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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

my in laws are literally trying to kill my son.

306 replies

keresley · 29/08/2009 18:33

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?

OP posts:
Ripeberry · 29/08/2009 22:07

Why even go on holiday with In-laws? Too much hasstle, without the stress of them being thoughless, selfish twits.
Go on familly by yourselves...much nicer

Ripeberry · 29/08/2009 22:08

On holiday by yourselves....YOUR familly is more important, than their craving for nuts!

MatthewBellamysMuse · 29/08/2009 22:12

Selfish buggers.
Would it really kill them to give up nuts for a week? No, but it could kill your son if they continued.
They obviously think the nut allergy is some 'modern fad' and don't really believe it.

hotpotato11 · 29/08/2009 22:13

YABU.
If your DS can't be trusted to ask before he eats stuff , then it is YOUR responsibility to supervise him .The world isn't a nut free zone ,it isn't right to expect people to change their lifestyle when you could keep your DS safe by just watching him.

MatthewBellamysMuse · 29/08/2009 22:16

Hotpotato, no four-year-old can be trusted 100% of the time.

ButtercupWafflehead · 29/08/2009 22:19

What does your DH think about it all,OP? Has he approached his parents on this subject?

CitrusZest · 29/08/2009 22:22

They're either stupid, selfish, homocidal or suffering from Dementia.
Cut them out!

scottishmummy · 29/08/2009 22:23

OP not asking anonymous "people" she is asking family to acknowledge her concerns

not mrs miggins in sainsburys
her flesh and blood

malung · 29/08/2009 22:24

hotpotato11, you are surely being malicious. Do you not understand the OP's post.

hotpotato11 · 29/08/2009 22:26

MatthewBellamysNurse -Exactly. So why doesn't the OP just supervise her DS -that's her job .Instead of insisting everybody go nut-free.

MatthewBellamysMuse · 29/08/2009 22:27

Aren't these people supposed to love the OP's Ds or at least care about whether he lives or dies? Why would they willingly put him at risk? I can't think of anyone who would knowingly put my sons at risk if they had a severe allergy. And these people are family fgs.

Corporalcornsillk · 29/08/2009 22:27

Do you have experience of parenting a 4 year old hot potato?

MatthewBellamysMuse · 29/08/2009 22:28

Hotpotato, it's MatthewBellamy'sMuse, not nurse

noodlesoup · 29/08/2009 22:28

My ds is 5 and nut allergic. He always asks if he can have something before he eats it but he is not yet mature enough to distinguish between people who going to make sure something is safe, people who don't know but assume it is safe and fuckwits who have a point to prove. I supervise him at parties and in restaurants but when I am in my own home, or on holiday which should be an extention of that sometimes I fall asleep or go for a piss and I would expect other relatives to not leave nuts around for him to reach. Maybe keresley was washing down the table in the kitchen to remove nut traces when the sweets were brought into the living room. If I was going on holiday with someone I wouldn't go out of my way to make their life more difficult. Its exhausting watching a child 24 hours a day. I don't think anyone would leave a loaded gun on a coffee table and say to a mother, "I've left that gun there. He knows he's not to touch it doesn't he? You just supervise him constantly because I need to have the gun here, but while you watch him, can you go and clean up the nerve gas I left all over the kitchen."

MatthewBellamysMuse · 29/08/2009 22:30

Very well put, noodlesoup.

Dustinthewind · 29/08/2009 22:31

hotpotato11
Are you the MIL?

ingles2 · 29/08/2009 22:32

Sorry had to go and play articulate :-)
Actually Welshwoman, it was really easy. DS1's reaction was so severe, and so frightening he would never ever want to repeat it as I said earlier. He was dying
and he knew it.
I've talked to him about this thread. He's quite bemused by it. At nearly 10, we've lived with this for nearly 6 years now and he can't remember or imagine a day not checking foodstuffs and neither can I.

Heated · 29/08/2009 22:33

Bloody hell!

Methinks bye bye. No loss.

MatthewBellamysMuse · 29/08/2009 22:36

But is the op's son not entitled to expect that 'loving' relatives wouldn't deliberately put something harmful in his way? It's not a massive sacrifice, after all. It's doing without nuts for a week. Now, if one of the relatives had a condition that meant they would die if they didn't eat nuts every day, that would be a different matter.
I would have nothing more to do with these self-centred people.

MamaGoblin · 29/08/2009 22:49

Of course YANBU. What a horrible situation to be in. Can you get someone medical to talk to them, try and get it into their thick skulls somehow? Some people refuse to believe anything 'medical' unless it's explained by a White Coat.

There's a huge difference, hotpotato, between being vigilant in the wider world, and expecting that a home environment (or holiday home when staying with family) is as safe and therefore as relaxing as possible. Of course the OP's DS will have to live in the real world, but why the hell is it such a stretch to expect close family to make tiny sacrifices for a short period of time, to reduce the risk of their nephew dying?

gingerbunny · 29/08/2009 22:50

how sad for your ds to have grandparents who value his health/life so little.
having a child with an allergy is hard enough without so called family doing this, they really are from another planet.
no child no matter what age can truely be responsible for themselves when it comes to eating and allergies, it's amazing how many things have nut products in them.
he's 4 ffs, even 40 years olds get it wrong,
he may be old enough to understand what he can eat, but he's not old enough to take responsibility for it. that should be the job of the people around him.
i wouldn't be seeing them again, unless it was on my nut free terms.

EyeballsintheSky · 29/08/2009 22:54

I'm liking the words 'four year old' and 'cannot be trusted' in the same sentence . Poor little scrap if his own family won't pull together for a few days to keep him safe.

thumbwitch · 29/08/2009 22:59

as most people here have said, YANBU - they are a bunch of selfish bastard loons.

perhaps you could have countered their remark "we know nuts will kill him but we're not going to stop having them around him" with - "oh, so if he dies from one of YOUR nuts, that's ok with you then, is it? You can live with that, can you?"

What utter morons. I expect they think people with clinical depression just need to "pull themselves together" as well.

I definitely wouldn't go on holiday with this bunch ever again, nor would I allow them into my home without a strict no-nut policy. Allergies sometimes get worse with more exposure and I wouldn't want to take the risk that my child developed the ability to have an anaphylactic reaction to the airborne particles of nuts.

So sorry for you to have such an appalling set of ILs - hope your DH is suitably appalled with them too.

Welshwoman · 29/08/2009 23:15

ingles2 - yes I know that, but how did you reassure yourself that even unsupervised a '4' year old would not be tempted by sweets etc? - I'm not saying they do not need to be aware/reasonably responsible, my 4 year old knows she cannot have dairy but as our house is dairy free would assume anything that was in our house on holiday was safe. I just would be very loath to give that responsibility to a 4 year old that cannot read or to be honest make moral choices that a lot of adults would struggle with i.e. George Best knows that drink will kill him etc. Just easier for a small group of adults who are supposed to care to go nut free for a week - what?s the big deal?

IWishIWasAFrog · 29/08/2009 23:45

I remember your other posts about this issue.

YANBU.

Why don't you just stay away from them? They have made their sentiments very clear again and again and again... Not safe to have your son around them, they are endangering his life.

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