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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think my mum crossed a line?

129 replies

Iamstegosaurusthethird · 05/03/2018 08:39

This happened a while ago but I'm really struggling to get past it, obviously my mum thinks she's done nothing wrong!
We were staying at my mum's, when my dd came down with chicken pox. Obviously she was covered in spots and feeling very sorry for herself but nothing unmanageable by is at home. My mum kept offering to phone her drs for us and my self and DH both said it was unnessecery. We'd been to the pharmacy were following their advice, she didn't have a massive temp so a gp visit was a waste of time. Anyway the next thing I know she's thrusting the phone at me saying I've called the Dr they want to speak with you. I spoke to the Dr and they agreed a visit was unnessecery and we were managing the symptoms fine. I got off the phone and told my mum I didn't need her intervening her reply was she was so worried and as a grandparent she needed to take responsibility. AIBU to think she crossed a line as BOTH parents were there and didn't think a dr was needed. This isn't the first time she's meddled when it's unnessecery. She maintains I'm overreacting but I'm so cross she wasted the GP's time and she doesn't trust me to make informed decisions about my own child's care.

OP posts:

Jux · 05/03/2018 16:24

I used to have to phone the gp or the hv just to stop my mil from completely over-riding the pharmacist's advice, whenever dd was ill. Mostly I wasn't worried about her, but MIL would get quite ridiculous and undermine and over-ride anything and everything. I'd have to phone the hv just for backup. MIL drove me mental when dd was small!

CuboidalSlipshoddy · 05/03/2018 16:26

eminently believable, I'm afraid.

The point is: the only reason you phone social services is because you want the state to coerce someone to do what you want or, perhaps slightly more benignly, to not do what they are currently doing because you think they are wrong.. The moment you ask the state to intervene in a family disagreement, a huge rubicon has been crossed. It's like the threat of "grandparents' rights" - immediately cutting all contact and refusing to deal other than via your solicitors isn't an "over-reaction", it's the only sensible reaction, because anything you say and do is now the subject of a potential legal action.

Inviting the coercive power of the state into relationships or disagreements is the nuclear option, and if you're going to do it, you need to be bloody certain it's the only option left to you. And if you think that it's sensible to use the threat of children being taken into care as a way to resolve disputes with your grandchildren's parents, then - Wisdom of Solomon, and all that - you should be thinking "do I care enough about this to have the children removed from their homes and taken into care, with adoption as the punchline?" Because that's the threat you're implicitly waving around.

Twogoround · 05/03/2018 17:58

A young child is ill in your house ( either living or staying thereP the parent will phone a Dr. As people have said on her chicken pox can kill. Would really not phone a Dr.

Some of you are saying you would not .
So you watch a young child suffer really ?

CadyHeron · 05/03/2018 18:47

So you watch a young child suffer really

It's chicken pox, not the bubonic plague! OP said the child had no temperature, seemed OK and that they as parents had sought advice which they were following but that wasn't good enough as grandparents know better.
The OP says she has form for meddling - seriously, if you do that sort of thing you seriously need to learn to back off before they beat you to it and back off themselves.

NerrSnerr · 05/03/2018 18:59

@Twogoround you missed the bit of the OP where she said that her and her husband had got advice from a healthcare professional? The child had no temp and wasn't in major discomfort so what do you think the GP could do for them?

Lizzie48 · 05/03/2018 19:06

Both my DDs have had chicken pox. It wasn't nice for them obviously, especially for DD2, but we covered them in calamine lotion, and used Calpol to keep the temperature down, and also made sure they didn't scratch. It was unpleasant for both of them but they were ok.

What can calling a GP really achieve? It's a virus, so antibiotics don't work. I was with my DDs constantly, if there had been any complications I would have taken action. But they came through it fine.

Actually I also had it as a child in the 70s, I don't remember a GP being involved there either. My DM settled me to sleep with a drop of wine in my Ribena.

Twogoround · 05/03/2018 20:03

From the bus web site when to talk to gp
Speak to a GP if:
you're not sure it's chickenpox
the skin around the blisters is red, hot or painful (signs of infection)
your child is dehydrated
you're concerned about your child or they get worse

Again if child in your is ill IN YOUR HOUSE and parents were refusing to see the Dr.
What would you do?
If the child die I am sure the police would be asking question of you?

NerrSnerr · 05/03/2018 20:09

But none of those apply, the OP knew it was chicken pox, she mentioned no concerns about infection, dehydration, and he wasn't deteriorating and she wasn't concerned. She had already consulted another HCP.

I will ask you again @Twogoround- what could the GP have done for the OP's child?

CuboidalSlipshoddy · 05/03/2018 20:48

If the child die I am sure the police would be asking question of you?

No they wouldn't. Stop being so dramatic.

CadyHeron · 05/03/2018 21:07

you're not sure it's chickenpox/ the skin around the blisters is red, hot or painful (signs of infection)/ your child is dehydrated.

The OP said she didn't even have a temperature, never mind exploding into painful, at risk of infected blisters, or being dehydrated.

and parents were refusing to see the Dr.
Are you deliberately missing the bit where OP says they were following advice? Hardly ignoring it and refusing to see a doctor.

Haffiana · 07/03/2018 17:59

Fuck me. She shouldn't be allowed near children because she obvs causes them to be massively offended at nothing when they grow up.

You have to punish her because she clearly cannot raise children, can she?. Cut her off completely.

AnnieAnoniMouse · 07/03/2018 18:18

Why do we do this?

An OP posts at 8:30 on a Monday morning and once more a short while later...the OP doesn’t return to the thread...30 odd hours later we are all still here debating the issue. It’s a mad, mad world.

GammaDelta · 07/03/2018 18:21

I think your mother should not have called but i think it's not a big deal...

Lizzie48 · 07/03/2018 18:26

The telephone call on its own isn't a big deal at all. It could just be a very anxious Grandma. The issue appears to be that it's part of a pattern of the OP's DM undermining her.

Headofthehive55 · 07/03/2018 18:27

IT speaks volumes that the dr wanted to speak with the adult with responsibility not the grandmother.
Unless the child was indeed unwell, and in this case wasn't, I'm not sure why anyone would ring the gp.

Chienrouge · 07/03/2018 18:38

But none of these things applied? So the OP was following NHS advice.
My 4 and 2 year olds have both just had chicken pox one after the other. I knew it was chicken pox, they had mild temperatures and were itchy and out of sorts. I didn’t speak to any health care professionals at all, just bought calpol and virasoothe. I wasn’t watching them suffer, I was treating them in the way in which the illness warranted.

eggsandwich · 07/03/2018 18:49

When a similar situation happen to me, Dh was in one hospital with pneumonia and extremely poorly and the doctor said he was 2 days from death, I had a temperature of 40.1 and my 4 week old dd had bronchitis and we were both in a different hospital from my Dh.

I was on powerful antibiotics baby was hooked up to monitors, my family travelled down to look after our young son.

I had rang Mil up late in the evening from the hospital after Dd was admitted to say we were now in hospital and that under no circumstances is she or anyone else to tell my Dh that his daughter was in hospital as well, as he was so ill I didn’t want him to worry and I hoped we would be back home before him.

Mil and fil decided to tell my Dh that his daughter was in hospital going totally against what I said, I was bloody furious that they would do that and my Dh when he found out discharged himself when he was in no state to do so.

I rang Mil up when Dd and myself got home and said to her that she had crossed the line and when it comes to making decisions about my family I out rank you all!

We didn’t talk for months after that I’m still furious now thinking about it.

mnahmnah · 07/03/2018 18:54

Twice my mum has taken DS1 to the doctors when we said not to. Both times he was full of cold and tugging his ear. He always does this with a cold, the first time we did get it checked and doc told unless what to look for if it was an ear infection. She was convinced it was an ear infection. Both times doc said no, just a cold. Bloody infuriating but I knew it was just because she cared

Oldieandgoldie · 07/03/2018 19:19

I’ve been googling, but can’t find out, was chicken pox ever a notifiable disease?
I always thought it was, but can’t find anything to back me up.
(I’m a grandparent)

Twogoround · 07/03/2018 19:59

Yes it was
Please note: From 2010 the following diseases are no longer notifiable - Bacillary dysentery, Chickenpox, Erysipelas, Food poisoning, Legionellosis, Leptospirosis, Lyme disease, Malaria, Puerperal fever, Scarlet fever, Toxoplasmosis, Typhus fever and Viral hepatitis.
Notifiable Disease Data - Public Health Act - HPS - Health ...
www.hps.scot.nhs.uk › publichealthact
Feedback

Micksee15 · 07/03/2018 20:05

Hmmmm ok so im on the fence with this one im afraid.
Speaking as a mother then i'd say yes she crossed the line and i would see it as a personal insult to my parenting skills, however. .. Speaking as a person who (lets be vauge about this)is employed in a sensitive role, if something happened to the child, she would also be asked to justify her actions as to why she did not seek medical advice for the little one so for all i do understand your frustration, i do get her point too.
Be mad at her if she doesn't care enough, try not be mad for her over caring?
I really do understand your frustration but be reassured that you KNOW she will seek advice for the little one if she has sole care instead if waiting until mum and dad are home to check. x

CadyHeron · 07/03/2018 20:27

if something happened to the child, she would also be asked to justify her actions as to why she did not seek medical advice for the little one so for all i do understand your frustration, i do get her point too.

The parents WERE following medical advice. Why are people thinking that they were just ignoring a desperately ill child?
Chicken pox, which was being treated, she apparently seemed OK (well,as OK as you can be with chicken pox) and said it was all in hand!

justlliloleme · 07/03/2018 23:19

Years ago my mil was convinced my daughter couldn’t hear her. We insisted there was nothing wrong with her hearing & she just ‘switched off’ when she was doing something. Mil went on & on & on aboutbthis for weeks & the more she went on the more I sung my heels in & refused to believe there was a problem & take her to the GP. Till one day she exploded on my husband, screaming at him that she’d ‘had no sleep worrying about the poor child’ & how she couldn’t understand why we didn’t care. No wonder DD switched off around her. DH had had enough at this point & we just took her to the GP just to keep the peace, we were referred to the hearing clinic, where they promptly informed us that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her hearing 🙄🙄. But we still had a year of follow up appointments ‘just in case’.
This was the last in a long line of ‘serious’ medical problems our DD had she had chickenpox & measles at the same time, she’s had a dislocated hip, just to name a few.
I think grandparents tend to overreact more than we do. It comes from a good place but it’s still a pain thevtje fucking arse when they get a bee in their bonnet. I’d be pissed off she did that but she meant well & hopefully if you make the point that the GP agreed with you then she’ll back off. My mil did, but only after ‘hearinggate’ x

Dontoutmenow · 07/03/2018 23:51

Just - she sounds unhinged. What gave her the right to explode at your DH? Her paranoia?

Colbu24 · 08/03/2018 09:40

Bloody hell cut your Mum some slack. Your Mum wanted to do something anything to make your dd feel better.
Ok she was too forward but it’s under her watch. You are holding on to anger at her being scared and worried.
It isn’t lack of trust just anxiety at not being able to do more.
I’m not sure why are you in her house but you need to understand that for a parent that doesn’t interfere this situation has made her act out of character.
If you explained how it made you feel your Mum will be able to explain to you how she feels too.
I’ll do anything for my Mum to be near me.

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