Disagreement with in laws and moving forward

[shill4nuttn]

We went out to a restaurant to celebrate my young teen son's birthday. His cousin started sharing something on the phone just when the food came out. None of my kids own cell phones. We have a strict no phones at the table policy. I asked my son not to use the phone at the table. His older cousin said he was giving my son "permission" to use it and that I was being autocratic. I was so taken aback at this attack on me and so, I complained to his mom to rein him in. This kid has barely said two words to me all his life and he just orders me what I should do with my own son.
Now, my very vocal FIL joined in and basically told me to shut up and let everyone enjoy their meal, especially the birthday boy--who is my son. All the family present were relatives of my husband.
To clarify, I told the teen cousin he was free to do what he liked but my son was not allowed to use the phone at the table. Meanwhile. the rest of the meal was awkward and now, my husband and I have also fought over it because he didn't seem to think his father was overreacting and disrespectful to me. His FIL will not apologize. I am very hurt and angry.
Also, I am so shocked by the public nature of it being in a restaurant--it's making me think perhaps I am the bad guy here. I don't know how to move forward. Currently, I am in survival mode and have completely isolated from my immediate family.

Your in-laws are assholes and your husband is a weak man for allowing his family to speak to his wife like that. You’ve every right to set expectations for your own kid and his cousin is arrogant and presumptuous and doesn’t know his place. It’s beyond rude to use the phone at the dinner table, and just because they’re kids doesn’t mean they get a pass. Children should be taught to socialise properly rather than using their phone as a crutch in social situations.

I’m not sure what you should do about it, it seems like they’re very unreasonable people.

Given if was your son’s bday you could have handled it more sensitively. Given he’s a young teen the family probably think your rules are OTT

I'd have been celebrating the nephew's vocabulary and knowledge of leadership styles! What a great developing young adult. But that's just me 🙊 using autocratic in a sentence with the right context, yes!

You weren't prepared to change your child's rules to fit in with the parents and benefit the other child. I don't think you are wrong in this, but it was obvious that the other parents might make the same choice, so you did it knowing it might cause conflict. You obviously were happier to cause conflict than relax the rules for your child, which is fine, but don't then whinge about the conflict that happened.