MIL - I've really no idea why she was so upset about this?

[MyballsareSandy]

My 13 year old DDs go from school to the in laws every Wed, have dinner there and DH collects them. They don't particularly like doing this as they are old enough to go home alone, until me and DH get home from work, which we allow on other days. It's just basically to keep in touch with their grandparents, and usually the GPs love it (I think!).

Anyway, yesterday DH arrives at his parents to find his mum in floods of tears, and his dad having stern words with DD2. Apparently she was doodling in a notebook and wrote "Nan smells of fart" . Bit childish at 13, but really is it worth the drama that followed, I just don't get it.

DD doesn't want to go there anymore, she can't understand the reaction either and would much rather just go home after school, which I'm tempted to say yes to.

because crying shows they are hurt and people will be sympathetic..

Also they think they are kind because they cry.

I have seen MIL turn on water works a million times over trivialities. Sniffles and wipes her eyes like the marytr she thinks she is, people put arms around her - poor thing...crying etc...and she feels like the victim again instead of the perpetrator.

I am a cry-er
I often feel defensive about MILs when I look at AIBU.
And i had a strict DM.
But it is ridiculous to suggest that this doodle was nasty or vile.
Just look at some of the things people write here about others. Imagine if those being posted about saw what was written and knew who had said it. Imagine someone reading your personal diary.

Yes, being easily moved to tears over a situation is not necessarily the same as crying as a first line response to being challenged.
Iyswim

ZeVite

Reported to MNHQ for breaking talk guidelines.

Just because plenty of nastier things happen on mumsnet doesn't mean that writing someone smells of fart isn't nasty!
If a child at school wrote that about your dc, some of you would not laugh that off so easily.
There are obviously other things going on here, but taken alone it is never acceptable to write what the dd in this scenario wrote.

Nobody has said that it is a nice thing to write.
But there's been an unwarranted overreaction to a thoughtless teenage scribble. Both here and by granny.

I agree TheRealAmandaClark nobody has said its a nice thing but really the girl is 13 and there is history with the GM who thinks she's "odd" and is allowed to SAY that. Lead by example ffs. The GM should be teaching the child how to behave. And I can see that it's not a nice comment but I can also see that the bloody Nan isn't a nice Nan to this child. I would talk to my 13 year old to see how she was feeling when she wrote it. And I would ask her if she felt she needed to say sorry. God Forbid 13 year olds have a bloody say in how they feel or what they do.

Aye

Sounds like the pyzzlingly immature stuff my 12 year old comes out with. Thanfully my mum rolls her eyes.

Good for your mum Smuk - exactly the right reaction.

Iggi who are the some of you who would get worked up if one 13 yo wrote that about another at school? Somebody tried to get people to say they'd be mortified if anyone scribbled such a vile thing about their DC, but I don't think anyone took the bait (though I skimmed some parts of the thread and may have missed it). If my kids reported anyone writing that about them I'd encourage them to adopt the eye roll response. Secondary school kids say much worse things to one another.

I stand by my interpretation that this was DD2's device to get out of going to GP, but with the new information I can see why! It was a cry for help, as it were. Poor girl.

I've seen and heard enough about the ramifications of playing favourites to make me fucking hate people who pull this kind of shit. No close experience, thank god.

It would be interesting to get the father's take on this as he was the one who picked the girls up.

but taken alone it is never acceptable to write what the dd in this scenario wrote

I am not sure anyone has said its a sweet and kind thing to say, I think there is mass agreement its not a nice thing to write, just varying levels of angst against it...some veering to :telling the nasty family to fuck off and writing them out of their Will to the ...why didn't she just brush it off brigade.

I'd have been yelled at for doing this as a kid. I still cringe at the memory of making my grandma cry by saying she had coffee breath, and my dad tore into me at the time saying how disrespectful and ungrateful I was. At the time (I was about 10) I thought this a massive over reaction; now, I can see what he meant. It's about being respectful to loving elders.

I think both are a little bit in the wrong: your DD needs to be told about kindness to gps, but your MIL is also over reacting a little. I'm sorry to say I sniggered like a kid when I read 'smells like fart' as it's the sort of thing me and DB used to draw/write when we were kids on an old colouring book, but we did used to get pulled up about actually hurting people's feelings.

Is the OP still here?

Op take your kids to the local old folks farm.

And your MIL. There will be plenty of smells there to give them all something to really talk about.

Show your kids old people can smell,it comes to us all and your mil to relax about it, its life. Its no big deal...nothng to be rude about and nothing to cry about.

local old folks farm

plenty of smells there

I have reported this ageist post.

This person clearly has a very bad attitude to older people. You know, the ones who brought you up and cared for you and in many cases (like me) provide free childcare.

Disgusting.

Goodness me op, you've been here long enough to know not to drip feed like that!

Your dd was rude, your mil has the right to be upset - she probably can sense that the dd's no longer want to go there every week and so it is sadness about your dd's nasty little comment combined with sadness about them growing up and away from her.

I am in the yabu camp.

I am interested to know how GPs got to read this. I would not put it past either my DM or my DFiL to deliberately read a journal which was never meant for their eyes.

My DM would do it because she is a bit of a pryer. My DFiL would do it as a joke.

It would be an interesting moral dilemma if GPs had helped themselves to a private journal knowingly.

Visiting every week is rather a large ask considering the motivation for this is that OP and her DH are grateful for the childcare back in the day. This is not the DDs' debt of gratitude to be paid.

but taken alone it is never acceptable to write what the dd in this scenario wrote.

Many, many people write this and far worse in private journals, which is why I'd also love to know where this was written and whether it was intended to be seen.

nomary

what is your problem, because I reported your vile comments pages back are you now going to stalk my every post and report it.

BTW nice selective editing of my whole post there!

Evening all
Peace and love
Thanks awfully.

I am not going to engage with you further but I will say this:

This person clearly has a very bad attitude to older people. You know, the ones who brought you up and cared for you and in many cases (like me) provide free childcare.

Having worked in an old folks home and with a few incontinent relatives who have lost bowl control, smells and all sorts of things people would generally consider to be awful are very much par for the course for our family, we laugh things off, minimalism them and get on, they are not worth sweating about or crying about.

... OP? :)