Has anyone’s mum ever actually stolen their baby?

[Cabbagewhites]

Seen a few threads recently (and lots over the years!) where women fear their mums / MIL want to take over the parenting of their child.
On a thread recently a PP described the overbearing MIL as ‘sinister’.

Just got me wondering, how much of a genuine threat is this? Worst case scenario- how far does it ever actually go?

Has anyone ever been in or heard of a family where grandma did in fact actually succeed in taking over the role of mother, becoming primary care giver in child’s eyes?

(I mean in situations where parents are actively parenting and haven’t actually asked or encouraged GP to step in, and there’s no kinship fostering or anything like that.)

I don’t have children, I’m just curious!

My mil seemed to totally lose the plot when I had dd, her first grandchild.
I honestly felt that she would have liked me to just painlessly disappear from the world, so she could get on with raising my child!!

Moving away from her due to work helped and now many many years later she's fine.
She now has 13 grandchildren and has definitely lost the desire to be 'mum' to any of them.

@WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld

I watched a documentary about reborn dolls a few years ago. They were looking at the stories of those who purchase reborn dolls I found one very disturbing and it has stayed with me. Single mother with a baby got a life threatening condition, cancer I think, so her mum stepped in to care for the baby. Lots of treatment and hospital stays and she made a full recovery. Later fell in love and was moving to be with the guy. Her mother was devastated and, it appeared, would rather her daughter had died so she could have the baby. The mother was having a reborn made to replace the grandchild who was back with his mum

I have watched this documentary (it's on YouTube) and remember it very differently.

The grandma had been, essentially, primary carer for the grandson from him being a tiny baby when his mother was diagnosed with cancer to him being 18m-2ish when she thankfully recovered. The mother then met a new partner and decided to move, with him to Australia, obviously taking the grandson with when he was near enough 3 yo ish. The grandmother was utterly bereft at the loss of both of them from her every day life.

The Grandma should have been celebrating her daughters recovery and the life she was about to make with her new love

@Cabbagewhites Please can you link the thread? 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Haven’t read the full thread sorry. Just popping on to say Phillipa Gregory wrote a video good novel on this theme. The Little House.

Video- very !

@sunshineandshowers21 I think we can all guess what sinister things that poor little boy will have been subjected to... 😢

@lovemenomore

Yes.

I work in family court and we had a case recently that was exactly this. The young lady had a row with her then partner and he called his mother who said she'd have baby overnight whilst they sorted themselves out.

The gran then started a campaign of slander/contacting SS and had the baby for over a year.

Obvs I've changed some details.

PLEEEEEASE tell me that the baby/child is back with mum now?? 💔

@ChocolateCakeYum

Sadly it happens, my sisters MIL stole DD (my niece) and my sister didn’t see or get DD or get her back for 8 months! My sister let her MIL take DD out for the day. MIL refused to hand her back at the end of it. Police wouldn’t do anything and neither would anyone else. My sister had to go through the courts where MIL was told to hand DD back because it should never have got that far in the first place (sisters ex wasn’t in the picture so it wasn’t him pushing for custody).

It's so totally fucking scary that this can happen. I don't understand why it isn't a criminal case of abduction?

@RandomMess

Actually I have 2 friends that lost their eldest DC to their Mums who were sneaky and devious.

Said they'd help out and then excuses excuses excuses why not to return the child. Both the Mums got the child rewarded back through the courts but when they tried to switch back the GM wouldn't work with them so the child was very distressed and of course wanted to stay with Disney grandparents.

So they never went back to their Mum??

@itsgettingwierd you're right! It should be abduction! Aren't these mothers listed as guardians of these children? Like in the GP and what not?

It’s not as simple when allegations are made.

The police can be reluctant to get involved because if they’re being told that Granny has reported sexual abuse or neglect and SS are investigating they don’t want to be the ones that put a child in danger.
The few cases I’ve seen have all seen parent encouraged to let SS do their work and then all will be sorted.

Plus there’s the aspect of no-one wanting the child to be physically removed by the police because of the impact that has.

I had severe PND after DD1 was born and could barely function, so my Mum virtually moved in with us to help take care of her. My Mum enjoyed taking care of DD1 a bit too much though - suddenly her 3 other grandchildren almost ceased to exist for her.

Even when I started to recover from PND she still visited every day, and stayed most of the day. Everything I did for DD1, my Mum would check I'd done it 'correctly'. She never once told me I was being a good Mummy to DD1, and instead often mentioned my failings to friends and family.

Even though she knew my PND had left me feeling incredibly guilty and insecure as a Mum, she deliberately told me of her re-occuring nightmare - where I deliberately ignored DD1 and allowed her to fall from a window, while my Mum looked on helplessly! FFS! Eventually I fully recovered from PND and I think my Mum was subconsciously disappointed? I don't think my previously very good relationship with my Mum ever recovered though.

Now I have my own DDs I cannot believe she would work to undermine me and not be as supportive as she could

@Timeandtune

Haven’t read the full thread sorry. Just popping on to say Phillipa Gregory wrote a video good novel on this theme. The Little House.

This book popped into my head too whilst reading this thread. But I have to disagree with you, I thought it was bloody awful. It's about playing the abuser's game, not breaking free of them, and ultimately becoming one yourself.

This was one thing I was so overly worried about of ever happening. My parents were abusive when I was growing up. Mum was neglecting me emotionally whilst father was abusing me in every way imaginable.

They kicked me out of the home because I no longer wished to be a part of the cult they raised me in. So I ended up homeless, built my life.

I tried having a relationship with my mother again after I had my first two children. During my time with her, there were constant reports to social services from anonymous sources. I never thought it was ever my mother and our relationship was going well until PTSD hit me like a tonne of bricks. I would get unwanted parenting advice "you have to" and "you need to" - I am softly softly catchy monkey attachment approach to my parenting. I went to the papers to tell of my story of the abuse. Mum cut me off like a used tampon. She was still with my father throughout all of this and still is.

Now my mother has dementia and according to my sister, I'm the bad one for not going to see her. I always feared my children could be taken away from me by her. Thankfully it never came to fruition, but the fear was real.

Would have happened to my youngest if I didn't leave! Exhusband told the midwife he planned to leave me and raise our daughter with his mother!?! (she failed him massively as a child, neglect, emotional abuse....) I couldn't work out what was worse - him wanting to raise a child with his mother or the fact he wanted to rip a newborn from it's mum and give it to someone who couldn't look after a goldfish! Got the fluff out of that!