To stop looking after my SIL"s kids at family gatherings?

[Beachcomber]

SIL and BIL have 2 boys, 4yo and 6yo. When they are with family they seem to think that it is some sort of break for them and that naturally their kids will be looked after by.... someone. They don't seem to care who. It's been like this since they were born.

This often falls to my MIL Often DH, me and my young adult kids will do it in order to give MIL a break or let her get on with cooking a meal for 15 people.

I hate it. Not because I mind looking after the kids but because I feel like I'm enabling something that is wrong. The parents always make sure they are sitting at the other end of the table to their kids and then ignore them. My 18 yo DD had to pull a large piece of parma ham out of the 4yp"s mouth at one point as he was starting to choke on it.
I had to intercept both kids being handed a large bowl of soup that had literally just been taken off the boil.
And we spend the entire meal cutting up their food (otherwise they stuff huge bits in their mouths), reminding them to chew, stopping them from eating ridiculous amounts, etc, etc.

We also played a lot with them and took them out for walks, took the little one to the toilet, etc.

The older child is also quite violent towards his little brother. At one point I had to intervene as he had his brother in a headlock and was choking him. It was really bad. The little one was choking and coughing and obviously frightened. I pointed out to their mum what had happened and she ineffectively made noises about Santa taking presents back. Older child laughed in her face and retorted that Santa doesn't exist. Nothing was done to explain to the child how dangerous / unacceptable it is to choke someone.

We will be having another big family meal this week and I've had enough of participating in allowing SIL and BIL to neglect their turbulent and obviously troubled kids.

I don't want to do it anymore. Or certainly not without saying something. Obviously I wouldn't leave a child to choke to make a point. But I think at the very least we should say something. MIL will try to stop me though (she massively enables all this).

I know I will create tension and my PILs will have a go at me but at the next family meal I want to decline for my and my kids to be placed at the table near my nephews and point out that we looked after them all over Christmas so perhaps their parents should parent them.

I know it probably won't make any difference and DH doesn't want me to do it for that reason. AIBU for doing it anyway?

Yes. You are right.

Although I didn't mean to imply that the older child is bullying his older brother because he spent time with his grandparents.

What I mean is that he was sent away for 2 months as a 2yo and when he got back home he had a baby brother.

We can see that he has felt angry about that ever since and he resents his younger brother.

And yes, I totally agree that he is also bullying his brother because the parents aren't stopping him / parenting him / looking after his needs properly.

And yes, we all need to stop enabling this. I guess all I can do is stop doing it myself. I don't think the rest of the family will.

The only person who would step in and have a serious word with his sister and BIL is my DH.
He has already said many times to PIL to stop the enabling. It just causes arguments and tension though.

PIL are in denial about how bad things are.

I'm hoping that after Christmas / New Year we can have a go at at least voicing our concerns over the bullying of the 4yo.

How often do you see them? They sound like a bit of a handful, but most young kids are.

If you don't see them often, then I would suck up taking a hands on role a few times a year making sure that 2 young kids in my family get to eat and don't get hurt. If you really hate doing it, then I would decline big family event invitations and instead see MIL separately.

If you see them a lot then I would either find myself busy in the kitchen, guide them back to their parents each time they want help, or again stagger my visits to when they aren't around.

From the OP it's hard to tell whether they are badly behaved and/or poorly parented or whether they are regular little kids with parents who do want a bit of a break to eat a meal in place and feel secure that their children are with family who care about them.

(Sorry, I quoted the wrong text.a minute ago. Here's the correct quoted text with the correct corresponding post!)

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It's nice you are such a good aunt. They are fortunate to have you.

I was and remain, just shocked at the number of near death incidents!!! It sounds like if you weren't there a child may have died or seriously injured themself.

But if it is all really genuine and you r not being a bit too OTT, then crikey, I worry what happens when you are not there and would be surprised if the children are not frequently in

That's exactly what happens.

Sort of this. Although not if there was a real problem.

This!

You sounds as if you are being very controlling over quite a few things that really don't matter.

@Beachcomber your posts all added together paint a picture of very poor parenting, possibly two adults who are aren't coping with parenthood at all in fact. The family recognises this at some level - hence all the childcare offered etc which is far beyond normal.

The children are suffering and will be impacted as adults for sure. The neglect is impacting both. The 6yo sounds angry & will likely get more violent. The 4yo sounds introverted & scared and will likely get more anxious as the bullying goes unchecked.

How much impact you can have depends on how much time you have to put into it. You could be a haven for them, particularly the younger one, and support him. Or you could report them to school / social services to try get them more help - but this will have limited impact if the parents don't engage.

Please do report anonymously, this is so sad to read. He must have spent being a tiny little one year old, two year old, three year old, now four year old on high alert and in fear most of the time, that’s so horrific to think of.

I'm not exaggerating.

And I think all these things are things that easily happen if no-one is watching young kids.

We are not in the UK and "kids food" isn't a thing here. The children will be given exactly the same as the adults. Which I think is good actually. Big slices of parma ham are often part of family meals. Most parents cut it up for their kids and watch them like hawks whilst they are eating it because it's a known choking hazard.

There weren't any near death incidents.

A child started to choke on ham and it was pulled out of his mouth (quite easily because it was so big a piece).

One child tried to choke another and was stopped by an adult.

One child was in a dangerous place at the top of stairs.

None of these are near death. But they are risky and unnecessary and easily prevented.

It really does sound like the poor children have terrible parents and they are actively avoiding dealing with things that are going terribly wrong with the older one.

I would refuse to go if you're going to be stuck looking after them if you do.

With some parents, the more you help them, the more it dis-enables them. The kids are confused about who is the parent as they are being raised by parents, grandparents, extended family. No one wins .

These kids have selfish parents. Don’t look after their kids, don’t intervene. Let these cfs be responsible for their kids. Tell your sil that she’ll need to parent her kids when they are at your place and any damage paid for.

There is definitely an element of this.

I’m torn. I was half brought up by an aunt/uncle who were very involved in my childhood as my parents weren’t. Now they have 7 grandkids and every time I go up (leaving in an hour) to spend time up there, I see that they’re very involved grandparents, enmeshed, actually. When I’m there, I’m involved, will stop little ones hurting themselves, will pick up, comfort, stop any silliness if I’m nearest. I remember one mum telling off her dad who didn’t stop her youngest hurting himself because ‘It takes a village’, which I thought was a bit much, she gets so much help and has chosen to have multiple dc, she should be looking after them, but her parents have enabled her. 🤷‍♀️

I have some family members that do this. Once, we were at a family 'do', and a stranger brought their toddler back in, after they found him wandering in the road. The parents were having a lovely time, socialising and assuming that the rest of us were watching the kids. They hadn't actually asked anyone to do that though.

Just stop doing it. Obviously if someone is about to run in front of a bus, you intervene, but everything else just leave. Don't cut up food for them, or even point it out, just eat yours. If it ends up on the floor or they have too much in their mouth, so be it. These parents don't have to act or even be aware of the dangers because someone is always jumping in. To be honest, sometimes it takes an incident or accident to make parents wake up to potential risks - even vigilant parents, let alone fools like them.

That's awful.

I totally get it.

SIL was always expecting other people to look after her kids, usually while she pretended to be ill and went for a sleep.
I didn'y mind helping out occasionally but with 2 of my own I don't need to spend family gatherings looking after hers.
One Christmas me and DH were playing on The Wii and she brought her baby in and plonked it on the sofa and asked us to watch him while she slept, our 2 had finally gone to bed so we were happy to be getting some non baby time. As soon as the baby woke up and kicked off DH picked him up and took him in to SIL and placed him on the bed next to her with "babys crying" and walked out.
MIL tried to have a go at me about it (presumably due to me having a vagina) but I ignored her.
I would always try and stop a child hurting itself in an emergency but I would be loudly pointing the fact out to its parents or if it wasn't am emergency I might say that the child was going to get hurt if XYZ

No doubt you are right. It's really hard to do.

It's a bit impossible really.

If you help the kids you are enabling the parents and if you don't help the kids it feels horrible. We love them. (The kids I mean. Can't bear the parents although I used to quite like my SIL.)

I agree - if it's suggested say 'oh no, remember Christmas when you were at the other end of the table and kidx started choking? They need to be with mummy and daddy. For safety. Off you go, sweetie, mummy would love you to sit with her!'

I think you need to make sure they are not sitting with you, if needed go and move labels. It doesn’t matter if they sit with your MIL but not with you - I think your DH should do this as it’s his family then every time when children are asking for something take them to their parents and leave. That’s it and engage into something. When they come and ask your adult children to play you should say : Look Jack/ Jane are busy talking with cousin Edmond so can’t play at the moment.
Don’t tell that you looked after them at Christmas and it’s not your turn now. If you don’t want to and don’t feel up to it it’s never your turn so don’t go into this territory.
By the way children will be absolutely fine without your help, I suspect that parents treat them the same at home, they don’t change tactic deliberately just for family gatherings so ignore , they will survive.

You should just do it as itf gives them a break. Bit mean a whole family of adults can't be bothered. The parents have them for the rest of the year.

The parents were quite unphased by it. The rest of us were beside ourselves when we realised. This is one of many similar incidents. I could go on, but it would be very outing.

You could try making a joke of it: 'Who's on child-care duty today, BIL?' (or call it Monster Duty if you dare!) And 'SIL! SIL! Is X allowed such a huge slice of bread before the main meal?'; 'SIL! BIL! Little Y is trying to eat a WHOLE slice of ham at once!! Do you want me to stop him before he chokes?' And 'SIL, BIL, Little X wants the toilet! Will one of you take him? No? Are you sure? He's worried...' Hopefully they will get tired of it before you do...

Good plan. Making yourself useful is something to which no one can reasonably object! I find strategies like these very useful for de-escalating BS, or as straightforward avoidance tactics when someone's crossed a line but it's not something I'd sacrifice a relationship for. It's terrible manners to make a scene under someone else's roof.

But I would be taking the children by the hand and leading them firmly to the seat at the table directly adjacent to their parents.

I had friends who did this. I love them and their daughter dearly, but their DD adored me (albeit she was quite troublesome and a nightmare at the dinner table), stuck to me like a leech, and I think they came to see my presence as a welcome break from parenting.

I disavailed them of that particular belief by gestures such as the above. It avoided a confrontation I really didn't want with people I cared about and a friendship I valued. It wasn't worth dying on that particular hill.