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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Is this irresponsible and neglectful?

98 replies

LetUsHaveACupOfTea · 30/12/2019 15:35

Mil mentioned that she took dh on a 3 day car journey from the UK to an Eastern European country (still under soviet rule at the time) when he was 18 months old while he had measles. AIBU to think that's irresponsible and you don't make your sick child with measles travel for that long?

OP posts:
AlmostAlwyn · 30/12/2019 16:19

Pretty sure my parents didn't have a car seat for me and my siblings when we were born, travelling in a carrycot on the back seat (which didn't have seatbelts). I trust them both implicitly with my DC now!

Sounds like you've got other issues which would be more relevant than something from 40 years ago.

Overtime2019 · 30/12/2019 16:19

Oh god then you'd hate my granparents as when I was a few days old in the 80s they drove from Scotland to Wales to pick me and my mum up to bring us back to Scotland and I was in a moses basket that's it

pictish · 30/12/2019 16:19

Sounds like you might be stewing over your mil and have focused on this event from 40 years ago to ruminate and be disapproving over.

I don’t know your mil but even in the short posts you have made, it’s clear you’re not fond of her.

It was a long time ago...a lot of normal parenting practices back then were what we would consider reckless and/or neglectful. It’s hard to say if your mil is horror, based on that information.

SpudsAreLife84 · 30/12/2019 16:22

You sound absolutely ridiculous OP! 🤣🤣🤣 Get a grip Biscuit

ScreamingValalalalahLalalalah · 30/12/2019 16:23

What do you want her to do - travel back in time and stay at home instead? Confused

ReanimatedSGB · 30/12/2019 16:25

We used to travel in the dog compartment of the family car, no seatbelts, quite often with half a dozen little playmates. None of us died.
You are coming across as a whinyarse, OP if that's the 'worst' thing you can think of. You don't have to like your MIL, but there's nothing whatsoever wrong with that road trip.

Loveislandaddict · 30/12/2019 16:26

In the past, it wasn’t uncommon to get mumps. In fact, I think most people did, and it wasn’t really considered to be much difference to getting a bad cold or tonsillitis.

Maybe he developed the measles during the trip, or he wasn’t that ill with it.

If you don’t want mil to babysit, fair enough, but that’s a poor example to use.

FairytaleofButlins · 30/12/2019 16:27

people are STILL organising "chicken pox parties" in 2019... You can imagine the comments in a few years!

AlexaAmbidextra · 30/12/2019 16:28

You’re agitating about something that happened when your DH was eighteen months old? I know many on here think their MILS are always in the wrong but this must win first prize for being batshit.

Frenchw1fe · 30/12/2019 16:29

My mil thought I should drink alcohol when pregnant because she did and her kids were fine. She wasn't a narcissist she just didn't know about the current guidelines for pregnant women.

WonderfulAngel · 30/12/2019 16:29

dont know really but if im honest...my first child was born in 1989, I was only young and when I look back I did lots of things I wouldnt do now but everything I did was always with the best of intentions at the time

Zaphodsotherhead · 30/12/2019 16:32

My mother used to refuse to speak to me for weeks at a time if I did something she disagreed with. She wasn't a narcissist, she just wasn't very good with young children. She was fine with my kids though.

Minai · 30/12/2019 16:34

It was a different time. I don’t think you can use her (distant) past actions as an example of her as a grandparent.

My mil tells stories of how my husband managed to escape her house as a toddler and got through a neighbours cat flap but I would never not trust her to look after my sons. It’s so far in the past it’s no reflection of how she would supervise them now.

FancyAMincePie · 30/12/2019 16:39

Why are you getting yourself worked up over this?

Crafting1Queen · 30/12/2019 16:40
Xmas Biscuit
FancyAMincePie · 30/12/2019 16:40

I can remember holding onto a carrycot on the back seat (me not belted in...) people did things differently then

bettybattenburg · 30/12/2019 16:46

It presumably was years ago so what's the point in bringing it up now?! It is what happened, she made the decision and TBH it's a bit rude to be questioning it - do you accept her questioning your parenting? It's in a time and a culture which you are unfamiliar with (as it will have changed beyond measure since then) and you don't know the context in which she made the decision.

onalongsabbatical · 30/12/2019 16:54

Here's the thing. If she had relatives in Eastern Europe, even for a good few years after the wall came down, visiting them was like visiting someone who'd been in prison on the other side of the world for like thirty years. And that you had no way of knowing if you'd ever see them again, because communications with the east were still very sketchy. You can hardly imagine what that was like OP. Plus all the other differences other people have said.

Drabarni · 30/12/2019 17:08

It depends we went to school with measles, if we felt well enough.
We know more now so maybe neglectful now, depending on the circumstances.
Why try to pick fault with what mil did many years ago.

FrivolousPancake · 30/12/2019 17:14

What an unpleasant DIL you are.

Newmetoday · 30/12/2019 17:16

Sick of the word narcissist on here. About 1% of the population has it but they all seem to be mumsnetter’s MIL. Highly doubtful.

SaskiaRembrandt · 30/12/2019 17:17

The Measles vaccination was available in the mid 1970s, so to have a child with Measles in the 1980s already suggests she was an antivaxxer neglectful.

No, not at all. Depending on what year this was, he'd either have been eligible for the old measles vaccine which was egg based, so not given to a lot of children due to the risk of a severe allergic reaction. Of my class at primary school, I was the only one of only two children who had been vaccinated, everyone else got measles. Alternatively, he'd have been eligible for the MMR but usually this was given a bit later. OTTOMH, my DS had it just before their 2nd birthday.

Mrsjayy · 30/12/2019 17:18

I dunno if it was bad things were probably different and people took their kids lots of places 30+ years ago ill, but I wouldn't bring that up as a marker if you don't want her alone with your child don't leave your child alone with her.

Prokupatuscrakedatus · 30/12/2019 17:20

My DGM walked to Bohemia with my infant DF, she hoped to find her DH - and there was a war on...

SaskiaRembrandt · 30/12/2019 17:20

Sorr that's a bit garbled - I'm eating trifle

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