MIL and daughter's hat.

[doomf]

My MIL looks after my DD one day a week (Tuesday) and her other grand daughter one day a week (Wednesday).

I bought my daughter a lovely hat last year to go with a coat she had. The hat went missing at the end of last winter and I'd searched high and low for it it to no avail. Is asked MIL if she'd seen it and she swore blind she hadn't (I was pretty sure the last time she'd worn it was to her house). A few weeks ago I lamented to MIL that it was a shame id never found the hat as it would still have fit my DD this winter and she agreed.

Yesterday afternoon I'd taken a day off work and had gone into town with my DD only to run into my MIL and her other grand daughter...wearing the bloody hat!!!

AIBU to think that you just don't do that?!

I'd be furious!! Doesn't matter if it's a hot or a bar of gold, it is not MIL property to give away.
OP YANBU!!

I see the majority of the 'it's just a hat brigade' have gone quiet.....

In regards to the 'free' childcare. If it is offered, even if it is under the guise of quality time with her dgd, it shouldn't come at a price.

I'm currently a sahm, if my husband cheated on me/developed a drink/drug/gambling problem etc etc. Should he be excused because he works so hard and is doing me a favour, allowing me to stay at home with the children? No.

Whilst I appreciate it is not the same thing, it is the same principle. Just because someone does something nice/helpful etc, it doesn't give them the right to behave badly towards you.

What odd behaviour from the MIL! Does she honestly not betray any favouritism between the granddaughters?

I would have went absolutely ballistic if my mil had done this!

My MIL also has form for 'misplacing' some of my dc's nicer things, so I send now them to visit in clothes I'd happily never see again. YANBU, would certainly be making new childcare arrangements if I were you.

I really dont understand why the likes of Pike and April are giving the OP such a hard time?
Speaking as an ex childminder and now a Doula AND a MIL I cant understand the OP MIL behaviour.
I used to have 6 kids in the house and no one went home with someone else's belongings.
As a MIL myself I cant fathom it at all.
Glad your DH is on side OP

Rainbunny, I'm speechless! What shocking nerve your cousin had!

OP, totally on your side and blatantly place marking for the update.

I'm on OPs side. It doesn't matter if it's "just" a hat. It's something nice that she went to a little more effort/paid extra money for especially for her DD. So it's important. Though if it was a hat from Poundland it would still be important because it belongs to OPs DD. Mil doesn't get to take things off one child to give to another just because she does a day's childcare

Op I definitely think you should get different childcare. This will just get worse

Shameless placemarking

notso

Has your DH been round there yet?

Hope your DH is fighting your hat's corner

hesterton, then she should have bought the bloody hat herself. Not stolen it off her other grandchild.

I cannot believe she stole from her own Granddaughter and it's just the fucking cherry that she gave it 'quietly' to the other!!!!

She is unhinged

She is a thief, and thrives from her own grandchild. She is then brazen enough to tell you all about it thinking that she had somehow done a normal reasonable thing.

Honestly she sounds mentally unwell. And definitely should not be looking after any children.

• thieves

I can on one small level get her sense of finding the inequality between two little family members she loves hard to deal with.

I can too. And you could understand that, if she felt that way, she bought more things for the child she felt had a lot less. But - as distance says - that doesn't give her the right to redistribute. And especially not when it is something that has so obviously been missed and searched for.

I suspect a poster upthread has it spot on - I bet the other little girl took a real fancy to the hat and the MIL didn't have the heart to take it from her. But what she should have done was to buy her another hat, not steal the OP's and make up some ridiculous argument about "fairness".

"unhinged"... "mentally unwell"... "should not be looking after children"?!

PERSPECTIVE, people!

Sounds to me like for whatever reason (finances, different priorities or even just different tastes), MiL considers her other grandchild to be less well dressed. She "redistributed" the hat (perhaps other grandchild turned up without one on a certain day and really liked your DD's) and when you asked her about it she felt it was too late to take it away.

Yes - that was wrong, but it's a very small wrong in the grand scheme of things. I'm no expert, but I don't think it's indicative of mental health issues or lack of fitness to look after children.

This has the potential to spiral. It's very easy for posters here to egg you on and tell you to go into battle over this - they don't have to live with the consequences. It's almost Christmas. I'd try very hard to make a joke of it with your MiL before it becomes even more of a Thing and get your DH to do the same - allow her to join in the humour, so she can navigate this whilst saving face a bit. It sounds like she already knows she did something odd and is embarrassed about it - it would be a ridiculous reason to have a serious falling out.

I need to know if DH has successfully retrieved the hat yet?!

I disagree. Don't turn it into a joke with your MIL.

I wouldn't pursue the hat in this case, but I would have DH make it very, very clear. that if she feels her other granddaughter is deprived in some way, then she has it within her own means to 'help', but stealing from your child to do it is not on.

I too am wondering if the hat is home. Agree with pp your mil is bonkers.