To have let rip at grandparents

[claudib]

They left the gate to the swimming pool open, I approached them telling them with concern and they were very shruggish " it wasn't me" "It might have been me but .." " Look ,do you really think we would let... ? "She wasn't even around there.." So I got angry and shouted
Apparently I've stepped over a line.
And I'm made out to be the bad guy.
Some background info, i found it left open twice last year ( the pool has 3 gates of access onto it) I quietly seethed to myself on those ones and made my partner promise he would have a word about gate security. He probably didn't I'm guessing.
he is not talking to me on account of my outburst. Which consisted of pleads to keeps the gate shut/ safeguarding measures etc.. Albeit screeched but there was no personal insults.
Thanks in advance!

Swimming pools are 100 times as dangerous as guns. Tell them that. If they had a gun in the house, or 100 guns, would they not bother locing them up?

Shout away, it makes me very angry when people are cavalier with children's safety.

x-post. So so sorry Trout.

I didn't even know about it until I was in my mid 30s, MrsTP. It was one of those unspoken things & cousin was few yrs older than me. Must have destroyed my poor aunt, though. Back in the 1960s when most pools weren't fenced off. There are lots of rules & regulations now in North America about how pools have to be fenced if not also locked.

Mostly I find MNers hopelessly anxious but I lean towards yadnbu to OP on this one.

How sad, Trout. It's such a horrible thought.

You were bang out of order.SO RUDE!!!
It is their house , their pool, their gate.It is not their responsibility to baby-proof their house for your visite It is YOUR CHILD and YOUR (and your DH's ) job to watch him/her.You should not be letting your toddler wander unsupervised-especially in unfamiliar surroundings

If the GP's live in a country with pool laws it could very well be their legal responsibility to secure the fencing and gate

I am honestly quite cavalier about safety, but the idea of unsupervised toddlers around a swimming pool or the sea frightens me.

If it were my house, my pool and my grandchild, I would expect to be 100% responsible for ensuring safety at all times. If I couldn't be bothered to do that, I would make it quite clear that my house was not suitable for you to visit. I wouldn't even take your word for it that you would supervise. YADNBU, OP.

YANBU.

I get like this.

I really despair at examples like this one, where people cannot seem able to think through the possible risks. And then get all huffy when the deficiency in their commonsense is pointed out.

No-one should need to be told to keep gates to a pool secured. What planet are those grandparents living on? (Their own, presumably.)

It's not much of a family where the safety of a toddler isn't the highest priority for everyone.

peggyundercrackers You clearly do not have a pool, nor do you have any experience with an extended stay around one that wasn't safely fastened.

Toddlers are quick buggers and can dart off in an instant, nor do they have any real sense of danger.

But to the OP: Can you get your child swimming lessons? I grew up in an area where random rivers and ponds were very common, so every child knew how to swim. That was if they did fall in they could get out if the need arose.

As someone else said, pool safety is not a quirky parenting preference it's essential. I live in SE Asia, where houses with pools are common and have many stories of children getting into pools because a gate or door was left open. I know of two incidences of drowning, but many more where the child, luckily, managed to get themselves out of the pool.

I lived at one point in house with a pool and i was hyper-vigilant, as was everyone in my household. If they hadn't been, we couldn't have lived in the house we did. I can see why the OP yelled...for me it's like not putting a seatbelt on your child in a car.

As someone who had to pull a drowned neighbour from her pool and try to resuscitate her (unsuccessfully), YANBU. You are never being unreasonable when it comes to pool safety. I have never swum since and really struggled with my own children learning to swim (we have our own pool).

Maybe you could have dealt with it more diplomatically, but don't feel like you did the wrong thing. You absolutely did not!

Nobody can watch a child all the time. It takes seconds for a child to drown. The OP is showing no evidence of being a crap parent.

My children had baby/toddler swimming lessons and did all the 'turn round and swim back to the side' stuff from when they were a few months old. It's great for water confidence but I would not have made any assumption that it would have prevented drowning. Playing in a pool with mummy or daddy is very different to falling in water alone.

I nearly lost my son when he was three. It was a family holiday and there were about ten people from our group beside the pool. My son must have hidden behind a sun lounger, slipped hus arm bands off and jumped back in. We were about 6 feet away and were complete unaware. My 6 year old who was just learning to swim without armbands saw a hand rise out of the water and grabbed my 3 year old pulling himself under. He got my three year old to the pool side while underwater himself at which point we noticed. Both boys were in a bad way by this point. Still makes me tearful to think of now and this was nearly 15 years ago. A drowning child makes no noise. No parent is ever unreasonable to be paranoid about safety around water. We were right bloody there and still nearly lost two children. Unforgivable.

Nobody can watch a child all the time

Yes they can and do.A toddler needs to be in sight all the time (except in bed when they are either restrained by their cot or they can't get out of their bedroom.Even though nurseries are childproofed within aninch of their lives and very secure, children are supervised at all times.
This even more the case when you are not on your home turf in unfamiliar surroundings where you cannot be sure what hazards lurk.
If you were by a hotel pool or at the swimming baths would you take your eye off your toddler?

Brioche - no they don't unless they are weird.

You cannot have your eyes on every child at all times, even in a nursery. You look away, tend to other children, fill in records, wipe tables, get toys out. You may be in the same room but every child does not have an adult's eyes glued to them.

In the same vein, a parent cannot function without taking their eyes off a toddler. You have a safe environment so that you can cook, get dressed, go to the loo, make a cup of tea, etc.

In recognition of this fact, there are laws in many countries where swimming pools are common requiring home owners to have pools securely fenced. Children can slip away from adults very quickly and easily, even if that person is in the same room and is aware that they are responsible for them.

Being near an unfenced pool, e.g. at the swimming baths is different. You can maintain a level of supervision for that short time that isn't possible 24/7.

Where swimming pools are in a home, it is absolutely necessary to maintain your usual levels of supervision plus ensure that the child can never have access to the pool for even a few seconds unless they have 100% of a responsible adult.

This lesson has been learned the hard way far too many thousands of times. It is perfectly reasonable to expect every adult in a house with a swimming pool to behave responsibly in order to keep a toddler alive.

Brioche - if there are several adults available, the child's mother should be able to go to the loo for 2 minutes.

Pools should be closed off/secured if there are small children in the vicinity. That is just common sense.

What a tragic story, Rozalia. Bless their hearts.
It's clear that those few minutes to yourself isn't worth it.

Thanks again to you all. I felt on my own there in this environment and thank heavens I had these reassuring words. After some tense days we are all trying to move forward now and not hold resentment.
It's such a balancing act with in-laws and grandparents, you want them to enjoy free access to the children but by god you cannot let slip of the reins.

Im so sorry for you Trout. Gosh this thread has evoked a lot of really awful tragic stories. Love to all concerned

Sorry hadn't refreshed my page. And sending love to you also shebefierce. Gosh that is such a relief to read that they got out but I can well imagine it's repercussions on you.

I have a severe hatred of pool ownership right now.. ( no disrespect to anyone who is on the case with their security though)

brioche

Just last week I was sat in a room with 4 small children also in the room was a Norland nanny a childminder and a senior SW. One of the children did something to another, not one of us saw it.

Intense supervision is perfectly possible but rarely for longer than small periods of time, and becomes much more difficult the more interested adults you have around

It's one of the reasons why during certain types of assessments where seeing things is vital we tend to employ an adult whose sole role is observing and nothing else no interaction with those in the room or anything.

Brioche, would you think it "so rude" to ask someone not to leave a floor level window open when there's a couple of toddlers around because it's their mother's responsibility to have her eyes on both of them unblinkingly and unceasingly for hours on end, even if they're at opposite ends of the room? Or to ask them to put a fireguard in front of an open fire? If so, could you explain your thinking?

YANBU! But more seriously (a) you definitely need self-closing mechanisms on the gates. They are quite cheap and easy to fix yourself. Fire doors have them in the UK so that the door is closed.... (b) you should also get locks fitted that a child can't open (if keys and a proper lock isn't possible and (c) it sounds like the access to the swimming pool is also a passageway? Is there a way of re-designing it so that it is access only to the pool and people are either in there or not?