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?!

Usual, the OP seems much less invested in the hat than you are in this thread.

The hat isn't the issue, it's the lying, stealing and favouring one grandchild over the other that has caused the issue.

But you're missing the point usual

Whether it was a hat, an iPad, a jacket, a toy, it wasn't MIL's to give away.

your DC obviously have items that are special to you and i doubt you'd be happy if they were given away.

If you couldn't give a shit about that then that's pretty heartless

Id reply to mil "And you shouldn't have stolen from a four year old."

And people saying "it's just a hat"-it's not upto you to decide how important other people's possessions are to them, and it's arrogant to believe everybody should live their lives as you do.

I assume you will be reporting the OP then Usual, as you think it isnt real? I am sure the OP wont give any more of a shit than you do :)

It's funny isn't it - people saying it's only a hat etc. Isn't it always the way that when people "appropriate" stuff, it's always the nicer things you have paid a bit more for that you especially like. I bet she wouldn't have bothered if it had been a basic hat from a pound shop. Odd that.

Isn't is so much more likely that the hat was simply left at Granny's house by mistake ? And that Granny didn't really consider it a big deal ?

But then Granny is also a mother in law so it stands to reason that the silly old fool cunningly planned a theft, executed it well and played the long game for a year. What an excellent plan to viciously steal a hat off the very head of her poor rich grandchild, hide it and then forcibly place it on the head of the poor but deserving grandchild.

God save us all from these evil, score settling, control freak, batty, selfish, thick as mince but stupendously devious mother in laws. We should bang up the lot of them.

What a pile of utter shite.

usual for someone claiming all this 'drama' over a hat you're bizarrely drawn to this thread that's not actually about the bloody hat
Are you arguing for arguments sake?

Is that how people view looking after their DGCs? As 'providing free childcare'
I thought GPs enjoyed looking after their grandchildren?!?

MIL might be annoying as fuck, but is still a GP who might, you know, want to see her GD.
Do you lot treat all your family interactions as 'transactions'

Blistory read the fucking thread. The MIL said that she had known for weeks that she had the hat and had deliberately lied to the OP (who had been asking about it repeatedly) because she wanted to give it to her other granddaughter.

It's not the hat, it's the lying and the privileging one child over the other.

This is getting SO tiresome.

Usual is a goady fucker. Ignore her/him, folks.

sally after my text today (which I don't think was OTT or aggressive) I won't be having much to do with her. She's not my mum. DH can speak with BIL as talking about their finances makes me uncomfortable. I certainly won't be harassing her over it. That said, I owed it to my DD to question why her granny would take something from her. I'd have been doing her a disservice to let it slide in the first place.

I commented near the beginning of get the thread and two days and hundreds of posts later I feel the same.

What the item was is irrelevant. The MIL took what wasn't hers to take and gave it someone else. She lied about it when caught out and passed the blame to an innocent party. I have no idea why the OP can have any blame in this.

Where do you draw the line? A hat? Some pound shop gloves? A PS, bike?, pony? Savings account?

MIL is wrong on every count, wrong, wrong, wrong.

I've read the thread, thank you.

I still think it's a pile of shite. It's not Mumsnet 'back to its best' as stated earlier. It's a horrible thread with some posters getting a vicarious kick from some poor sod getting a kicking behind her back by a family member. That merits a moments pause as to why anyone could think this is one of the better aspects of Mumsnet posters.

"Isn't is so much more likely that the hat was simply left at Granny's house by mistake ? And that Granny didn't really consider it a big deal ?"
Well, not according to Granny, Blistory. If you read the full thread, or just find the OP's later posts, you'll find the following:

"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. "

"So DH popped in on the way home from work and asked what on earth was going on with the hat (he's quite calm and laid back) and MIL apparently exploded that it's not fair that BIL and SIL are having such a hard time right now and we're parading around in expensive clothes and drive a nice car (clothes are from marks/Zara etc and the car is a Kuga) and live in a nice house (a 3 bed) hardly Armani and range rovers and mansions. She feels that it's obvious DGD is feeling left out. I'm not sure how that can be the case because, as I said earlier, we're not that close and the girls don't socialise with each other often (maybe once every six weeks or so) and they're young so they're not even at an age where they'd really be doing the "look what I've got" routine. We also see each other at MIL's house so it's not like we're saying "ooooh look at our stuff" and we also aren't that well off!!! Just work and have a normal lifestyle and do normal things. She made a hoo ha tonight about me Recently being promoted and how we're raking it in (we're not) and how things just don't seem fair. DH asked for the hat back and she couldn't find it I'm never getting the hat or the relationship with my MIL back, am I? DH told her she's acting like a woman possessed and she asked him to leave which he did. He's not sure whether to phone his DB in case his mum gets in there before him."

You have won, so now you can afford to be gracious

How has she won? Her daughter still doesn't have her hat and now the OP knows that someone she trusted to look after her child is certainly happy to lie to her face and potentially has some issues with her daughter and her level of privilege vis a vis her cousin. I'd say unequivocally that the OP has lost out here.....

Blistory so stealing is ok in your world? More fool you....

I thought this summary by Blistory

the silly old fool cunningly planned a theft, executed it well and played the long game for a year. What an excellent plan to viciously steal a hat off the very head of her poor rich grandchild, hide it and then forcibly place it on the head of the poor but deserving grandchild.

was actually a reasonable summary of what had gone on. One could quibble about the details but it's reasonably close to what the MIL said she did.

But anyway, let's find some way to blame the OP. After all, there's been lashings of wine.

No way has the OP won, the hat is still awol

I still think sitting down and talking about it was the way forward. Not all this texting and going on about stealing and gaslighting. "Look,MIL, I really don't understand what's been going on about little Freda's hat. Can we start from the beginning and explain it to me? Because what I've heard so far from several different sources just doesn't make any sense at all"

Oh, and it's actually quite normal in families for one member to say to another "John and Mary are finding things a bit tough at the moment". It's not disclosing private financial information- it's being a family.

The thing that gets to me about you should be more sensitive to them is that this comment should be directed at your DH, not you.

The relationship is between brothers and their mother. Any issue along the lines of a parent (MIL) wanting their children (DH, BIL) to be treated equally should be kept between them, or at most definitely include them. Especially as you're not close to BIL/SIL and surely MIL must know this!

Also, it doesn't explain why, if she feels one son doesn't have as much as the other, she should take from one to give to the other. She should make up the difference herself if she feels so strongly about it.

There's something she's not telling you here, and I'm convinced it's to do with you. I bet she thinks that for whatever reason you are hoity toity, or lord it over BIL/SIL, or don't have a sufficiently humble/grateful attitude towards money. Something like that which gets her goat.

Either way, I'm not sure I'd want my daughter around that attitude on a weekly basis. I too would put her in nursery full time. Such a shame.