To think she shouldn't have stayed away with DD?

[rostronlorn]

DH is working at sea so it's just me and DD 18 months at home. MIL arranged to take DD and her 2 other grandkids (4 and 7) to an adventure farm type place on Easter Saturday for an Easter Egg hunt event. There was also a petting zoo and face painting etc. I originally was going to go along with them but am 5 weeks pregnant and experiencing awful sickness. DD was bored with me unable to take her out so when MIL offered to take her anyway I said yes.

The adventure park is a 2 hours drive away. The reason she chose this and not somewhere nearer is because it is owned and run by her close friend. MIL doesn't drive and got the train. She picked up DD at 9 to catch the 9:30 train. I was told they'd be catching the 5:30 train back and DD would be back at 6. As soon as she picked DD up I went back to bed. Around 5 I get up and everything seems fine, MIO has sent pics etc. Expecting DD back in less than an hour I decide to make a start on our tea. Then about 5:45 I get a frantic text from MIL saying she'd missed the train. It was the last train of the day. She wasn't willing to ask a family member for help and claimed she didn't have any money for a taxi which I found somewhat odd. Despite feeling like shit I offered to go and pick them all up and she insisted she couldn't allow me to do that. I said it was fine etc, it didn't matter because it was my DD and she hung up.

She phones 10 minutes later and says her friend is coming to get her and they will stay the night at hers and come home first thing. I still insisted on getting DD but she said "No. Get some rest. Will have DD back by lunchtime tomorrow." I rang SIL and she seemed fine about what MIL waa doing. I couldn't pick my DD up as I didn't have the friends address. I went to bed thouroghly pissed off because I saw from the photos that DD's clothes got muddy at the farm and I hadn't packed enough nappies for an overnight.

She returns DD at 1pm (she said between 11-12) and acts like it's no big deal. I did make an offhand comment to her that I found it a bit uncomfortable that my toddled spent the night in a house with people I have never met and that I would've been happy to come and collect them all or pay some of the taxi fare for them so they could have come home that night. MIL has been quite funny about it and said she won't be so keen to take DD out in future. AIBU?

@JessieMcJessie - I didn't say my opinion mattered, I said it was for the child's parents to decide. I'm confused about what it is that you can't understand, it's quite normal in my experience for it to be parents who make decisions about what happens to their child.

I’m confused about why you had to be so rude as to tell me my opinion could be “disregarded”. What is wrong with just saying politely that you disagree?

OP you need to give us more info.

JessieMcJessie

The issue is that the MIL had no right to make these decisions, regardless of her intentions.

They were decisions for the OP to make. Regardless of whether MIL agreed or thought they were bad decisions.

I really can't see how anyone can actually defend the MILs decision to just do whatever she wanted to without consulting the child's parents.

Absolutely not ok. I would have been asking for the friends address and collecting my daughter and if she hadn’t provided it I would have contacted the police - you had no idea where your daughter was for the night??? I wouldn’t be letting her take her anywhere again.

I would’ve unleashed holy hell so ydanbu

No harm was done. You got some extra 'me' time. Relax!

No physical harm came to OP’s daughter this time, but the point is MIL thinks she knows best and thus (very probably) lies about her plans and then withholds information when directly asked for it. That is massive dishonesty and would worry me too. She should have just been honest about her intentions/wishes in the first place.

And then she has the cheek to gaslight you by implying you’ve behaved unreasonably and are somehow to blame!

YANBU OP

Without hesitation if they didn’t bring a child back when stated and refused to give an address to where they were!

I doubt she planned this, she would have made sure you packed supplies if that wete the case. I think because her friend said to stay thete, she decided she wanted to do that, and decided you would not mind. She over stepped. She has no right to refuse to give you the address to pick up your daughter. She was entirely 100% wrong to do this.
It is irrevelant that she could take good care of the dc, she ignored the parents requests. She owes you a HUGE apology...and is very lucky that you did not call the police. I would not allow her to care for dc again. Maybe in time, if she proved she realized what she did was wrong.

Obviously late to the party but if you were that concerned you’d have gone to get her.

I wouldn’t tolerate behaviour like this from my mil however, the undermining isn’t on at all.

Jelly that's the whole point, she couldn't go and get her because MIL wouldn't tell her where she was staying.

OP, as a suggestion, you should have just driven to the farm, then called and said where you were and demand to get the address. She would have no excuse not giving it to you if you were already in the area.

I would just like to say thank you very much everyone. I'm a gp to 18. You have all helped me to back up why gp's should never ever look after grandkids.😁 I am 55 and quite clearly incapable of looking after grandkids it doesn't matter that I have birth to 6 dc of my own and I also have 2 dsc. I never wanted to be a gp until I was at least 80 by which time I would never have been asked to babysit. Unfortunately first gc arrived when I was 34. But thanks to you amazingly knowledgeable people I really should not have the gc to stay as they might hurt themselves or someone in my house may hurt them or God forbid I'd have a glass of something when they were in bed. BUT that's ok because I don't have them overnight or see them without their parents present simply because I like my house child free. Not everyone wants to be a gp. My dc's know this and we are all happy with the arrangement we have. They visit, have a cuppa and chat then bugger off. It's the gp's that want to be gp's that I feel sorry for with all the crap on here. It's not that many years ago that the grandmothers were matriarch's and the rest of the family had respect for them.

@dragonara53 - that’s not what the thread is really about though is it? You can be capable of looking after a child without having the right to keep them from their parent without permission

This isn’t about the ability of the grandparent to look after the grandchild. It’s about taking away the authority of the parent. If OP wanted the child to stay with her the night for whatever reason, that is her prerogative. I’d be absolutely furious about being kept away from my child. It crosses a line.

It's not that many years ago that the grandmothers were matriarch's and the rest of the family had respect for them.

There was an awful lot wrong with that tradition and what went alongside it and well you know it.

Anyone who wishes to be treated with respect needs to earn it. You don't earn it by undermining a parent and withholding their child from them.

If you think it's crap that a GP can't just take a small child and keep them until they see fit to return them, you're never going to get much joy on MN.

@dragonara53 If that's what you are taking away from the thread you are spectacularly missing the point.

I guess I just wouldn’t allow someone to deny me important information regarding my children. If she really truly denied that info then that’s extremely concerning.

If I agreed someone could have looked after my DC at 18 months for an agreed time and they decided it would be longer without asking, they wouldn't be trusted again. What other decisions could be over-ruled?

YANBU at all! She took your young child away overnight to an unknown address with unknown people!
I would have been phoning the police to get my child returned to me.
That is not ok.

18 months is so tiny still - at that age my son was still bed sharing and breastfeeding.

OP, as a suggestion, you should have just driven to the farm, then called and said where you were and demand to get the address. She would have no excuse not giving it to you if you were already in the area.

There are many and varied ways in which the OP could have forced her MIL's hand and recovered her child. She shouldn't have needed to do any of them.

Her MIL behaved very badly and she is asking whether her offhand comment about how she would have preferred to be able to collect the child was unreasonable. It absolutely wasn't.

The MIL knows full well that she is very much in the wrong and got nasty as a form of defence.

The facts that the child was probably perfectly safe and that the OP could have tried harder to force the MIL to disclose their location are pretty much irrelevant.

I’d be livid that it looks suspiciously like she’s planned this and has refused to give out the address where they’re staying.

I’d also be uncomfortable with having my DC staying at a strangers house, even if it was very large and grand.
It doesn’t mean the people inside couldn’t cause any harm to my child, you don’t know them or who’ll be there with them, and I doubt Grandma is going to be by their side all the time to watch over.

I'm very pro-mil (I have 3 ds) but would be livid. I cosleep and bf my 17 month old dd through the night and both of us would find this kind of separation traumatic. I don't care if that makes me precious (BTW my 13, 11 and 7yo ds are totally independent and go on camps/sleepovers all the time but I was the same with all of them at that age).

Dragonara the extent to which you've missed the point is breathtaking.

Op I wouldn t be happy with the way she manipulated this day out . I'd struggle to trust her. Esp as she doesn't appear to understand the issue.