To have an argument about mil dressing my son girly?

[Aleeson]

So me and my partner have a 2 yr old son and we are very blessed with grandparents on both ends who regularly spend time with our son, however there are some issues I’m having with my MIL.

Occasionally our son stays at grandparents house, we always pack a bag full of clothes and shoes to go with him for any occasion and there’s plenty of spares. My mil seems to ignore the bag of stuff we provide and constantly dresses him into her granddaughters clothes and SHOES or my sons clothes that were in her house and now are too small (I did request to donate them or give back to me so I can donate them)
What absolutely boiled my blood this time is that me and my partner were away for a few days because of work and we come back to our son dressed like a little girl and wore a jumper
2 sizes too small. Meanwhile she said to us she had a few of her friends come round and they had a good play in the garden (which is lovely) but
he was wearing a raincoat instead of a jacket we provided (it was quite cold in our area) and when we come home after a few hrs we realised our son has a fever of 39.4!!! And what annoys me is that because she does not dress him in weather appropriate or at least his clothes he gets sick and looks like his parents do not care about him at all! Or that we desperately wanted a girl and now trying to dress our son like one! I can’t imagine what her friends think of us, honestly it is quite embarrassing. My partner promised to sort it out with her as I’m tired of repeating the same thing about the clothes as she seems to totally ignore it! But he thinks I’m overreacting and he’s too little anyway to recognise he is wearing skirt over tights with flower pattern (I wish I was joking) but this gets me to the point that I feel like I would rather have my mum him when it’s needed all of the time because this is just humiliating both for my boy and me. AIBU to have an argument over that?

Well you could pay for childcare.

You said she occasionally looks after him but also that you were away for a few days. That's not occassional childcare, looking after a 2 year old day and night for a few days, us actually a lot of childcare.

Getting a bit cold also wouldn't cause a fever of over 39 degrees. That level of fever indicates a really quite poorly child which would surely be very noticeable.

It is strange she won't use his clothes. Is there something she dislikes about the clothes you send?

Anyway, as I said, you could pay for childcare. The problem is when some one is doing a pretty big favour for free you can't really insist on them following every instruction from you and getting cross when they don't act like an employee. If you're paying you obviously have more rights to say exactly what you want or don't want. If you're needing overnight care it sounds like you'll need a nanny so it won't come cheap.

@ScrollingLeaves

Thanks, Scrolls. I'm glad that someone as experienced as you backs me up, and yet... I'm unreasonaby irritated that my sister is right!!! Again. She's right too often. It's becoming a problem. 😉 😄

Tell her straight. Your child is a boy and he will wear boys clothes he does not need her to confuse him in this day and age. Point out that your child will not stay in her care until she can respect this. Its one thing if your son decides he wants to wear a skirt and tells you so, it's another her forcing it on him.

YANBU OP. I doubt any damage has been done at his age, but I would be very careful as he gets bigger because it sounds very much like his grandmother doesn't like boys much. It would be hurtful for any child to feel like they are not good enough as the sex they are and that an important adult in their life wanted them to be the opposite sex.

My 5 year old son wears a fair amount of pink and purple stuff handed down from his sister but things like joggers, leggings and tops. He likes the colours and chooses these items from his drawers himself. I don't even try to pass on the dresses. At a certain point, you're right, it starts looking like you wanted a girl.

Subverting gender stereotypes is great but I think it should be something people do with their own styles, not by treating their children like they are doing a social experiment. There are loads of very neutral clothes for parents who don't like gendering children.

Yes paying for childcare is not a problem, and I would much rather prefer that, it is that my MIL sees it as offensive from our side as if “why would you pay a stranger to look after him when I’m available” kind of thing
and we do pay her, she refuses the money so we do pay her by getting her a weekend away and covering the costs of that

finally this evening had a proper conversation with my partner and insisted that we start looking into alternatives, which he finally did agree to, so hopefully this will be the end of this drama, just hoping I won’t get a call about how she’s on edge again at 3am 🙈

also, since she always given my son birthday cards with Disney princesses (because she likes it, as she said) I’ve just ordered a bunch of Spider-Man birthday stuff for her approaching birthday this month, because I happened to like Spider-Man , I guess no jewellery from me this year 😂 sorry, I absolutely had to 😂

@Lindy2 read OP’s posts . They are happy to pay for childcare it’s the MIL who gets upset when they don’t allow her to have the child overnight

@Lindy2 The only thing she dislikes about our clothes is that they are little boy clothes it seems, half of it is actually neutral (beige/brown/white etc) but half of it is very obvious boy clothes

and yes while I do understand that being outside with a raincoat probably wasn’t the reason he got the fever but he was not looking well when we got there late afternoon, so dressing him not warm enough just did not help, in my opinion

I totally agree with this

This would annoy the shit out of me. Unless she has dementia then there's no reason she can't dress him in the clothes that you send over with him.

I'm surprised at some of the responses. I wonder if everyone would be okay if they sent their kid to school with extra clothes and the teachers put on someone else's clothes on their kid every single time they needed changing.

Yes that’s exactly what I think, that she can’t come to terms of him being a boy, which does bother me quite a bit. She expressed her absolute disappointment when we found out we are expecting a boy and it did cause me quite some distress feeling like my child is was not even born yet but already was not good enough.

And yes in your situation when your boy is 5 and making that choice for himself is totally normal and I would not stop my son if he chose to wear whatever he would have liked from girls section as it actually is a lot more vibrant than regular boys section

Ignore the fake wokeness on this thread OP

Every single poster on here would absolutely put the mental health of their developing child ahead of the mental health of their batshit and manipulative MIL.

your responsiblilty is to your child. If he wants to wear Spider-Man stuff rather than Disney princess why on earth would anyone on here advocate upsetting him just because they think everyone should tow the “ put boys in dresses just to be current”line.

We all know the damage done to a child who feels odd , different or not fitting in, or bullied and in your case a child who will become aware that his grandmother doesn’t like him for who he is.

haha, I did mention to my partner that maybe there’s something going on with her mentally as she just keeps getting weirder and weirder, day by day, like, for example, today she called me up at work randomly and suggested we leave our son to sleep in his stroller in the garden OVERNIGHT as it will help with his immune system, as he keeps catching a cold every few months 😨 left me speechless.
Just to mention, we live in town centre with our garden being a tiny little outside area, would not even call it a garden tbh

though I am glad she suggested something like this as finally my partner starts to see that she cannot be trusted with our son unsupervised

Thank you!
Yes this is one of my biggest fears is that he will be growing up thinking he is less in her eyes because of his gender :/
I did want him to have a good relationship with both of his grandparents but with a lot more craziness coming from her side I do not know if it will be more of a good thing for him or bad

Ignore the fake wokeness on this thread OP

Yeah- this isn't Facebook folks ---- we don't know who you are so no need to waste space on here with your superwokeness , see it in other threads too, everyone so right on, sounds like teenagers ....... Maybe it is teenagers? .... no they'll have better things todo with their time ....

Anyway, as I said, you could pay for childcare. The problem is when some one is doing a pretty big favour for free you can't really insist on them following every instruction from you and getting cross when they don't act like an employee. If you're paying you obviously have more rights to say exactly what you want or don't want. If you're needing overnight care it sounds like you'll need a nanny so it won't come cheap.

Mumsnet is the only place that seems to excuse unacceptable/bizarre behaviour in the name of 'free childcare' (which more often than not has come at the request of the person providing the childcare).

At first I thought, meh, they're only clothes but when I read your other posts I agree it's strange behaviour to actively avoid his actual clothes, and while I don't think it will be damaging to your son now, as he gets older it could be if it gives him the sense that granny doesn't accept him.

On the other hand she is doing a lot for you (more in one month than either of my children's GPs have done in 10 years).

I think you would be wrong to start an argument, so YABU there.

Seek first to understand, then be understood. Try to talk to her calmly and listen, understand her actions. Ask non accusatory questions. Try to see it from her point of view.

Once you have done that then you can hopefully calmly help her understand your view.

A lot of people are missing the point that the main concern is not from the child's angle, but rather from the Grans.

While a small child may not be very aware of the style of clothes they wear, it is certainly true that "normal people" do not seek to cross-dress children and especially not when told not to by the child's parents.

That is deeply deranged behaviour in my opinion. Fair enough, if it was just something like a girls raincoat (when it was raining), but a skirt and tights sends all kinds of alarm bells ringing. That isn't the sort of person I would have my kids around.

Also, while a small child may not be concerned with clothes themselves, they will certainly pick up vibes of angst (from parents etc) or mockery (from older kids) and so may feel unsettled or disturbed due to that (made worse by their own lack of understanding)

Sad that so many overlook these salient points, due to wanting to seem "right on". Not everything is about LGBT issues, although you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise at times.

This should be regarded in the same way as if someone deliberately put diesel in your petrol car or fed your dog cat-food. I.e its downright weird and concerning.

I wouldn’t like this at all. The problem you have is if it’s free childcare, and you’re relying on them for childcare, then you can’t really dictate a lot.

All these mumsnetters claiming their sons wear sequins and girly stuff, I have never seen a child wearing girly clothes if they’re a boy.

With regards to shoes, this would annoy me more than anything as shoes shouldn’t be worn by others, they haven’t been checked if they fit him properly and will be very damaging for his growing feet.

if someone is doing something with your child that you don’t like, then you stop using them for childcare.

You are not being unreasonable at all. Skirts and flowery tights?! Clothes that don’t fit? Either she is losing awareness or she’s being meddlesome. I’d make it clear it has to stop, firmly but kindly.