Fallout with MIL over a tricycle

[Cam007]

My MIL mentioned that she wanted to buy my 11 month old baby a tricycle during a stroll in the park. I expressed safety concerns due to my own past experiences as child (I had a bad accident on a tricycle when I was a toddler). I let her know that me and my husband would need to look at tricycle reviews and their level of safety to choose the most appropriate one and that we won’t be able use it until 18 months. The day before his 1 st birthday my MIL tells us that she has bought his birthday present and it’s a tricycle. I replied that we had talked about this and my MIL shucked. The next day our son is presented with a wrapped box containing said tricycle. My husband and I decided not to open the box because we were unhappy that she had gone against our wishes. The next day my husband called his mum to tell her that we weren’t happy about the situation and that we felt that she had undermined our parenting. She got upset and hang up on my husband. Are we being unreasonable or should we accepted the gift and not made an issue out of it?

First post nailed it

When I was a kid tricycles were sharp metal things with zero balance (still struggling to see how you had a serious accident but hey...). Now they are stable, wide based things with safety straps and bumper bars etc.

I feel sorry for your MIL.

the reason for your feelings about tricycles are not actually relevant. Your mil ignored your request not to buy one. So YaNBU. And she has shown she doesn’t respect your boundaries regarding your child. She’s made a big mistake.

Yes but it’s a ridiculous boundary. People don’t get to be controlled that way, just because a parent made the request. Pick your battles - a grandparent buying a kid a tricycle is barely a boundary crossed - if the parents don’t like it (equally bizarre), they can just put it aside for another time, smile and be grateful!

Exactly. If it wasn't a smart trike it would have been a tricycle, or a bicycle, or balance bike, or horse that scoots along the floor.

OP doesn't have to use it straight away, or ever 🤷🏼‍♀️

The gift itself is a red herring. The OP asked for Mil not to buy it and made a boundary, mil thought she could do it anyway and op and her dh didn’t give the child the gift.

I’m guessing that the mil has form for this. @Cam007 you are getting loads of flak but I’m guessing from lots of overbearing mils and boy mums.

My mil was overbearing for years till the resentment built up and one day I snapped and decided no more. Should have done that from day one.

start as you mean to continue. My granny was much adored and a great amount of that was she worked with my parents instead of against them.

They were indeed metal when I was a kid (and much more popular than they are today) but they were always stable by virtue of having 3 wheels so it’s hard to see how an accident could have been other than a freak occurrence.

Why assume that everyone has the room to store such items or want to?

My in-laws bought DS1 one of those tricycles that an adult pushes for his birthday but it was January and we were in a smaller home with a small shed in the back garden. We couldn’t keep it in the house because we had nowhere to put it. It was a nice gift but we probably used it a handful of times since I was pregnant with DS2 the same year and the pavements around us were horrendous making it hard to steer. We brought it to our new home which and it went into the garage since we moved in late Autumn and DS2 was only 2 mo and I was still recovering. By time it was warm enough to use it, he wasn’t interested, legs were too long for it, and he went for a scooter instead.

MIL could have easily kept the gift in her home until a later date or offered to buy it for them later. There were reasonable options where MIL could have gotten what she wanted but instead she chose to completely ignore OP after being told by OP and then OP and her son their thoughts about it.

First reply nails it. Suspect you wouldn't be this awkward if it was your DM not your MIL.

I think it was sad you didn’t help MIL fulfil her wish of wanting to buy her grandchild a tricycle.

this is bats. Why is MIL the main character in all this?

YABU. It’s a nice gift. You’re being ridiculous to consider ‘safety’ of a kids bike. I bet you drive your kid in a car every day - that’s statistically very unsafe.

This! ⬆️

@Sonora25

Thank you yes he was five and there was no harness. I never saw the tricycle but I apparently it was age appropriate. It was metal so would have been solid/heavy.

I'm not aware that all toddle trikes have harnesses and obviously there will be a huge range of types and sturdiness from cheap flimsy ones that cost pounds to extremely expensive ones. We don't know what was bought. All we know is the op wanted to decide for herself when she felt it appropriate.

Opening a gift, saying lovely thank you and popping it somewhere until the child is ready for it is pretty basic

The tricycle to me is not the issue here, they told her not to get it and she went against their wishes. That is the problem not if OP is precious, That is upto her and hubby. Totally agree with you OP

So is respecting the parents and storing it at your home to gift it when the child is old enough.

That’s even more basic.

Main character? Is this how some people navigate interactions with other human beings?

Given your past history I don’t blame you and irrespective if anyone thinks you were BU it’s your child.

Bin it.

All the people here happy for parents to be completely undermined and ignored by their own parents and have their parental authority undermined are the ones in the wrong here in my opinion.

To be minimally polite I suppose you could ask her to take it back, but it sounds like that would be completely ignored or manoeuvred around, so into the bin it goes.

Trikes with 2 wheels at the back are actually quite unstable, you corner too fast and they can tip over.

That's the reason why mini micro scooters with 2 wheels at the front are more stable than older style scooters with two wheels at the back.

Same with Robin Relantant (like Rodney Trotters van) they can tip and that's why they stopped making them.

I'm assuming it's a smart trike type thing with pedals that has been purchased rather than a ride-on without pedals or a basic trike with pedals.
Smart trikes have parent handles which keep control. And can stear the thing as well as push it.

Your poor mother in law
your poor kid!

My DM had a horrific accident on a tricycle as a child in the early 50s (think hill, no brakes and a main road with buses at the bottom). She didn't have a bike of any sort after that (she was too scared), but we had trikes and bikes as children and my DC hurtled around on his little trike when he was a year old.

OP, you can't let a random accident spoil the freedom and excitement of learning a new skill for your toddler. That's ridiculous. Or are you going to wrap him in bubble wrap until he leaves home?

But @OldTinHat that's not an accident intrinsic to having a trike at all, it's about having a trike and being allowed to play on it unsupervised at the top of a hill.

@Cam007 your child is going to have accidents. That's what happens in childhood. It is through experiencing accidents that we gain the wisdom and skill to avoid accidents. You cannot stop your child from having accidents by blocking access to the specific equipment involved in the accidents you had as a child. They will just have different, unanticipated ones instead. It's better to think about how to mitigate the risks (eg "you can only play on your trike when I am right here and we are at the bottom of the hill") rather than teaching your child to fear to take any kind of risk.

So honestly, what do we think the MiL’s thought process was in all this? OP was clear about her thoughts/preference on the gift and it seems to me MIL thought “I know better”. What do you think? I told my MIL that I didn’t want my barely 1yo to have ice cream and cake, yet I know (from my older DD telling me) that she gave it to him behind my back. Are we saying that’s ok because it was a gift from a dear GP? It’s rude of MIL. It’s not hard to not do something