MIL drove my kids with no car seats !

[Momloyalty]

I went for an interview today with the agreement that MIL was to pick the kids up from school (4&6yrs) which was nice of her to do. I don't have her number so I texted the other half that I was finished and that could he txt his mum to ask if she's home so I can pick the kids up. He replied saying she will drop them off. Great! Appreciate it. Only until she arrives I say thanks for picking and dropping them off ect..... I asked her if she wanted me to take the car seats out of her car (they're our car seats) she replied "oh no they didn't have car seats today, he (OH) forgot to drop them off before work. Turns out she asked him in the morning about the car seats and he just told her to put the seat belt on. Not one of them bother to mention it to me. The fact she didn't go drive to his work to collect car seats is beyond me. All this has caused upset and both of them can't understand why I'm making a big deal? They allowed risk of danger to our children and he thought it was okay and to of not told me? What would you do in the situation?

This is ALL on your DH. Your MIL asked and was told to use seatbelts. I’d go fkn batshit, but at him, not her. He’s happy to risk his kids because he’s lazy!

You don’t have your MiL’s phone number? She looks after your kids and you can’t contact her without going through someone else?

Fixed your title for you.

DH instructs his mum to drive my kids with no seat belts.

Go low or no contact with him. I assumed that was the answer yiu were hoping for when you blamed MIL.

don’t blame your MIL ! It’s your husbands fault . I cannot understand why you don’t have her number , that’s ridiculous.

Why are you blaming your MIL when your partner is literally an irresponsible dick? She shouldn’t even be in the title as this is completely on your partner

Your husband is out of order.
Your mother in law should have refused to have them in her car without car seats.
Both at fault.
Legal or otherwise... safety comes first.

Your partner made an awful parenting decision today and you need to read him the riot act.

If he can't step up and do a proper parenting job when you have an important event such as an interview, what use is he?

Completely his fault, it was his decision to tell his mum to drive your kids without car seats.

Tell him how disgusted you are with him, he could have prepped the seats over the weekend and had them ready to go Monday morning, but I'm sure something else was more important than his kids' safety, what was that? Rugby, chilling on the sofa? Golf. What did he do on Saturday and Sunday that was so important he would risk his kids health and well being for?

What a dick.

Defo be mad at your OH not your MIL. She probably isn't aware of the law and went by what he said would be fine.

It is worth dropping her a note (calmly/no blame or expressing your concern for her, to be diplomatic) explaining kids now need to use booster seats until age 12 and she could be stopped and fined. I think this can come across better than it being a safety issue - she presumably felt that the seatbelt is the important part of the safety measure, whereas a booster seat only improves positioning of the belt. (Statistically this is right, seatbelt use makes the biggest difference, though the law is very clear that a booster seat still makes enough of a difference that it's illegal not to use one.)

Remember she almost certainly did not use a booster seat with your OH when he was this age, and when she was a child there may not have been rear seatbelts in cars. Although I'm sure she isn't stupid and has noticed things move on, it's easier to understand an attitude of "well at least they had a seatbelt, that's the important thing" with that context. I know my mum was forever suggesting we do things like sit DS1 on a cushion or on somebody's lap, because that's what we did as kids and nobody ever explained why it might be a problem.

Get OH to think of a solution to prevent it happening again.