Who is BU and to blame here?

[InTheBox]

On Friday afternoon my SiL, her Dh (my brother), their toddler Ds, my sister and I went to my mother's house.

SiL can be a bit Pfb but I don't think that's relevant in the following instance. Over the course of the afternoon Sil was quite literally hovering over her son whenever he took a step anywhere. Dm told her to relax a little. Admittedly Dm's house isn't very toddler-proof but there wasn't an immediate concern about his safety at the time as he was just playing with some brick-type toys.

I decided to start preparing dinner so then my sister and brother went out to get somemore supplies. Although I can't be sure of their exact exchange, Dm told Sil to come and keep me company in the kitchen.

Sil comes along and we're enjoying a glass of wine in the kitchen and a while later we hear my nephew screaming and crying. We rush to the living room to see him covered in shelves and drawers. At some point he pulled a bookcase which isn't joined up on himself.

He wasn't visibly hurt but I'm sure it must've been a fright and quite painful.

At this point my siblings return and Sil demands that they leave immediately which my brother does complicity.

I know that my Dm and Sil have always had a bit of a difficult relationship but I'm sure she'll use this as an excuse to veto any future visits. Dm thinks that accidents happen and thinks Sil unreasonable for insisting to leave immediatly. My brother has only expressed concern for Ds so is sort of staying out of the family politics of it all and my sister thinks that Sil is going to be vindictive over this (a vindictive bitch - to use her exact words) and should get a grip.

I have a good relationship with all of them but I can see all points of view. Sil refuses to talk about it bar saying that she won't put her child at risk again in the future.

If I was your SIL I would be so angry and upset.

1. Your SIL was carefully looking after her toddler in an untoddler proofed place. Your mother told her to relax. How arrogant! SIL knows how to look after her own baby and it is not your mum's place to try to force SIL to parent in the way your mum would like. You seem complicit in your mum's behaviour by calling your SIL pfb. FGS, she's just looking after her first baby carefully.

2. Your mum then told SIL to go to the kitchen to keep you company. Again, how incredibly arrogant - your mum tells SIL what to do and where to go. In this action, she also takes over care of the child.

3. Your mum provides absolutely shit child supervision and allows the child to get dangerous unsecured furniture and contents tipped onto himself. OK your mum doesn't need the furniture secured, it's her house but if that's the case, toddler supervision needs to be extra careful. It wasn't, it was crap supervision. Furniture tipping has been in the news for killing children and all IKEA stuff over a certain height comes with furniture straps. Everyone knows this.

4. Following a horrendous accident, it was completely reasonable of SIL to leave. I expect she spent the rest of the evening worrying about whether her DS had received injuries she couldn't see. Again, how fucking horrendously arrogant of your mother to suggest that SIL didn't need to leave.

In all this, your mum has failed to realise SIL is an adult, not someone she should be controlling or dictating to. She should respect the child's mother's decisions. The hover type supervision was clearly 100% justified in your mum's house. As for your mum thinking "accidents happen", I am completely speechless. Yes, they do happen, but much more so if you don't supervise a toddler properly.

Your poor poor SIL DN. The problem is, even if your mum admits this was all her fault, it seems she has a huge attitude problem re telling people what to do, how to behave and how to feel even! I'm sorry to say this to you as you mum love your mum but she sounds one of the most awful mother in laws imaginable.

For the record I love my mother in law and also my own mother is a good mother in law to my sil being careful to respect her and acknowledge that her cherished granddaughter is SIL's baby.

You should be supporting your SIL and helping your mother to work on her attitude and boundary issues.

RunRabbit I see where your coming from. I don't think this will escalate into a choosing sides scenario. It's just a case of it being fresh in all our minds. I do think that Dm has unwittingly presented Sil with a perfect reason to veto future visits. They're not exactly best friends and left to her own devices Sil would never actively contact Dm - usually my brother organises visits and sees it as a perfect way to get in family time what with my little sister still living at home. Tbh, no-one took any notice of my little sister, I think she felt some misguided loyalty towards our mother.

Cowgirl My mother was in the living room at the time but the way it's set up means that if she hadn't been immediately monitoring him then he'd have had ample opportunity to get to the bookcase. I think she misjudged the situation because in the main Ds had been playing with his bricks the whole time.

Bubble your post is quite eye-opening. It honestly never occurred to me that Dm was being arrogant or controlling in her approach. I saw it from the other side in that telling Sil to relax a bit meant she was telling her to enjoy herself instead of constantly being all over Ds.

I'm sure it'll eventually blow over but I doubt my nephew will be unsupervised again should he ever return to Dm's.

Not only was your DM completely to blame and both her and your sister completely unreasonable, this entire thread seems to be about fears that your DM won't get to see her grandchild. Which on the face of it doesn't appear to be happening as the most your DB and SIL have said is they won't put their kid at risk again. Why should they?

Your DM and DSis seem to care only about themselves and their opinions in this, not actually looking for ways to ensure it wouldn't happen again. If my MIL and SIL did this then I wouldn't allow them unsupervised access either. Clearly neither are capable of putting the inherent needs of a toddler before their own wants.

Rather than feeling pity for your DM maybe you should focus is on your DN, DB and SIL. Also maybe tell your DM if she wants unsupervised access then she's going to have to be proactive about it.

IntheBox it's not necessarily forever though.

My own PILs were not great (at all) at spotting danger/potential danger with my DC, one of whom was a climber and a runner. After one near miss (which didn't think was that big a deal but still gives me chills) my DH and I quietly agreed that they wouldn't have unsupervised access outside our house. We did loads of day trips and visits with them but they were (without any discussion) never left alone. They only babysat in our house, when the children were sleeping for years. As soon as the DC were old enough to be sensible (ish) we asked them for some day time babysits (still from our house). And these days they take them out and about, though after a recent minor car crash I'm rethinking that.

None of this has required arguments or even declarations of intent. We get on very well mostly.

"left to her own devices Sil would never actively contact Dm"

And??

Does yourmum contact her?

As you are feeling bad for your DM, perhaps you could help her by offering her some advice. The first thing she needs to do is get in touch with SiL, Apologise and ask what she can do to put things right. She should offer to make the house more toddler proof and admit that her methods do not trump SIL's. It seems to me that she was trying to prove her superiority in the childcare department something to your S I L, and it backfired and she needs to admit this.

In the first instance it looks as though your mother wanted to demonstrate that she has a far better way, a more relaxed way of taking care of DCs. In fact, her 'relaxed' methods where a bit too relaxed and your DN ended up pulling over a piece of furniture while your mother was taking the 'relaxed' approach to child care, while in the same room as a child who then had an accident.

So, number one she needs to apologise properly. Number two she needs to admit she was wrong and made an error of judgement. Number three she needs to get her house properly in order. And Number four, she needs to tell her daughter-in-law that actually she was right to be hovering over her child and concerned for his safety. Humble pie all the way.

Your DM made a mistake. The only mistake your SIL made was in bowing to pressure and letting herself be sent to the kitchen while your DM poorly supervised your DN. If I'd been told I was being precious and was sent to another room, I'd be a little bit irritated. If it then became apparent that the person who told me I was being precious had let my child risk getting badly injured, I'd be spitting bricks. No way would I want to stay around that person after that.

Your DM may well be sad now but she got it wrong and needs to admit the same.

Your DM was in the wrong. Your sister seems a bit unpleasant.
Your DM needs to apologise, going out of her way to contact SIL. She probably will only see DN at SIL's or out somewhere for a while.

My own PIL said "the house is toddler proofed" as I arrived with DS, within 10 minutes he had hold of the pare knife. My DC were al handfuls, so I hovered. If you don't have a lively child you might not know just what they can get up to, but your DM should have been watching more closely.

"left to her own devices Sil would never actively contact Dm - usually my brother organises visits"

• sounds ok to me, if they're not that close surely it's fine for your DB to do the organising?

"telling Sil to relax a bit meant she was telling her to enjoy herself instead of constantly being all over Ds"

• the way you phrase this, you still sound like you're critical of SiL. Surely the accident demonstrated she was right to be 'constantly all over him' (aka supervising him)

Thank heavens the LO wasn't badly hurt.
My MIL refused to even begin to make their house child-safe when we had to move in with them for a month- it was a nightmare with two DCs under 2 years old. Her reason? 'They have to learn not to touch' so hot iron was left on the fireplace, kettle boiling on coffee table.....I swear she did it deliberately, even DH said wth are you doing?
Awful woman.

Poor sil what a nightmare.
For your mother not to realise the enormity of the implications is ridiculous.

diddl from what I've gathered no she doesn't. She contacts Db directly then he arranges things wrt calling me, making sure little sister will be home - what the plans are etc etc. They've never had a relationship so to speak but are civil to eachother. I do think that my Dm had difficultly in cutting the apron strings regarding my Db but that's another thread topic tbh. Db being ever the diplomat has called Dm to make sure she's ok.

Cakehole I agree, as I've said, Db does all the organising when we get together with his wife and child and that's fine. I admit when I had dd and we were at my mother's I was entirely the same I.e helicopter style but I took it over board and would wrap dd around me if I had to do something I.e cook. I'm the family cook. She's just a little older than my nephew so I'm less on the case now but I still know how it feels to be all over ones child. I disagree that it seems that I'm critical of my Sil, I think it just boils down to our family styles and how different these can be. I was just saying I found Bubbles post quite enlightening because I'd never conceive that my Dm would be arrogant or controlling towards my Sil. It just has never been that way.

Team SIL.

Your poor nephew, your SIL must be going over and over it in her head worrying about what could have happened, it could have been so much worse.

If this happened to my DD, we would never be going back to the house again. For all the reasons mentioned above; MIL's arrogance and controlling behaviour, the serious risk to the child, her failure to care for him properly and her failure to apologise properly.

If this happened to a child under my care I would b absolutely distraught, not trying to minimise what I had done.

Your SIL seems like she has behaved with dignity and restraint so far, I'm not sure that I would have.

Your DB checked that your MUM was ok? Yeah, must have been awful for her having it brought home that she can't be trusted to keep an eye on her grandson like that

Team SIL here too. DMIL's house is not at all baby/toddler proof. She makes small efforts in that regard (puts one or two ornaments out of easy reach) but that's it. So I don't leave the DDs unsupervised. My own DM accuses me of being PFB, criticised my parenting style, makes inappropriate comments about how tense I was when DD1 was first born (I had 4 rounds of IVF to have her and had a 3a tear during delivery which wasn't properly addressed so yeah, excuse me if I was a bit all over the place when she was born).

If I was your SIL I would be staying away, I'd also be limiting the amount of time your DN spent around your mum. Sorry.

And your DB should have called her to have a word. Not to mollify her.

This is exactly how my MIL used to be when DS1 was little.

We'd go round often because we wanted good relationships with grandparents. If we were there for Sunday lunch I'd be watching over DS but would be told to relax and a glass of wine given to me. MIL would try to act like perfect granny giving me a 'break'

But of course she wasn't looking after him, she'd be necking wine in the kitchen and trying to cook at the same time with a crawling DS around her feet.

I would walk in to see her pie-eyed waving steaming pans about. She would shoo me away saying he was fine.

Funnily enough we stopped going around.

Your SIL did the right thing leaving. Your DM should be apologising.

OP

Something very similar happened to me with my Mil & Sil. Lots of tutting, telling me to relax, calling me Ds "jailer", telling me to go away and let them enjoy time with DS for a change. I felt chased away from DS by these women.

Five mins later DS fell down some stairs. The first thing Mil and Sil said was that it wasn't their fault. It was an accident. He's fine. Don't make a fuss.

I refused to take DS to theirs until he was older. They came here instead where their power play was disrupted by being on "my turf".

I'm guessing your Sil will do something similar.

I'd never conceive that my Dm would be arrogant or controlling towards my Sil. It just has never been that way

Thing is InTheBox, in the nicest possible way, it may well have been that way but because your Mum is your Mum, you're used to the dynamic. DH and I both occasionally get jolts when we see each other's parents through the other's eyes. Although as DB, DSis and I get older, I think we're a bit more realistic about some of our DM's, ahem, sharper edges. I've certainly called my Mum out - she has a really bad habit of jumping in to "manage" the children when DH is trying to do it. Drives him (totally justifiably) bats.

Your DM sounds just like my MIL in her 'style' of parenting, and Bubble's post rings true for me. On the receiving end of this kind of approach the "relax, we don't need a fire guard, she'll never touch it, you're too nervous", "no, we're got going to move the chemicals from that very accessible cupboard, she won't go in there...", etc., repeat to infinity, feels totally undermining, controlling and critical. It feels like there's always a point being proven about her 'relaxed' style being the 'right' way and I'm some over anxious nut job asking for basic childproofing. I have to hover like a mad woman as there are genuine risks and I have two very inquisitive preschoolers absolutely will poke in cupboards and go and investigate an open fire. It is boring, stressful and frustrating. Like your SIL I have no relationship with MIL but I am civil.

After some (thankfully) near misses, DH has the same opinion and we don't go there, don't allow them to babysit unless the kids are asleep, don't allow them to take them out without us. It sounds harsh but I feel they can't be trusted to follow basic safety - in proving a point they'd let something happen rather than respect the reasonable steps we'd ask them to take.

If your DM is so concerned with SiL not bringing DGS around anymore is it safe to presume she is currently busying herself by ensuring her home is a bit safer fur the child?

OP - I think your brother is being pretty out of order tbh. It shows A LOT that there are still apron string attachments. He rang HER to check that SHE was okay?

Both your mum and sister sound awful. I feel really bad for your SIL actually.

I'm also pretty that your main concern seems to be "oh she will use this as an EXCUSE not to bring the child around".

Um. No, it's not "an excuse". Your mother was totally irresponsible, not to mention bloody patronising, and your SIL's child got injured as a result.

How bad she feels about it now it irrelevant. If she truly felt that bad about it then she would swallow her pride and be on the phone to your SIL trying to make peace, apologising, and taking absolute and full responsibility for what happened.

Your sister sounds awful.

I find it hard to believe that as a woman with three children your DM cannot see why your SIL is so upset.
I would be beside myself if my child or a child I was responsible for suffered through that. I do agree with PPs that accidents do happen, BUT I do think that there is very good reason to secure cabinets and shelves to walls. If they aren't then you do need to be keeping a closer eye on the child.
I am glad that Bubbletree's post has given you a perspective that you hadn't considered before, I think she has put everything really well.
If your mum has reached her age and still controls people in this way she is unlikely to change, but that doesn't mean your SIL needs to accept the behaviour.
Did any of you offer your SIL support for the shock of the accident?
It is easy for your brother to wimp out and try and smooth things over, but your SIL was there in the moment where her son could have lived or died. He was sat there crying, but he could also have been lying there out cold. That is incredibly scary.

I think your brother was unreasonable (not diplomatic as you suggest) by phoning your mum to check she's ok. It puts all the 'blame' on his wife.

If your mums house is such that a child can pull a book case on top of himself then she should be much more vigilant. It's not ok to say your mum was too far away to intervene.

Also the language your sister used was pretty horrible. It sounds mean towards your SIL rather than protective towards your mum.

You need to take your blinkers off and view this from your sil's viewpoint. Also it sounds as if your child is quite young as well so I hope your mum is more careful with her safety than it appears she was with her grandson.

Perhaps your mum told yr sister in law to join you in the kitchen as she doesnt actually like her and she wanted alone time with her grandson.
Im sure the anger/ annoyance at your sister in law leaving is because your mum wanted to make out it wasnt a big deal what had just happened. Kind of a "aah it wasnt a big deal, lets just carry on as we were". Your sister in law being rightfully scared witless and needing to get away from the house asap, ensures that your mum realises the gravity of her mistake. Of course if she is anything like my MIL, she will turn it into a "a few books fell off the bookcase and now she is stopping me from seeing my grandchild".
Good on your sister in law for leaving and looking after her child rather than placate your mum

I would have been furious in your Sil's position. It sounds like your DM let her guard down or forgot what it's like with toddlers roaming around.

I get annoyed if someone says 'don't worry, he'll be fine' when I'm watching my son like a hawk; I know him, they don't.

I don't like ornaments or candle holders or anything on tables etc, but a bookcase? I would have absolutely flipped! Though, you don't expect a bookcase to actual fall.

Your DM needs to apologise. Not taking DN to her's anymore is a bit harsh, if that is what she's decided, she's still family. Just don't leave DN alone with her for a while. How does your brother feel about it? Is he 'DN's fine that's it'?