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?!

April, read the fucking thread, will you.

It happened to one of my dc with a coat. My mum was having them for a couple of hours one day, apparently SIL popped in with her dc at some point. I asked my mum for the coat at pick up, she said that's odd it's not here maybe other gc took it home by mistake. I called SIL, she claimed she thought it was a hand me down! I had promised her a coat from the previous winter because I did often pass on stuff from my dc to their younger cousins but this coat was clearly brand fucking new and who the fuck hands something down their kid is wearing that bloody day?

I can grasp that you are upset over the principle of it, if it had been something of very high value I could understand, but it was just a hat and is it really worth the horrible way you spoke to your MIL over it and worth getting this worked up about? If it had been an expensive gadget as some have mentioned then yes that's understandable because they are few and far between, but hats are one of those things that are easily attainable...

An ipad costs £200+
A hat costs £1+

...............

"April1983

Is this actually for real? You are getting this worked up over a.....HAT???? Stop being so fucking precious OP and go buy a new one if you feel that strongly about it with the sheer amount that you save with your MIL looking after your DD SO that you can work and buy her nice things...

If my SIL ever spoke to my mum like that over a freakin hat whilst my mum provided that much care for her child I think I would go nuclear at her and tell her to go put her DD in a nursery if she feels that strongly about it and we'll see how much she'll be able to bloody afford then...

Seriously, a hat.. there's people going without food in the country, children actually freezing etc and you are this bothered over a hat...

YABU TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE.."

Have you bothered to read the thread, hmm? Poor response.

I'm guessing that April is the Mil.

The hat itself is irrelevant, the issue here is that your Mil is a liar and will favour one child over the other based on her perception of wealth and fairness of distribution.

Oh, and she's a weirdo.

Yes, but Edward, it wasn't clear that the MIL had taken the hat until she admitted she had done so.

Many people assumed at first that she made an honest mistake. Which would have been, IMO, the most reasonable explanation. But it seems she did actually steal the hat. So maybe we should all be more suspicious of each other?

I did read the thread, even if the MIL did it on purpose, is it worth the confrontation? TBH, if I was the MIL I would stop providing free childcare to my precious DIL and throw the hat back to her...

Ok I need the link to the hat book. I've scrolled up and down twice and can't spot it on my phone.

It is not an emergency! Dd need it for Christmas. I will get one for my neice too though. So it's fair and nobody needs to be stealing anything then.

The point is it is a hat that rightly belongs to the OP's daughter. The grandmother, rather astonishingly, took it upon herself to steal it from her granddaughter in order to "gift" it to her other, clearly more favoured, granddaughter. She stole and she lied and now she is trying to emotionally blackmail her way out of the mess she has created.

It is NOT about cost but about principle.

This needs nipping in the bud so its good that your DH is going around to sort it. Children deserve to retain ownership over their stuff - even just a hat. What else would she decide to re-gift to DN down the line? her winter coat? Her favourite toy? the big present Santa brought?

I remember being forced to hand over a beloved toy to a visiting child because they took a shine to it. It was awful. I was already a sharing child and had fuck all toys anyway.

It's unfair to a child, and in this case, its humiliating for your BIL & SIL that she's made them out to be poverty stricken to weasel herself out of this, and its disrespectful and dishonest that she lied and lied to you about the item.

april

Even if your mum had effectively stolen from her granddaughter?

The OP may well not want this sort of childcare, anyway. I wouldn't.

Go your DH for getting the hat back later today, good he's on board and taking the lead with his mum.

well she has spun you the story about DN being "deprived" so you will be too embarrassed or wary to mention anything to BIL/SIL so only you and her know about the hat stealing.

how weird.

And yes, absolutely, children should expect to have ownership of their property. The child who was stolen from us too young to know that, of course. That doubly sucks.

...is too young...

I think you should pop over, pick up her coat and tell her that your Mum is skint, so it's fairer that she gets to keep Mil's coat.

I'm sure Mil would be delighted

Yay for your dh! Hope he tells his brother/sister too.

April - It is irrelevant that it is a hat & that it might have a particular value.

If it had been a 50p rubber that DD particularly liked, left by mistake at MIL's who then denied all knowledge of it, while passing it on to DN there would be no difference at all.

Is it your BIL or SIL that is DH's sibling?

It is just very weird. It could be the case that she likes your taste in clothes and would like DN to dress more like your DD but if that's the case then she can spend her own money it!

I would be more angry at the time I'd wasted looking for something that wasn't lost and was in fact being hidden from me.

What odd behaviour from mil.

Your MIL is really out of order, 'quietly giving' something she knew you were looking for, to her other granddaughter. Who does that?

Glad you're getting it back. As you say, you work for your daughter's things and this was an expensive and presumably, loved garment. I would have possibly done the same as you by leaving it there but it would have rankled with me forevermore.

Loving the coat idea. See how she likes experiencing the redistribution of property, the
m.popkey.co/bd03dd/bgk9q.gif

" TBH, if I was the MIL I would stop providing free childcare to my precious DIL and throw the hat back to her..."

Well that would be a win win, wouldn't it?

Hat back & no more childcare from weirdo MIL.

Op, is your husband's sibling close to MIL? Would they brush it off or be concerned?

Do you know what I think the issue really is? It depends on who it is doing this? Thinking about it properly, I actually like my MIL so wouldn't react like this, even more so to my mother cos she is absolutely amazing. But if one of my particular SILs did this then it might bother me more so I can kind of see where you're coming from in being bothered... But honestly OP, it is just a hat and as a grandmother she might see that her other DGD isn't dressed as well etc and though what she did isn't right and bad judgement she probably did it so that her other dgd gets to have some nice stuff too? It's not right, it's not fair on you but ultimately, it's just a hat? Was it really worth the confrontation and embarassing her so much?

It's the fact that there are other issues you might have with your MIL that causes this situation to bother you more. Would this bother you less maybe if it had been your Mother doing it with you and your sisters children? There are certain nieces and nephews of my dh's that I'm not fond of and some that I adore, if one of my DC's things ended up with the ones I like I wouldn't mind so much as if it ended up with the little brats instead... But nothing to ever need a confrontation for... Maybe I just don't care about their stuff so much...