Mother in Law did not use car seats for my children.

[ChouxPastryHeart]

Hi everyone,

This will be a bit long so thank you for reading in advance and giving input.

My DH and I have two DC; a 3 year old and an 18 month old. We live in Sweden as he is Swedish and has family here. This week, he was away for work which doesn’t usually happen, and since I also work full time, we asked my MIL if she could pick up our girls on one of the days so that they could be picked up at 3pm instead of 6pm, since that was my latest working day. She agreed and a few days before, I sent her a text to let her know where pick up would be etc. I let her know that the childminder lives 15 min walk from our house and that since MIL doesn’t have car seats, she would need to pick them up by walking.

Fast forward to the morning after she picked them up - I have it confirmed by my childminder that MIL did indeed pick them up with her car, but childminder was not aware that she didn’t have car seats. I was livid and just in shock. The journey would only have been 5 minutes, but that doesn’t matter. These girls are the most precious thing in our life and not even 30 secs is worth the risk in my opinion. Not to mention, it is illegal.

I called her that afternoon and calmly asked her to explain what happened. She told me that she had them propped up on some cushions and then used the seatbelt. I told her that I was extremely upset about this, that what she did was dangerous and put the girls’ lives at risk. She responded with: ‘no, it wasn’t dangerous. I fixed it and it was perfect.’ I reiterated to her that I did not agree and that I was disappointed. She replied with: ‘you are angry about this, but that’s not my problem, that’s your problem.’ And, ‘I can’t do things your way, I do things my way and if you don’t like it, that’s not my problem.’ For certain things, I could buy that reasoning, but not for this ffs. 🤯

I was in utter shock and disbelief at this point. When I asked her why she ignored the wish for her to walk to pick them up, she replied with ‘I couldn’t walk that far and I didn’t know the way.’ She absolutely could walk that far; she is 63 years old and goes for hikes when she is abroad! I told her that if she didn’t want to walk, she could have told me days before and I would have arranged something else. She had no answer for me.

I ended the call by saying to her that I find it worrying that she does not see anything wrong with what she did, that this has made me lose trust entirely, and that this was the last time she would be asked to ever supervise the girls alone. Her response was: ‘well that’s your problem.’

My husband is also flabbergasted by this and said he will have a talk with her. I need to mention that this has not been the only occasion throughout the 11 years we have been together where she has disrespected me and crossed boundaries, but this is just a whole other level and involves my children’s safety. DH has had harsh conversations with her before about various things, but I don’t think that will cut it this time. I feel like I am done with this woman.

Am I being unreasonable to expect my husband to implement a serious consequence, like telling her she is no longer welcome in our home, that we do not want to communicate with her at all until she comes to her senses and apologises for the way she has behaved and the utter disrespect?

PS. We never rely on her for childcare regularly, except for asking for a little bit of help for like two times a year and this was one of those times!

@OldPerson the gm using her car to pick up the dc wasn't agreed. It was agreed she'd use the buggy and this was provided for her.

I've never known anyone personally to die without a seat belt on, but I still do it. What a ridiculous response 🤦🏻‍♀️

Oh dear! She sounds just like my mother not very pleasant is she maybe it’s so you don’t ask her for childcare in the future. She just had to go out with a bang 😲

We had the same issue with other parents when I was growing up. My parents were really hot on things like car safety, which was far less of a thing in the 70s and early 80s. A friend of mine invited me to her birthday party which included a day trip somewhere. Friend’s parents were planning on putting us children loose in the boot of their estate car. My parents were horrified and banned me from attending. Friend’s parents were perplexed and couldn’t see what the problem was.

This

Sweden has some of the highest car safety standards in the world. She broke the law as well
as put your children at a significant risk. Part of the reason why child seats are shaped the way they are, is to protect their pelvic bones which are very vulnerable in the event of a crash. She put them in real danger, even if she only crashed at a very low speed.

I’m with you, I think let your DH manage relations with her and visit her with the children but I personally would avoid her as much as I could. That’s her problem now.

"No, this isn’t about seizing any chance. I am not suggesting that we go NC forever. I am suggesting that if she refuses to see sense and acknowledges that what she did is not right, then we should refuse to communicate with her until she personally apologises to us. If she does this, then there is no need for NC. "

No you shouldn't do this. You can't hold someone to ransom by going NC, insisting on an apology. That's the same as giving someone the silent treatment until they do what you want which is generally considered abusive. Plus I don't think this is really your call anyway, it's up to your DH. You can't insist he goes NC with his family, that's not ok at all.

Personally, I wouldn't have her looking after my children again unsupervised. But going NC is an overreaction. And the reasons you want to do it (ie until I get an apology) is not ok at all.

My mistake, I wrote the wrong country but the same still applies. It’s you’ll not you’rll. Sorry but if we’re going to be pedantic. 😬 I think we must be reading a different thread because more posters have said they’d do the same. Even the poll suggests she’s not being unreasonable. Hardly singling you out. You talk about others overreacting, you posted on a public forum, I quoted you and replied to your comment after quoting you back. This is how Mumsnet works, many people quote different posters comments for different reasons. If you don’t like to be challenged for your opinion then may I suggest not posting on public forums?

No, in Sweden what she did was against the law.

Agree.
Also walking 15 mins supervising two small children is actually really hard work . I always provided car seats when my Mum picked my children up.
We have a car seat in my car permanently for picking my Grandchild up and for emergencies.

I disagree. Very few posters have agreed about going NC . General consensus is ,not to allow unsupervised childcare but NC is an overreaction.

I would not ask her to babysit again.

If I felt enough anger toward her (about that and other things) I would drop my contact/interaction with her.

I wouldn't expect my dh or kids to do the same.

I wouldn't spend Mother's Day with her and would expect dh to spend majority of the day with me and kids . (Maybe pop over for an hour with a card)

@Noyok
Thank you.

Well, that’s your right and as I said the poll speaks for itself but I think anyone who still wants to have contact with someone who would happily put their children in danger is mad. I cannot believe people would put such little value into their children’s lives. If anyone in my life was so selfish and careless to put my children in such obvious danger I wouldn’t think twice about going NC and there isn’t a single person on this planet that could change my mind to the contrary.

WTAF! I've been in 2 car accidents only half a mile from my house. If she thinks it's fine then she needs to look up survivor's bias.

Even if there's no car accident, they can easily get loose and hurt themselves.

She knew what she was doing was illegal and against your wishes and put her grandkids in danger and didn't care less. To also show how little she cares when you challenged her would be enough to never be with the grandkids on her own again.

Up to you if you want to go LC or NC for a while. Do what you feel is right for your family.

Dont go no contact but i understand where you're coming from them few minutes could have killed her grandchildren the most precious cargo next to you're own children if their was and an accident its would definitely be her problem. If shed have got caught it would be more than a slap on the wrist plus she wouldn't have been allowed to drive them home. In future if she takes them out its a no go unless car seats if she moans and bitches just say id rather have live children then dead and their would definitely be no contact with you or husband.

I've got a theory that actually, these aren't contradictions at all.

The biggest two problems that safety experts have with car seats is getting people to use them at all, and getting people to use them properly.

For example - isofix.

Go back to the very first car seats and they weren't seatbelt fitted. They were bolted into the car onto the seatbelt fixing points. So you couldn't easily take them in and out and hence at this point car seats were only required to be used if they were available.

The seatbelt fitted ones were invented for convenience to make it more likely that people would use them, because they could take them in and out to make space for adults, put the children in another car etc. But this caused a problem because people had to install them themselves, and most people aren't very good at interpreting instruction manuals, or wouldn't read them at all, or would skip steps, or the manual would get lost etc.

When you look at misfitting in seatbelt fitted car seats it's about 70-90% depending on what you're looking at and counting exactly. So isofix was invented as a way to alleviate confusion, and it's very good at this - it's very difficult to fit an isofix seat wrong. IMO, they have now scuppered this massively by accepting top tether. But at least the early isofix surveys, before top tethers became common in Europe you see really, really good results - 70-100% fitted correctly again based on what you count. (The 100% figures are very early on and probably reflect small numbers and/or the fact that early adopters of isofix are probably the more safety-conscious parents).

And as another angle, rear facing is not misuse proof but it is much more tolerant to misuse. I read a quote once from a Swedish safety expert who said that Swedish parents are no better at installing car seats than anywhere else in the world. If you look at misuse statistics for Swedish car seats, it's the same as it is everywhere else. The difference is that for forward facing, loose fitting or incorrect routing of the seatbelt, which are the two most common errors, will make a big difference in the outcome for the child because everything has to be exactly right or they will move much further forward than intended and likely hit their head on the front seat. Whereas with rear facing, provided the seat doesn't completely flip out and eject the child, they will be contained within the shell fairly well no matter what. The very first 1960s rear facing seats only had a lap belt.

So it wouldn't surprise me if Swedish car seat recommendations are safety-focused in the sense that they want them to work no matter what people's attitude is towards them. It's a very clever way to do it.

Clearly you don’t like your Mil, or the fact now you are in Sweden she is part of your lives. Some of the past transgressions you mention are extremely petty and show you are not trying to improve and build on the relationship.
Mil is very wrong with this, but your glee is a bit distasteful and very saddening.
We bought car seats for parents and also ensured we delivered our own seats to anyone else who ever helped, we saw it as our job as the parents.
Your mil was definitely wrong but you set her up for failure.

My MIL did similar to my sil. She said she didn't need the car seat for my dn who was about 1, then after my sil left to take her dd for a hospital appointment my fil said he wanted to go to a shop. Instead of staying home with the baby my MIL put him in a much too big car seat "with a cushion" (as your MIL did) and sat next to him. Upon discovering the inappropriate car seat use my sil went ballistic at MIL and cut her off for several months

@Firethehorse You sound awfully judgemental and totally off the mark regarding the perceived ‘glee.’ Throughout the years, I have always been respectful to my MIL and always put her disregard for my feelings and needs aside for the sake of ‘family.’ The transgressions you see as ‘petty’ have not been petty to me, especially when I take into consideration the cumulative weight of them and their effect on my mental health over time.

I have experienced trauma in my past due to narcissistic family members who I am now estranged from. This means that when my MIL disregards my feelings and oversteps my boundaries, it triggers that trauma all over again. What makes it worse is the fact that she guilt trips, manipulates and gaslights her way out of taking any accountability for her behaviour. I did a lot of work in therapy to learn how to protect myself from this kind of toxicity and I am at a point in my life where I do not want to subject myself to emotional abuse ever again from anybody.

I would have loved to have a close relationship with my MIL given that I no longer have one with my own mother, but not at all costs. If I have to consistently bow down to her wishes and accept her overstepping boundaries, this will eventually impact my self worth. This also does not make a healthy relationship. If she had shown any willingness to rectify her behaviour in the past or shown any acknowledgment of how her behaviour makes me feel, then that would be something to work with, but this is non existent. This recent incident of putting our children’s lives at risk has been the last straw.

I am not a flawless human being, and I don’t expect perfection from others. I do, however, own up to my shit and apologise when I fall short. I don’t view expecting that fundamental decency in return as ‘petty.’