AIBU to not want ds1 to go to his grandparents'house without me?

[Onestonetogo]

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Um, not sure, really. Have the grandparents ever spent time alone with your ds1 before? How old is he? Any road up, you are probably right that it is better to be safe than sorry. It's hardly a big problem for them if you are there, is it?

Your dh might be outraged, but the accusation was made and you are reacting completely normally imo

YANBU you shouldn't leave your child any where you don't feel comfortable.

I won't leave my DS with my parents cos my mum is schizophrenic and altho she is ok now, she can go AWOL very quickly and with a little bit of extra pressure (eg. taking care of GS) she could make herself ill.

Is that harsh? overprotective? PFB- symndome? Yes- but i don't want my DS exposed to some of the traumatic stuff i saw/ heard when i was growing up.

He's your son and you shoudn't feel obliged to leave him anywhere you don't want to.

Could you just say 'meet you at ....pm, then we can go for a coffee/ come to ours/ go to yours...'?

I wouldn't be comfortable with the situation either.

I would also be concerned that my DH was supporting his father over the abuse claim, when it is one person's word against another.

this is ve tricky.

I completely understand where you're coming from on this, and I have no doubt that if it was my child I would feel exactly the same.

However, your FIL was not found guilty of a crime, despite police investigations etc. If he hasn't done anything wrong, then by disallowing your ds from his house, you are tarnishing him with a reputation for something of which he was innocent. (mud sticks and all that).

What happened with the police case btw? They wouldn't have dropped the case purely because fil/mil said the mother had encouraged the daughter?

A truly awful, and family splitting situation. And unfortuantely reason is no match for fear. As wannabe says, mud sticks, and now the fear is there the only way to get over it is to let your child go. And I'm not sure I'd take that risk now the idea was in my head. I have 2 daughters and would be worried sick.

I can't say what the answer is, but I would explain the fear totally and hope that the family is wise enough to understand. I feel totally sorry for your father in lawwho has to suffer this even though he was shown to have done nothing

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Sweeping it under the carpet is obviously worrying. Is your husband obstinate enough to take the kids round behind your back? Very tricky.

Was PIL found not guilty, Onestone, or was the case dropped due to lack of evidence?

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"the police investigation came to an end when the policeman in charge of it died suddenly"

That sounds very odd.

Methinks there is more to it than MIL and DH are letting on.

Especially as FIL is not allowed other grandchildren.

I think you are quite right to go with your instincts on this, and it is sad that your DH doesn't understand that.

not allowed to see his other grandchildren

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There have been cases where 3-year-olds have been convinced by their mothers to believe things that never happened, yes certainly. This happened in the Cleveland case, I believe, and there have been other similar cases. And I think we may assume that similar things happened during the 17th century witch hunts.

The problem is that not all children are going to be wrong just because some demonstrably have been. And a lot of this family's behaviour seems dodgy to say the least.

I would put caution first in this case. And I am not somebody who usually advises caution on MN.

There may of course be perfectly innocent explanations of why a grandfather would touch his granddaughter 'there' (wiping her bottom for instance), but the way he reacted to the child's statement would make me very wary.

In RL someone I know; their young daughter accused the grandad of doing stuff, he has just been convicted and is awaiting sentencing.

He denied it all but the detail she gave was too advanced for what a young girl would know. He decided to deny it and it went to trial where in my mind he decided to pit his wits against a young child to see if he could get away with it.

To me, you can never be too careful. I think you are reasonable to ask that they return him back to your house.

In your case it seems very strange that they tried to blame the mother for the accusations. Almost like a distraction technique. You would have to be incredibly sick and twisted to get your child to accuse someone of that kind of behaviour.

OK, there's much more information here now. I'm with you, I'd stop the contact all together, unless I was there. If your husband can't see the stress it's causing you then he's being ridiculous. It's not unreasonable to ask that any contact with your father in law is supervised, b***ks to the rest of them

go with your gut on this,if you can't trust him then don't leave your son with him.

I have only skimmed this but my gut feeling is that the issue of contact with your ds can be quite easily sorted IF your ils are prepared to be a little flexible/understanding. As someone else said the case may not have gone ahead due to lack of evidence rather than definite innocence.

If your dh and/or his parents put pressure on you to leave you ds alone with them then they are being unreasonable. He is only 3, it is quite normal imo for a grandchild to have one or other parent with him when visiting grandparents.

In your position I would be feeling very anxious and upset. My own fil can be quite unpredictable (just bad tempered rather than ill) and I have recently told dh that I am not happy for the dds to go round there alone. Thankfully my dh backs me up so I don't need to worry too much.

I would also say that if the fil is innocent (let's presume he is for the moment) one would think he would prefer to be supervised/chaperoned so that never again can he be falsely accused. So you or another adult being there with your ds protects your fil from "false allegations"/misunderstandings.

I agree with lollipop: if it's such a ludicrous accusation, I would expect FIL to prefer to be chaperoned rather than risk such hurtful allegations ever again.

You have to put ds first - if you aren't comfortable, it's your decision to make.

I think as a society we are paranoid about paedophilia (pace previous threads where posters have said they'd never leave their dc unsupervised with ANY male, ever) - but in this instance I think you have every reason to be cautious.

yanbu

Onestonetogo - do go with your instincts as others have said but be reassured that circumstances seem to support that instinct.
As far as i know, it really is rare for children this age to make up allegations (although of course they can misunderstand and so misrepresent other's actions).
And IME if they've been told what to say, sooner or later they 'slip up'.
If ss have stopped all contact between fil and his gdd, I really think this is worth taking seriously. Perhaps you could even contact them to discuss your concerns and seek advice?? I know this would be controversial / upset family...
I think it has to be supervised contact or none at all. Have you got enough other options in terms of 'emergency' care for your ds if that scenario arose?
I'm afraid I don't know how you come to agreement with your dh though, very difficult.
Oh, and the whole 'false / recovered memory' thing refers to adults in therapy suddenly remembering childhood abuse - or having that memory implanted by therapist, depending on your viewpoint. Research shows this to be dodgy, BUT - if this girl made the allegations at the time, that is NOT the same thing at all. Her memories should be same now and then IYSWIM.
Sorry, it's late, not expressing it very clearly!

onestonetogo - sorry, not been able to read every dot and comma on the thread but has anyone suggested contacting childline or the NSPCC? I think it would be really helpful to talk this over with the experts. They may well have advice about the best way forward.