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 was bemused at the start of this thread but OP yourself and Mr Doomf have handled this very well.

Yeah it's just a hat, but it was your DD's hat, you didn't pick it up in Morrisons for a few quid thinking this will do, it was pricey and you really quite liked it.
The fact the you asked your MIL multiple times for her to lie is the problem, and to be caught out and have it explode in such a manner shows her true colours.

At the end of the day if she thinks it's ok to take your daughter's property and give it to her other granddaughter for whatever reason is enough to justify her no longer providing care to your daughter, she can't be trusted and her lack of respect for not only your property but your daughter as a whole speaks volumes.

If I was a psychologist I'd be delving deeper if this was why your DH and BIL aren't close, perhaps take this as an opportunity to forge a relationship between yourselves rather than always at MILs house, because she'll hate that, and wouldn't you love to such a one up on her

Keep holding your head high you've done great thus far!

Wow, your mil is a bit ermmm weird?! shall we say?

Who begrudges a grandchild something nice? Surely if she felt that strongly your DD stuff is nicer she could have asked if you had any stuff too small you could pass on?

perhaps take this as an opportunity to forge a relationship between yourselves

Great advice...

Oh dear. I suspect the upcoming conversation between BIL and MIL is not going to be pretty.

The thing is that MIL could have genuinely only recently found the hat and despite knowing OP wanted it, she may have genuinely felt that DN would have more benefit from it and hoped no one would find out.

However the way you deal with that is calmly accepting you've been a bit of a twat albeit with best interests at heart and acknowledging that it wasn't dealt with appropriately. That MIL hasn't done that and has gone on a rant about how one family has more than another is what makes it seem that this is more dodgy.

I would buy the niece and MIL a hat for Xmas.

How terribly bizarre!
First of all I thought she'd just got a bit mixed up but nope, she blatantly gave it to the other GC!!!
I'd have been really cross too. Not sure I'd stop your DD from going there though.

Agree with Ewe - but I think the outcome will sadly be that MIL will blame op (primarily) and then her dh for telling Bil.

Good for you! Not rude at all I thought you were incredibly polite considering the cheek of it!!!

Here's a hat for mil...

Someone asked if I have boundary issues myself - I didn't think that I did, but given how much I am in the minority on this thread, perhaps I do! I do have one friend who thinks I am far too lenient on another mutual friend who many people have distanced themselves from - so maybe... But if giving someone close to you the benefit of the doubt makes me a doormat, then I'll take the label. I wouldn't do it time and time again - but the OP is talking here about one isolated headwear incident. This doesn't seem to be part of a wider pattern, unless there's more we're not getting.

I don't think OP just has to suck it up - I agree with whoever suggested that they would simply go round to MIL and say "This whole thing is really weird, isn't it? What's going on?". That's less confrontational than much of the advice on here, and was the sort of thing I was getting at much earlier in this thread when I suggested using humour as a way to talk to MIL about it without her feeling that she has to completely lose face. Even though MIL IS morally in the wrong and OP COULD drag her over the coals, that's unlikely to get any sense out of MIL and will just push her further on the defensive.

Not having a go at OP - just think that she is receiving some incendiary advice on here. It's easy to advocate a poster taking the nuclear option with their family, but I doubt most of us would actually do it ourselves - there would be no families left, because families are full of humans and sometimes humans are a bit crap.

I agree with whoever suggested that they would simply go round to MIL and say "This whole thing is really weird, isn't it? What's going on?"

Doomf already did this.

I said I was glad she'd found the hat, and she replied that she could see I was surprised to see her other DGd wearing it. I said yes I was as she knew I'd been looking high and low for it. I asked when she'd found it and she said several weeks ago and she just felt like her other DGD has less than my DD so she'd just give it quietly to her. She was quite worked up about it. I asked if BIL and SIL knew this and she said no.

Ah, and the MIL explicitly said that she had found the hat several weeks before. Not days, not hours. Several weeks during which she lied.

Stealing off her granddaughter? Yeah that one doesn't fly with me

You sound together don't you.

I sent MIL a text a while ago saying,

"hi MILdoomf, I'm disappointed that dd's hat was given to her cousin behind my back. You knew the hat was expensive and it belonged to DD and you knew that I had been searching high and low for it. I'm upset that you think my DD is less deserving of the things I and Mr Doomf work hard to provide for her than her cousin. To take from a 4 year old isn't right. BIL and SIL's financial situation has never been made clear to me, nor should it have been because it isn't my business unless they choose to me."

She replied "you should be more sensitive to them"

I've given up.

horidhenry

I am. Very much so.

Wtf?! Was this a diamond tiara? A kid's hat- really? Your mil is incredibly generous and gracious to give up 2 days a week to childcare every week - saving you a fortune and you are having a hissy fit about a lost/ wrongly allocated/ mixed up hat??!! Second numerous posters who have pointed out if your dc was in nursery one missing hat would be least of it. Your mil made a mistake - she didn't forget to feed/ entertain/ educate and/ or care for dc, she just, for whatever reason let other gc use it. Really not a crime! If you have such trust issues with her though am sure there are plenty of nearby nurseries happy to take dc.

Yes give up

She clearly doesn't care and thinks she's right

She's bonkers, Doomf. I think you have handled this really well, but don't bother any further. Leave your husband to deal with her.

And yes, send your daughter to the nursery on Tuesdays.

Distance - The encounter described above isn't what I meant at all! The conversation described there begins with passive aggressive subtext and ends with MIL being worked up. I meant cutting through the crap a bit and saying "This is all getting really weird - I'm upset, you're upset, we've ended up in this mad hat gate - can we talk about it?" Just clear the air - but in a way that isn't dragging her over the coals or pushing her into a corner however much she might deserve it.

busymum

To repeat what has been repeated many times already:

I asked when she'd found it and she said several weeks ago and she just felt like her other DGD has less than my DD so she'd just give it quietly to her. She was quite worked up about it.

Not a lost hat. Not a mix up. Not a mistake. A deliberate lie, sustained for weeks. Which the MIL justifies by saying that Doomf and her husband "should be more sensitive".

FFS.

busymom If you read the thread you'll realise that you've misunderstood the situation. There was no mix up

busymumtoone

At least ready SOME of the bloody thread! The MIL admitted to stealing the hat and redistributing it as she saw fit, and has since been reprimanded by the OP's DH.

It's not "just a hat" - it's an item the OP bought with her own money for her 4 YEAR OLD DAUGHER that the MIL self-confessedly whisked off and have to the granddaughter she felt was more deserving. Jesus Christ. To say this is just about a hat is frankly utterly dim.

I think you should tell her that you've told Bil and Sil and they think it's very weird behaviour, as do you.

She clearly thinks she can exploit the lack of communication between her sons to her own advantage, including acting like she's got all the inside information on Bil, so reminding her you do talk to them could put her in her place.

Elle, Doomf went to see her MIL to try and sort out what had happened. And the MIL told her. It isn't Doomf's job to play the psychotherapist and find what is REALLY going on here. I really doubt that the MIL would be willing to tell her (or perhaps doesn't even realise it consciously), in any case.

I find Doomf and Mr Doomf have been very polite throughout. The one in the wrong here is the MIL. She has been given every opportunity to apologise. She hasn't, but has only entrenched herself in the position that Doomf's family "owe" her other son's family for whatever reason.