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.

The OP is the parent and she and her husband presumably agreed the boundary between them and the kids - its not our feelings on the validity that matter here, its how the OP was not supported even when her nephew back chatted.

I'd be fuming. How dare the nephew and FIL spoke to you like that.

I think you should have just let your son look at his cousin’s phone. I’m sure you wanted everyone to have a good time and enjoy the meal but by being so rigid about the phone you may have stopped a nice interaction with his cousin that he was probably enjoying.

Your teenage son doesn't have a phone? And you wouldn't even let him look at something on his cousin's phone at his own birthday meal? I think YWBVU and need to relax a bit!

And I perceive it that it was the nephews response that created the atmosphere and not the OP reminding her son about the rule. Had the gentle reminder just been heeded then none of this would have happened would it.

It sounds like an embarrassing and upsetting family celebration, the sort that happens quite a lot especially with sensitive teenagers present, and leaves at least one person cringing or even as in your case a bit traumatised. I don't think anyone's actions were completely 'right' or 'wrong', but several people pitched in and made the dispute even worse. I hope that time heals and you feel better soon. x

YABU - why doesn’t your teenage son have a phone? All his friends will - why is be being left out?

Yeah, still makes no sense. The no phone rule does not apply to your kids because they do not have phones. They can understand you and your husband don't use your phones at a table, you can understand gun rules/roundabouts or whatever but as above, if you don't own a gun/drive on roundabouts, the rules applying to those things are irrelevant to you.
Understanding a thing and it being relevant to you are two different, unconnected things.

You overreacted to the phone, looking at someone else's phone at the table on your birthday (when you are not usually allowed a phone) is not a big deal. A bit of latitude on the poor boy's birthday would be nice. The cousin is a bit of a brat for talking back, but we probably all were at that age. I would probably have laughed at him. Too late now, it's a shame to let something trivial spoil your son's big day and cause a (storm in a tea cup) family rift.

I'd be mortified if my teen child (or even an adult child) spoke to an older relative in the way your son's cousin did to you.

I'm guessing there's something going on within that family, where they regard your strict no-phones policy as being OTT and have said so in front of their son who felt emboldened to feel he could be disrespectful to you. His parents should have intervened when he start passing his phone around and told him that at an extended family celebration phones aren't permissible. Does your husband support the no-phones/ no phones at the table rule? I suspect not.

If it's any comfort, an increasing number of well-informed, caring parents are not allowing their children to have phones. Lots of wealthy, clever people in the tech industry are bring their children up offline: they've seen the awful damage done by social media. You are not alone in wanting to keep your children off-line. You do, though, sound inflexible and oversensitive and neither trait is useful or attractive. There are times, and this sounds like one of them, when you have to be able to bend to avoid breaking.

I've suggested better strategies for future encounters.

How I learnt to deal with family - thinking about how to manage people who won't just change because you want it.

And I told her in my experience everyone moves on by politely ignoring it all and pretending it never happened.

So I have given future advice - have better strategies to head of getting into similar situations and let everyone quietly move on in next few days.

If she want to "not be nice" - and continue to make a massive issue out of it she lets the extended family potential damage her relationship with her DH and her son. She could go NC with IL but then if her DH takes kids to see them anyway they have opportunity to further undermine the OP and paint her as the problem.

OP could also try reading Games people play and Toxic IL to work out strategies that work.

So much drama over nothing. It was supposed to be a fun birthday meal, lighten up!

If a nephew had spoken to me like that I would have been tempted to stick my fork through the screen of the 'phone.

I think that you handled it badly & the others handled it worse!

They were rude and that kid is an entitled little shit. One of those alpha gen. Rude and nasty. Seems like the whole family enables him and are rude too. Just don’t see them.

On mumsnet it is tantamount to child abuse to not allow a child a phone, but irl it is increasingly common for people to hold off until they are older teenagers.

No one comes out of this covered in glory. You shouldn't have raised the issue at your son's birthday celebration in the first place (pick your battles), cousin shouldn't have spoken to you like that and you as an adult should be able to deal with a bit of teen rudeness from cousin without escalating the situation. Cousin's parents should have told him to mind his tongue and FIL should have butted out.

Tbh, I'm going to go for your DS and teen cousin as being least in the wrong here. They just behaved like arsy teens, it was on the rest of you as the adults to manage the situation with a bit less drama.

Are you normally so dramatic? Survival mode, isolating yourself? You have standards I get it, but it really does sound like you're the issue here

And only on MN is there a complete bad on setting eyes on a phone when food is present. In the real world people can glance at a phone if they want to because they don't need to be controlled by others.

You should not have said anything at all. But their reaction was far worse and totally inappropriate.

Your nephew or cousin or whatever was extremely rude to talk back at you. Shows the poor parenting he's received.

Kudos to you for speaking out and enforcing your family's boundaries.

Because most people here allow their children to use internet-enabled phones much earlier than the teen years, you will probably mostly get unsupportive and critical comments. I don’t think you did anything wrong. I respect you for deciding what you think is the right pathway and not just going with the flow for an easy life.

I wouldn’t be moving forward without an apology. I would just quietly avoid interacting with them. I’m not advising you to do this, just saying this is what I would do.

Total overreaction. I’d have let it go, You’ve been part of this family long enough to anticipate how they were likely to react.

My son is ten. He doesn't have one and won't be having one, even when he goes to secondary school next year. Most of his year group at primary already have these devices.

He hasn't shown a great deal of interest before, but there are a few factors behind this decision. Dynamics change radically at this age. In the event of bullying, which I hope won't happen but DC already has SEN that make him feel 'different' - it can't be switched off the way my generation could when we got home. It must feel as though there is no respite for those children.

Secondly, neuro diverse children are particularly susceptible to social contagion: be that toxic masculinity, misogyny, gender issues, swapping inappropriate images, or whatever form that contagion may take. It's been flagged that there's a significant chance DC is autistic. This is not a risk I'm willing to take; at least until he is much older.

It's one thing feeling different from your peers because you have dyslexia and dyspraxia affecting your writing, balance and coordination. Being 'different' because you don't happen to have a smart phone is small fry by comparison, and perhaps could even protect him from some of the consequences of the former.

All this is aside from the point. If Mum says 'no', it means just that.