my in laws are literally trying to kill my son.

[keresley]

I have posted before about my in laws inability to understand my son's life threatening allergy to nuts. Since then, my husband sat down with them and spoke for a long while about the risks etc and we really thought that we had reached an understanding. We have just come back from a family holiday - inlaws plus 3 uncles and their partners- all my husbands side. On this holiday my inlaws intentionally brought nuts into the house (in the form of sweets). My partner and I immediately removed the sweets with nuts in and left the ones that were nut free. A partner of the uncle then brought nut cluster cereal into the house and made a huge fuss when we asked if she could store it in her car while we replaced her cereal with a nut free alternative. The upshot of these 2 events was the majority of the family turning on us saying that it was other peoples holiday and they should be able to do what they like. We had extensive conversations trying to explain how unsafe this was for our son etc etc. My in-laws kept saying " we know nuts will kill him but we will never stop having nuts around him". 2 of the uncles joined in saying we were the ones being unreasonable. This continued for 5 days- after which we had to leave the holiday house we were in as it was just too unsafe for our son to be there anymore. Now we have my husband's family blaming us for ruining the holiday and saying we were selfish for leaving. what do you think?

That's another way of looking at it I suppose WV.

But why would the uncle and his partner play these GPs at their game. That indicates to me they are a very inconsiderate lot, and I defintely would never let any children with nut allergies near them.

ffs. my dds know not to drink detergent. doesn't mean i'd let anyone or forgive anyone for purposely leaving a bottle of domestos in their reach.

OK, let's take away the "kill" aspect - let's pretend we're just dealing with a 4 year old who comes out in an itchy rash and swelling if he comes into contact with nuts, he doesn't have to actually eat them for this reaction (which he does, kersely confirmed in post of Sun 30-Aug-09 08:27:53).

You're on holiday, you'd like to be able to relax a bit too, but the people sharing accommodation with you insist of having nuts around and state they don't care if the 4 year old gets a rash.

Even in this downgraded scenario, of course the ILs are in the wrong. Nobody NEEDS nut-containing chocolates sitting on the table. And much as I love Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, I won't notice that much if I have Frosties instead. They're being unreasonable and I hope the OP has nothing more to do with them.

YANBU

In a similar but not so life threatening vein my mother refused to remove slug pellets from her greenhouse or lock it when DS2 was a toddler. I was made to feel V U.

And initially refused to remove a hornets nest from the end of their garden when DS1(then 5) was due to stay there for a week.

Could be a generational thing?

I love reading this site. Everyone is so polite. OZ version is called "venting board" and boy do they vent re MIL over really silly things. I even remove my fabric cutter and sewing machine when the grandchildren arrive. I even have special bath products when they stay overnight because of allergies and make sure our Jack Russell is locked outside because 20 month old is afraid of her. Rest assured you are certainly not being unreasonable.

DS is now back at nursery, we got a newsletter from the organiser. In it, she asked that for those staying all day, and lunching, on no account can nuts in any way shape or form be brought in to the nursery.

Struck me as odd, that we as parents will stick to that request, for a kid that we have no connection to, nor have never met... yet your in-laws et al can't follow repeated requests from their own family for the health and well being of their own grandson.

Oh and not that i know much at all about these nut allergies, but can't they increase in strength???? My Mum's allergy to asprin doubled in strength each time she was exposed... so perhaps OP may be using a little dramatic license, but am i right to think that it could go to that...