Mother In law left my kids with a stranger

[Caro2322]

My mother in law left my 5 and 4 years old kids with a lady (mum who had a baby and another boy) who just met at the park to go for 10 mins back to her house to pick some water for them.
when she arrived at home without them I panicked when she told me she left them with this lady she just met. she told me they were ok and they were having fun.
i was in shock I put my shoes on and ran to see them.
i understand the mum could have been a very charming lady, however she still is a completely stranger and my kids were left alone with her.

when I tried to tell her respectfully to avoid to do that ever again she just ignored me and carry on walking like it was nothing.

am I being out of line here? I felt absolutely angry and shocked.

Never leave your kids with her again and make sure she knows why. Make sure your partner is on side.

Thank goodness your dc’s are ok and this was a genuine and lovely woman. In answer to your question, yes, this is horrific. Who are the 6% saying yabu?

You ask a stranger to watch your bag while you go for a wee, not to watch your kids while you nip home.

I would bet the op's mother-in-law would never even consider leaving her purse or her mobile phone with a stranger in the park, yet leaving her grandchildren is no issue whatsoever. Fucking madness.

I was a child who, when we wanted to cross the road we were told to ask a stranger to 'see us across' (late 60's early 70's) but times have changed and I wouldn't dream of doing this.

A lady left 3 dcs with me at a park whilst she went to the loo
She was a childminder!
To be honest I'd spoken to her for maybe 5 min. When she said she was a childminder. The kids were 18 months, 3 and 5.
I was pushing dc on swing she said' I'm just popping to the toilet'
I didn't even realise she was leaving the kids with me . Assumed she was with someone else.
She returned and said thanks for watching them.

I said sorry I didn't realise I was supposed to she said , " I did tell you I was going to the toilet oh well no harm done they were oblivious "

No way was the woman she left them with genuinely ok about this.

I was thinking this, poor woman was probably baffled and didn’t know what to say when OPs MIL said she was leaving 2 random kids with her!

I was at a public castle park one day and a lady had an emergency in the toilets with her young child - l offered to watch him while she returned to the car for whatever it was she needed but l had my baby with me so hoped she would see l was a safe bet - she was gone less than 2 minutes.
What MIL did was unforgivable op!

Never leave her in charge of your children ever again. I couldn’t trust her to not do the same again.

That's a nasty ageist remark.

I feel sorry for the woman in question. Watching two small children on top of her own and a baby is a big ask, if you're not used to it. With your own, you can weigh the risk, but who's she supposed to go after if one of yours heads towards the road, the other is too close to the swings and her one is climbing too high on the climbing frame?

This does bring back memories of being a completely overwhelmed 16 year old left in charge of a bunch of 3-6 year olds at a neighbour's barbeque party (my mother had volunteered me and there were about 6 of the little buggers, all running around, whacking each other with sticks and trying to stick their hands on the barbeque). I managed to herd them into the side garden, shout them into submission and had them sitting in a circle, hands on their heads, when their parents came to collect them. I wasn't asked to babysit again 😂. Can't say I was that upset as I was given a tenner for the whole afternoon.

I'd have freaked out on her and told her she wouldn't ever be looking after my children again.

I would be furious and would be even more furious because she hasn’t taken your concerns seriously

She would never be alone with my children again tbh 🤷‍♀️

Well she wouldn't be looking after my kids again!

You think a grandma leaving her grandkids with a stranger is of sound mind?? (And everyone agreeing with her thats not BU are of sound mind?)

That would without a doubt have been the last time she ever was around my kids unsupervised. 100%.

She took a massive, massive risk with your children and the dismissive response to your reaction was not appropriate and would leave me with no faith that she wouldn't do the same or similar again.

I would never leave her in charge of them again. Her judgment is poor.

A grandma young and fit enough to be entrusted with a 4yo and a 5yo is not very likely to be 'senile', is she? She could be in her late 40s. Not that it's OK to throw out a pejorative word like 'senile' no matter what age a person is.

To state the obvious, of course the MIL was wrong. I have no idea why anybody would vote that she wasn't. Contrariness and hitting the wrong button, possibly.

Anyone with half a brain would know this is hugely unacceptable. She would never have the kids again. I don't know how you managed to even look at her after this.

She'd never look after my kids again. She was totally irresponsible.

[goes out on a limb]
Massive overreaction, if woman in question agreed to keep an eye on them.

Dereliction, if she didn't.

ETA: You're talking about 10 minutes max here, not all afternoon

I was the random lady in this situation once. But worse.

We live in a small town and were at the lovely park having a picnic and my kids got playing with someone's grandkids. Told us they're staying with grandma in our town. Grandma got up to leave and kids (aged 10 and 6) kicked off wanting to stay with my kids. Grandma asked if I'd mind and I said no, that's fine. I asked where they live and she said 'the kids know' and off she went. Only after she left did I suddenly realise I had a stranger's kids with me and had no phone number for parents or grandparents, not even the names of grandparents and no idea where they lived. I let the kids play for a while and then said 'Right we're all heading off'. Walked up into town and the random kids knew exactly where they were going and led us straight to their grandparents. Granny was washing up when we got there - smiled and nodded like it was the most normal thing in the world to have a stranger dropping off the kids. Almost certainly just part of a different generation where that kind of thing was fine, but I couldn't stop thinking that the parents would be absolutely appalled if they realised what had just happened and I was a bit horrified with myself for ending up in that situation too.

To be fair, I wouldn't have left the children with a stranger either, being rather risk-averse - but I grew up in an age when a mother could trust another mother, if they had a sense of her as being someone alert and reliable. Yes, you can usually tell. And it was only for a few minutes. (I know, I know, GM could have been run over by a bus in the meantime, but sensible and reliable stranger mother would have known what to do.)