To be angry at my mother over this?

[Drinkandknowthings]

I have a complicated relationship with my mother. Growing up she managed to be neglectful and smothering.

I don’t allow any unsupervised contact with my DDs. Today I had to make a phone call for my elderly aunt and left her alone with them for 5 mins while I was in the next room. Just as I finished the phone call my 5 year old screamed. I went in and she had a red mark on her lip. She’s been playing with a toy tin whistle, my mum had asked her to stop, DD didn’t and mum slapped it out of her mouth.

I got our stuff and left immediately. I told her it wasn’t her place to discipline DD when I was right there.

DD was wrong to not stop when mum asked her to but my mother is never direct. I can imagine her covering her ears and saying to stop but DD thinking she was joking.

I’m really angry. It’s an hour later and the mark had faded.

Am I overreacting?

No!!! She was way out of line, I hate constant noise like that and it would actually distress me to hear it but I would no way smack it out of a child’s mouth!

Your mother hit your child in the face?

Your relationship with this “mother” just got a lot less complicated

Cut her out of your life.

She is 5. She was not in the wrong in any circumstance.

You need to go NC with your mother tbh. What do you gain from the relationship?

I ended contact with my mother over her hitting one of my DD; a lot worse than this case. If this a long line of crap from her make this the end of the line, walk away. I’m 14 yrs NC with my ‘mother’ and have no regrets.

YANBU completely out of order to smack something out of your DDs mouth.

This is totally unacceptable. I'm not sure I'd go as far as severing all contact but I'd be lessening it considerably. You were right about never leaving your DD alone with your mother, but you don't expect an actual assault when you've left them together for five minutes. It's outrageous.

On the whole I agree with MzHz. Your relationship with your mother just got a lot less complicated.

I can’t/won’t cut her off. She’s elderly (76) and not in great health. She lived with my aunt (86) and my aunt adores the girls. I do a lot of admin and making medical phone calls for them. My Dad died 3 years ago.

YANBU. She has caused your child injury by her deliberate action, and she's lucky the injury wasn't worse - your DD's teeth could have been damaged. I'm also pretty concerned that she resorted to hitting within what must have been less than 5 minutes; if she hasn't got the patience to find another resolution to this sort of problem she really shouldn't be around small children at all. You need to make sure that she is never left with your child when you are not there, and if she makes any move towards hitting her again you really do have to threaten going no contact.

@Drink
76 is not elderly, not nowadays
If you’ve had a difficult relationship please don’t feel obliged to be the skivvy for them.
Why should your DD suffer because you feel obliged to run after this horrible woman? If she wasn’t your ‘mother’ you would walk away.

You don’t have to cut her off from you, but she hit a child. That’s unacceptable, and if anything, you didn’t react as much as I would. She must never, ever be left with those children again - even for a second. I wouldn’t let her see them again. For now, however, I’d be listening to how your child feels about it - and make clear than her grandmother did something very, very wrong that was not and never will be acceptable.

I'm currently staying with my DPs. Both are 90. Neither would dream of behaving like your DM, Drinkandknowthings. Her age is no excuse.

Being 76 and not in great health means fuck all. She hit your little girl in the FACE. A smack on the bum is bad enough, but to strike a child in the face is inexcusable. She can make her own fucking phone calls.

I can’t/won’t cut her off

Your loyalty is misguided.

You need to protect your children from her. They are your priority, not her.

She’s always seemed older than her age. She had a very hard life with manual work (left school to go out to work at 12) and now she has rheumatism, cataracts and hearing loss (which she won’t do anything about) and I’m starting to worry about her memory as well.

Not excusing her but I’m an only child and she is still my mother.

She does also favour DD2 who’s 2 so I have to pick her up a lot on that.
Next year DD2 will start playschool so I think more visits without the girls will be in order.

My mum's a similar age and her health is poor. She'd never do this in a million years.

Just to be clear. She hit the toy from DDs mouth, she didn’t hit DD in the face.

She never hit me growing up.

Can't won't

So what did you want from this thread?

preggosaurus9
Like I said in the OP, I wanted to know if I was overreacting by being angry. I never asked about going NC.

She could have damaged her teeth, cut her mouth, it’s such a stupid thoughtless thing to do.

Well done to you for showing your daughter that she is worth more than that.

Its likely your daughter will tell some one st school and social care, will find out. They will expect you to proactively protect your daughter.

You weren't overreacting by being angry.

Imo you're underreacting to it. Fair enough you don't want to go NC, that's your choice. But I think you should choose not to have your DDs exposed to someone who thinks it's appropriate to smack a toy from a child's hands. Because that isn't about you or your Mum, it's about your DDs.

You never asked, but you certainly should.

Your mother hit a toy from your 5yr olds mouth. Think about that.

Regardless of her age, that is disgusting. And your loyalty is very misguided. If you don't cut her off then your children should never be in the same room as her again.

And stop making excuses for shitty behaviour just because she's older an from another generation.

Your child will be frightened of her probably forever. Do you want her to see how mummy keeps her away from this persona and protects or or that this women controls mummy as you run around after her?

I'm in the minority here but I think people are being hysterical. She presumably just "bopped" the whistle down and out of your daughter's mouth? She hasn't hit your child, nor intended to hurt her?

I'd struggle even to get angry about much apart from the lack of a profuse apology from your mother.