I didn't want her to keep on phoning me. In the end I've said I don't want to babysit for them again and now they're really hurt. They're also cross that I didn't put their dd in overalls when she painted and they said her clothes are ruined. There's a big family bbq coming up and I'm dreading it now.

Good one OP, I can't take this seriously anymore. Drip feeding about past 'issues' (times when you wanted to interfere under the guise of helping, wedding, new parents) to justify yourself but making yourself sound worse each time. Pages of people telling you how awful you have been. And you still try and justify it, in an incredibly crap way. You cannot be serious. But I did actually look at your history, so maybe.

In don't blame your brother and SIL for not wanting anymore to do with you. You are the toxic relative we read about so much on here.

LyingWitch thanks and thanks - really - for the kick up the arse. I deserved it. OP, if it's any comfort, I've been feeling shit about my comment all evening!

Punt actually I don't think your comment was shit.

I think it was one of the least offensive on here.
What I do think is shit is that Lying singled you out and this has made you feel bad.
Your comment was not abusive , derogatory or accusing.
Your comment was funny.

Lying had pleanty of shit comments to pull up, mine for example, that are much worse than yours.
OI Lying come and make shitty comments to me because I damn well won't apologise.

You deserved nothing of the sort Punt this is ABIU and you are not the worst offender.

I thought it was funny Punt. Its OK, Lying must sympathise with OP for a reason. An earlier comment of mine was picked up on too, and it wasn't rude BTW. I said I didn't act like a wanker. Which I didn't.

That's me done for, my ghast is well and truly flabbered!

Punt, please don't dwell on this. I didn't think your post was worthy of getting pounced on at all and, if it helps at all, I don't think that it would have upset the OP either. As someone else has already said, I think they got exactly the thread they intended and I wouldn't waste a moments thought on it.

Leaving aside the truth of the original post, I'm amazed that phoning the carer of your small child to check that everything is hunkydory is seen as being precious and a sign of high anxiety. I wasn't even slightly over protective as a mum, but it seems perfectly normal to want reassurance that everything is ok at home.

Funnyfoot, oddly enough you are endorsing my point. There are so many people on here saying how anxious they are when they leave their child, even with someone they know and absolutely trust, and have to keep phoning to see how they are. Yes, people do get paranoid, as you say. But all that paranoia about doing the right thing as a parent doesn't automatically equate to pressure such that you have to keep phoning whoever is looking after your child when you know perfectly well that, if there is a problem, they will phone you.

The interesting feature of this is that the anxiety is really quite selective. People manage to leave their PFB, and indeed their PSB, PTB, and so on every day to go to work, travel abroad etc, and if they work somewhere where their employers can't or don't allow calls during work time, they manage not to keep phoning the nursery or childminder. All, or virtually all, parents manage to leave them in school without phoning the school. So there does seem to be a correlation between having the means to communicate easily and deciding you have to communicate.

morefalafel: Until you have had my child from my vagina grown with my DNA, you've got jack all relevant experience.

Way to insult thousands of foster and adoptive parents in one short sentence.

Omg punt dont feel bad it wasn't an offensive comment.
Don't think the op will be offended as shes a poster who posts on aibu when she clearly does not think she is in anyway unreasonable at all anyway no matter how many people tell her otherwise.

I personally would only require contact if there was an issue with my dcs. I do not need to know on an hourly basis that they are ok. I do want to know of any problems ASAP but only then.

Funnyfoot... You sound like you're spoiling for a fight. I'm not a prefect, I comment on what I choose to and you just don't register as far as I'm concerned. Be as spiteful as you like, you're just embarrassing yourself.

Puntastic... I think your comment just provided fuel for the brainless pitchforkers; in itself it wasn't bad and you shouldn't feel bad.

Oh, was the Sisil phoning hourly? Er, no.

ici a small few ppl have talked about feeling anxious. Most ppl on the thread have stated that they dont think phoning to enquire about her child neccessarily means the Sisil is "overly" anxious.
Obviously the level of concern about our children is required to be the same as everyone else's and needs to be measured against the "correct amount" of concern. Just to make sure that everyone is exactly the same.
Perhaps we should make a chart.
And pop it on a mug
To go with the t shirts.

Lying will no doubt say if I'm mistaken, but I didn't read her post as being directed solely at Punt. When she said You're heckling and ganging up on somebody, accusing them of trolling, stirring it up rather than letting the thread die. What do you get out of it exactly? I read it as referring to all of the people who are, as others have said, waiting to pounce on everything OP says and picking every word apart and even, frankly, making up facts, to find more things to attack her with. And you're all having an absolutely lovely time, aren't you, hoicking up the judgypants ever further.

Yes, she's not exactly helping herself with what she posts, but she's got it that you all think she's BU. You don't have to keep on and on and on finding ways to say what has already been said. Leave it, go away and find another wounded creature to peck at.

And don't bother to waste your time making me that creature. I'm out of here and hiding this deeply unedifying thread.

Icimoi... Thank you, I actually clarified to Puntastic at 19:02:01 that the rest of the post didn't refer to her comment. On another thread that comment would have been really funny but this thread is weird and the needling of the OP is getting on my nerves and I'm out too.

I do think the OP is very unreasonable BUT some of the people calling her rude are being really fecking unpleasant themselves. Pot, kettle and all that?

Omg, you guys...I'm feeling the love now, thankyou

also, there has been Tuesday wine, everyone has Tuesday wine, right?

In my turn: can we lay off LyingWitch a bit now, please? I think she's only trying to be nice. No one "compelled" me to apologise - she just needled a conscience that was already having a distinct wobble of its own accord.

As she said, this is a very weird thread overall anyway...

< takes Punst lead and will shhhhh>

Wine on a Tuesday is wrong but Budwieser is totally acceptable in my book.

OP, if you are not a troll, you sound like you are genuinely lacking in self-awareness. Being an interfering busybody to the point where people have to tell you to back off is not showing love. I have a younger SIL who is doing a fantastic job with my DN's and has another on the way. So much so I should ask her for advice even though mine are older than hers. My brother is very lucky.

Funnyfoot - Budweiser is always acceptable especially when it's £6.67 for 15 bottles

There's a huge difference between giving help and advice when asked to being overbearing and a control freak.

Given the majority think you've entered into that second category, I'd suggest you reevaluate what you believe yourself to to be. After all, it's not you you are affecting, it's those around you and they have every right to expect you not to impose your will on them.

puntastic... I'm really sorry if my post seemed patronising to you, it wasn't meant to be, not at all. Also sorry if you felt singled out - I suppose you were a bit as you were being funny in amongst pages of nastiness. I doubt that makes sense but it did at the time. Sorry... . I do still think you have class though...

I'm thinking of making blancmange but wary as it's always curdled when I tried before.