To think MIL joke isn't funny

[KarOp690]

Had a day out whereby I had to get a train with my 6 month old baby and some friends. On the way home, the trains were delayed and were cancelled going to my stop. They stopped at the second to last before mine which is my MILs town. I called her up to ask if it would be possible please that she could pick me and LO up and drop us home as our train wasn't going to my stop and she has a car seat in her car so seemed like a logical explanation. She said yep no problem, dropped us home and that was that. Since then she's text OH along the lines of "if you don't watch out I'm going to have that baby off you. I've called social services 😜" apparently as a joke. All because I've asked her to pick me up from the station in the evening I'm now apparently a case for social services? OH replies with "Very funny mum! Shut up" (in a jokey way) to which she's relied "no you shut up. Im gonna have that baby!!"
AIBU to think this joke is not funny in the slightest and to be actually pissed off she thinks it's appropriate to joke about?

OP, I think you’re being a tad sensitive but I do get it. Instead of being upset by what she says just joke back, “Ahh but don’t forget we will be the ones picking your care home in the future!”

I don’t think MiL means to upset you but I can imagine her comments are wearing - you just need to have a stock reply which of the same ilk. She may get the message.

@thecatfromjapan

That's the kind of reply I always want to give to AIBU and often can't be arsed. I honestly think some people watch these threads just to advise- LTB/go NC/call 101/be aggressive, that always works/that's offensive.... no matter what the situation.

@OP. People have different senses of humour. I thought your MiL's response a perfectly reasonable joke, but I know many people don't get mine. She was texting your DH, who presumably understood the joke and she's just done you a big favour. Stop looking to take offence.

Only you know if it's actually PA.
So personally, if she is someone who you find dominating or hard to deal with, I would withdraw & avoid using her help, (Did you say if you use her a lot to babysit ?)
I know this was in extremis but If she complains she isn't seeing the baby enough, you can say the last time when you had an isolated problem it didn't go well. & you feel its best not to "put yourselves upon her"

You obviously get on well enough to ask for a lift, so I do find it odd that you are so upset by it.

I wouldn't find that joke at all funny, abuse and neglect is never some to make jokes about IMO. But why the heck did your DH tell you what her text said???

My DH over shares as well, telling me things that MIL has said; not jokes as she wouldn't know how to joke but things that he must know that I'll be annoyed about.

I think as she said it to your husband just leave it this time but if she ever makes that joke to you then I would calmly say that you don't like the joke as it's not a nice thing to say and it's hurtful and not to say that again please.

Mix56

Does it not bother you at all that the OP expressed NO gratitude and there is no mention of anyone thanking MIL?

You focus on what MIL may possibly have done and offer extreme advice when the brat is the OP.

MILs can do nothing right even when they have acted in a very kind way.

My ex MiL used to do this, a lot. Sadly she then actually did try to have DD removed by her 'SS friends' because she wanted to be sole caregiver!!! So i'm jaded. To me this sort of thing isn't funny. You don't joke about calling SS & having somebody's child removed.

Tell your DH to either not tell you next time or inform his mother it isn't at all funny. And maybe call someone else if you get stuck

If she hadn’t continued with “no you shut up. Im gonna have that baby!!", I might have said it was just an unfunny joke. But she did and I think that was strange, and understand completely why it bothered you. My dpil gave me a lift over to the UK not long after the Townsend Thoresen ferry tragedy in the Channel. Standing with them in the ferry my dfil turned to me and said “What are you doing here, I booked you on the Herald of Free Entreprise”. It’s a lovely feeling when you realise your dfil wishes you dead

Longtime

Did you genuinely think she wanted you dead. Really? Seriously?

Or are you just a little overdramatic?

It's a crap joke - but implying she seriously wanted you dead is also a crap thing to do.

I'm with cat on this one. Some of the responses in this thread are paranoid in the extreme, given that the OP clearly has a good enough relationship with her MiL to drag her out of an evening to play taxi (I'd have done the same OP but I wouldn't then have felt personally attacked if she made a crap joke).

I think she’s saying (in a weird way) she adores your baby. This is a good thing, right?

Are you sure it is connected to your incident, and not just her (boring and unfunny, but she thinks it’s a joke) way of saying ‘your baby is so gorgeous ‘.

I would just ignore it.

Malicious referals to children’s services are not rare they are also not unusual at all.

It’s also not unusual for someone to leave being greatful and saying thank you out of a op.

None of us know at all if it really is a joke if the poster is being over sensitive or if she has reason to believe it’s not an actual joke and was a reference to her being out later at night with the baby.

If my ex MIL said this to me I would smile at her laugh and possibly say ‘so does this mean they are coming for a sleep over’ because my ex mil is a lovely lady who wouldn’t dream of doing something like that maliciously BUT aposolutly would report actual neglectful or abusive behaviour, she’s an ex social worker as am I and that would be entirely in context.

However if my own mother said it I would be fair more inclined to take it seriously mainly because it’s exactly the sort of thing she would do and has done if she thought it would serve her desires.

Many years ago I spent almost 2 years dealing with the most horrific situation with one of my children 100% caused maliciously by my mother she made allegations like I had put a cigarette out on my child’s face (child was born with a keloid lump under her eye documented at birth) that I had allowed someone to sexually abuse her and apparently my mother heard it all (despite at the time she alleged this occurred I was in a meeting with the teen mums group leader who was a social worker.but still my child had to be examined) apparently I also had munchausens by proxy. In the end the police and social services took action against my mother, and social services actually kick started me with training and qualifications in order to start on the road to what I do now.
Before she started her vicious campaign she would make little comments and dress them up as jokes exactly like this.
And as a result of her behaviour I had a child who despite being protected from further relationship with her was tracked down and told she was a victim of serious abuse and until she was supported by a professional to go through all her medical records and social care records was traumatised.

My mother on the outside comes across as an educated kind level headed person who places herself in positions of great trust when the reality is she’s a malicious child abuser (she was very violently and emotionally abusive to me and yes I have seen the CP records from when I was a kid) I sometimes come across her online where she’s surrounded by adoring vulnerable people who think she’s the second coming of Christ.

I would interpret that as "your baby is so cute, I want it"...type fluff

My beloved grandfather used to bang on and on and on about my very loved cats 'needing drowning' and offering to do it for me. It upset me my entire childhood. He thought he was being terribly funny. I was about thirty five when I finally said flat out to please stop it, now, I found that joke really upsetting. He was shocked and quite hurt. It still made it a boorish, insensitive thing to say.

Someone banging on about 'I'm going to take your baby' isn't something I'd find funny, and it wouldn't make me want to be around that person.

It isn't a joke. It isn't relevant and there's no punchline and it's not funny.
It's a dig because she was either put out by you or feels like your saviour and wants you to know it. She's a dick.

atrocious circumstances has it nailed and the equal level of a potential jokey response back.. Ie wow you will be cut out and die alone in a nursing home... Jokey but not nice at all.

Interesting op I have had similar from in laws. I think you have definalty had a chink into her mind and what she really feels about you.

It actually sounds like the DH at first took it as a joke but then was less certain after the second comment, which sounds more serious. He clearly didn't like it either. As she's his mum, he's the best judge of whether she was joking or not.

It wasn't nice either way, as if parents of a young baby don't have enough worries to deal with.

@Moussemoose I think we're coming from the same angle so not sure why you tagged me . My post was about the op and the mn posters who practically gave a LTB for this 😂

She probably did thank her MIL at the time, as far as she was concerned it was all fine between them at the time. She doesn't have to add to her op, 'I thanked MIL profusely and invited her in for a cuppa', does she? It's too much detail.

Desmondo2016

I tagged because I agree with you and was adding to your point.

Lizzie48 I think mentioning thanks is extremely important. This wasn't a little favour it would have been a real PITA for the MIL. The fact that she went to this effort is being dismissed by many posters and the OP.

It's a balance, on one side of the scales a PITA of a favour on the other side a not funny joke. Perspective is needed.

Perhaps the MIL was rightfully pissed off that the OP is an entitled brat.

I think there are a lot of posters who love the drama and want a row. The OP rather than focusing on all the positives is obsessing about an unfunny text.

You can choose to be happy or you can choose a life of misery and angst.

Yes possibly,Moussemoosse, we don't know what their relationship is like in other ways. But we can't assume that she didn't say thank you because she hasn't mentioned it.

But maybe she didn't and the OP is an entitled brat, that's true. But the thread would surely have been, 'do you think I'm an ungrateful bitch?' in that context. And the answer would have been yes you are.

It's still an odd thing for the MIL to mention calling SS though, isn't it?

Curious that OP hasn't been back actually. It's a question that she ought to answer IMO.

"This wasn't a little favour it would have been a real PITA for the MIL. "

How on Earth can you tell that from the OP?

It could've been ten minutes. It could've been an hour. You don't know either way.