Advice about in-laws and babysitting

[SilverBirchTree]

My in-laws love my one year old very much and he loves them. They are incredibly loving and fun with him.

However- As often as not a visit with them will involve MIL doing something I feel is a bit dangerous or unhygienic with my son. But I am a worrier by nature and it’s hard for me to judge whether my expectations are normal.

For example, in the last two weeks:

She wiped his face and hands with a soiled dish cloth she found in our sink. I’d used it to wipe up raw egg and kitchen spray earlier in the day. She didn’t seem to understand why I asked her to use his baby wipes instead.

On another occasion my son had a wooden xylophone stick in his mouth. She picked him up and play wrestled with him, rolling him around on the floor while was holding the stick in his month. She didn’t seem to understand why I interrupted and took the stick away.

My son has started thrashing around and standing up when his nappy is changed. We change him on a changing table with a seat belt style strap or on a soft mat on the floor so he doesn’t fall or smack his head. She tried to change him on our stone kitchen bench (high off the ground and right next to a ceramic vase, a wine bottle etc). My husband asked her not to.

This is just the last two weeks, but it’s been like this since he was born. I know none of these actions are outrageously negligent. I know lots of parents are more relaxed than I am. But I feel like I’ve spent the last year asking her to be more careful about safety, and she doesn’t take 90% of my concerns on board.

I’ve just returned to work and my mother has offered to watch him one day a week. We have hired a wonderfully qualified nanny for the other days. We did not ask my In laws to babysit purely because MIL and I don’t see eye to eye on safety issues.

It was launched world war three. For days now my in-laws have called DH crying and shouting. They’ve literally said that not being invited to babysit is the worst, most hurtful thing anyone has ever done to them. They say they don’t think they can forgive us and that we have fractured the family. We visited them to try and make peace but they continued to attack, shout, insult and cry. They were incredibly hostile towards me in front of my child. They obviously blame me for all of it although my husband and I are in agreement.

If you read this far thank you.

Basically AIBU about this safety stuff? Any advice for me about childcare in this situation? I hate conflict and I am just stunned by the extremity of their reaction and don’t know what to say or do. We are devastated by this rift, and just so overwhelmed.

What a ramble... sorry. Any advice would be amazing.

You are barking up the wrong tree with flowers and counselling. I never heard of counselling for PIL problems and if I were them I wouldn't go, because it's clear it would just be you criticising them again which they already know.

You can't counsel this better, these people are stubborn and feel very aggrieved.

Send them flowers if you want but they will just look at them and slag you off.

Realistically, they only wanted the relationship on their terms, and you've kind of over-involved them from the start and made them feel like choices over parties/childcare are going to be their business.

I would let your husband get on with seeing them occasionally, you carry on being polite, but the bottom line has to be that you and your husband don't let either of them slag you off or be hostile/aggressive/emoting constantly at you or at your child. They will not be coming to counselling so you can politely tell them this, they need it spelling out quite clearly and then your actions reflect it. That's why I think flowers will seem almost insulting to them and not the peace offering you imagine them to be.

You can't reason with crazy- decide on your course of action and your boundaries, and make it clear that to be in your family's life they have to meet them politely without shouting!

OP - these people have form - they throw hissy fits and fall out with everyone.

It is now your turn.

You need to give them very firm boundaries not free rein.

It is a power game and they are disrespecting and subjudgating you. Tantrums and the threat of volatility are to get their way and have you on ways on edge tap dancing to their tune - which will change all the time.

This will be the first of many incidents as the pollute your family life.

They are unreasonable and toxic. You are nice and attempting to apply rational good manners to irrational dreadful people.

You want distance, low contact, grey rock.

It will be one thing after another. They will spoil your new family life, consume your thoughts. These people don't change. You will be posting here when they have disrupted first xmas, first birthday, thrown a wobbly at x, sabotaged y....it will go on and on.

But the narrative they are telling themselves is 'OP is trying to cut us off, she hates us, she wants to break our family and keep GC to herself, ruin our lives.', and I'm hoping having a bunch of flowers on their countertop saying 'I'm sorry you feel hurt. I want us to reconcile. Please come to counselling with us.' Is good evidence that I'm not that person, and the ball is in their court.

That is the very last thing you should be doing here frankly. Counselling with such disordered people is going to go very badly; it will be a repeat of what happened when they shouted at you for an hour or so.

Why on earth do you want to reconcile with them at all? Examine your own reasons far more closely because they are really flawed and worse still play into their hands.

Such people only believe their own narrative and they have chosen to cut themselves off by their actions. This is precisely how such disordered of thinking people operate; they do not act or behave as emotionally healthy people do or think. They will tell themselves that you are wrong here but you know its not true. Do you think that these two actually have friends, no such people do not and there's good reason why that is. They use people and demand their own way.

You have got to stop trying to appease these people! They are bullying you!

Who goes out and buys their bullies flowers?

This is not your fault or your responsibility. Think about individual counselling before you try family therapy. Why are you so desperate?

Grandparents can be a valuable addition to a family but they're not a necessity, (speaking as a GP)

Omg just those things they did to your DS as a baby would have been enough for me to not want them to babysit

@Nanny0gg I would completely if a friend or partner treated me as they have. I'd wave them off.

But it's my husbands parents. I dont want my husband to lose his parents over something this trivial. I am close with his siblings, his cousins. I don't want the whole family to take sides, or worse- blame me for the downfall of their family. I don't want their Christmas traditions ruined. I don't want my son growing up hearing that his mother is a b$&ch who broke the family.

I hate tension, I want it gone.

Also I would not tell your DH not to defend you when they yell abuse at you in front of your child. Think of the message you're sending. That it is OK to scream and say horrid things to mum, and dad is OK with it.

@SilverBirchTree you are not the cause of this.They are.And believe me if it hadnt been this,it would have been something else.

Well, they dislike you anyway so you are on a hiding to nothing now. Your best bet is to be very strong and have good boundaries to protect your child and your family, and they can suck it up.

Why do you want them to hang out lots in a family where tension, shouting, blaming the mum and estranging people is the norm anyway?

Let your husband sort out his family and take the lead in defending your little family. This isn't fixable by flowers and counselling, surely you must see this?

@numberseven I agree. When we were on our way there I had no idea it would be like that. They'd been crying on the phone during the week, but I thought them accepting our offer to come over, talk it through with them mean they were ready to talk to us about it. I did not expect them to still be so enraged and to feel entitled to speak to me as they did. It was so truely irrational and extreme that I was stunned by it. I left my body, it felt so bizarre and unreal.

But if we do continue our relationship, which i hope we do, Myself or DH will have to say 'I know how hurt you were so I forgive you, but speaking to me in that way in unacceptable.' I know he will back me 100%

@Orchiddingme I'm starting to see it, TBH.
It's just such a sad outcome and not what I want for my family. I guess I just want to be sure I exhausted every possibility of reconciliation before I accept what is likely to be NC or at least a very tense relationship with hatefilled people for the rest of their lives.

"I dont want my husband to lose his parents over something this trivial."

Isn't it his decision?

Also, what's trivial about them being shitty to you?

Stop trying to appease them-they're not worth it!

YADNBU
Let them have a tantrum.I would do exactly what you did.Safety of your child is paramount and you will be probably worried sick at work, thinking about your baby.
It's great that your husband is supporting you.Stick to your guns and ignore the rest.

@diddl I see your point. I'm more thinking that 'we aren't allowed to babysit on tuesdays therefore you're rejecting and mistreating us and the family will never recover' is such a crazy thing to blow up a family over. It's just nonsensical.

I can see going NC with family over sexual abuse, stealing inheritances, sleeping with each other's wives or whatever.

But this? Really? It's just so stupid. I can't fathom this mindset, and so I suppose it's hard for me to see why this is can't be fixed.

PIL seem to lack the emotional tools to stay in a relationship with someone who disagrees with them. But I have those tools. I am capable of it. I want to try and help them get there too, but today it was just a series of brick walls.

Oh gosh, what a ramble. I'm not sure I even stuck to the topic of your post just now, sorry

" I'm more thinking that 'we aren't allowed to babysit on tuesdays therefore you're rejecting and mistreating us and the family will never recover' is such a crazy thing to blow up a family over."

Sorry, I misunderstood.

But don't forget-it would be their choice to walk away because things aren't exactly as they want them to be.

Don't sacrifice your mental well being or the safety of your child for them.

Also as your son goes to school, wants to see friends...

If they can't be flexible now it will only get worse!

You sound like me 15 odd years ago. I simply couldn't comprehend that the family I was going into just didn't behave in fairly straightforward emotional ways like my own family (which had it's own dysfunction!)

That doesn't mean you will be NC or in a hate filled relationship. Let this die down. Stand firm in no tolerance of shouting/abuse for starters. Encourage civilised and nice encounters with your child. If they are rude/shout/say bad things, just leave. This is solvable and savable, but not at the expense of you just groveling to them.

They don't have a right to care for your child, and you have alternative childcare- you can offer them a normal traditional lots of contact grandparent relationship. If they don't want that, that's their choice, not yours.

If it hadn't been this, it would have been something else- who you did/didn't invite to a party, what school you were planning. Now you've realised that you need to stand up for your child a bit more. That's good. Now there's a chance of resetting what has been them slightly dominating (taking the baby, not listening to you). This is not actually a bad thing.

"I need to find a way to help them overcome that."

No you don't! It's not your job to do that and frankly it's not within your power to do so either. You're the evil bad guy. They're not going to listen to you. They're going to blame you for everything because it's easier than reflecting on their own behaviour, which is the cause of the current situation.

"I just think I need to map out the path to reconciliation because PiL are not capable of it."

You can't reconcile with them all by yourself. It's a two-way thing.

"I feel guilty that when he was a newborn, I let them do whatever they wanted with him even though it made me sick to my stomach sometimes, because I was insecure as a new mum and deferred to their experience. I allowed them to feel in control and that is why now, when I am taking some control away, they are feeling a sense of deprivation."

You shouldn't feel guilty for their sake, you should feel guilty for your son's sake. You owed it to him and to yourself to stand up for him and his needs from the start. However, it's not your fault that you didn't feel able to so until now, and the important thing is that you have done now.

"the narrative they are telling themselves is 'OP is trying to cut us off, she hates us, she wants to break our family and keep GC to herself, ruin our lives.', and I'm hoping having a bunch of flowers on their countertop saying 'I'm sorry you feel hurt. I want us to reconcile. Please come to counselling with us.' Is good evidence that I'm not that person, and the ball is in their court."

You can't change their narrative. It's not rational or reasonable. They believe what they want to believe, despite all evidence to the contrary. You have been polite, reasonable and accommodating (within reason), and they've still made you the bad guy. Flowers aren't going to miraculously give them a personality transplant and make them appreciate what a lovely person you are.

Whatever you do to try to pacify them will be pointless. The only thing that they will accept is being allowed to babysit because that is what they have set theîr minds too. Everything else - flowers, apologies, carefully worded notes- is futile. You can’t smooth this over and pretend to play happy families unless you are willing to hand over your child, knowingly risking his safety, to placate the stroppy grandparents. ( TBH I wouldn’t be surprised if they adopted a more cavalier approach deliberately, to prove a point and get one over on you).

If they genuinely cared about their grandchild’s wellbeing, they would be asking you to help them get things right so they could look after him as safely as possible. But they don’t care, it’s all about the affront to them.

Does your dh feel he had a dangerous and neglectful upbringing or did they actually do a half decent job?

I disagree with this. As a parent you are ultimately responsible for your child's safety and if he was hurt in someone's else's care then those questions would need to be asked about your judgement of them as caters.

You judge them as incapable. You've done your bit as a responsible parent

I think that we often put up with more from parents than we might with friends.

To a point that's maybe OK.

But there's give & take/compromise & being walked all over!

Op I have been here-although my ils openly hated me from day one- but it also ended in a horrible explosive outburst from mil everytime we tried to solve it.
Dp and i had many a chat with pil-to be about merging the two families and getting them closer to ds but all they wanted was the baby handed over.
They became so hateful dp ended weekly contact and they bearly see ds 6 times a year.
It's horrible but until they are open/ ready to understand you side as well as their own then it is a totally pointless situation.
It's so stressful and sad for you and dh. I feel for you both but your sons safety must always come first.

@diddl yep agreed. Just trying to find the line I guess. Thanks for all your advice

I would rethink letting your DH go off and take you DS on his own to his parents (all the time). I think the odd visit on their own ok and give you a few hours to yourself but you dont want a situation where this happens all the time.

My FIL spent 30 years going off every Saturday to his Step-Mums who treated his wife like shit. It was really awkward being in that situation

@Oldraver yeah I'm rethinking that visit. It was more because we left abruptly and without resolving anything today. We wanted to leave the door open to speak when they had calmed down, so we said 'let meet next weekend.' And they said ok.

But on the car ride home I emerged from my shock at their behaviour and said to DH 'I think I need to stay home next week, their treatment of me today was just unacceptable and I am just done for a while.' I am considering now talking to DH about DS staying home with me. I don't want them accusing me of withholding their grandchild, but on the other hand i don't want today's performance rewarded or for them to have another forum to be in hysteric in front of my child without me there to put a stop to it.

SBT

"But it's my husbands parents. I dont want my husband to lose his parents over something this trivial".

This is not trivial in any sense of the word and besides which they caused this to happen by their actions. If other family members take their side, that's up to them. Sometimes such flying monkeys take the side of the abuser because they are also easily manipulated into doing their bidding for them. Such people are not interested either in hearing your side of things so they are not worth worrying about.

Again you are applying "normal" rules of familial interactions to people who cannot, do not and never will abide by such rules. Only their own.