ALL THIS OVER A HAIRCUT (sorry long MIL rant)

[dieselten]

My MIL is normally quite lovely. She is something of a character and can be a bit odd but her heart is in the right place and DS loves her. DS stayed at her house on Friday night and came back to us on Saturday. WHen he got back it was obvious that he had had his hair cut - badly. It look chewed rather than trimmed. MIL has done this before TWICE and we have asked her TWICE not to do it. DH called her at home to tell her again that ideally we would like to make the decision as to when and how DS has a haircut OR failing that could she please call us and ask us before she goes ahead and gets it cut. DH had only managed to say "Mum, has DS had a hair cut? When she started screaming at him that she hadn't done anything and then she hung up on him (!) DH was taken aback and called back to say hang on, let's not go crazy but his Dad answered the phone and started shouting that DS hadn't had a haircut at their house and that we were calling them liars. Then he hung up as well. DH called back again because he was so shocked by their angry response that he wanted to diffuse the situation. MIL answered and she was sobbing telling us that we had ruined their afternoon that we had made FIL ill, that he was having a hypo (he has diabetes). Then DS pipes up that he had his hair cut at DH's aunty's house. MIL denied this, said she wanted nothing more to do with us and hung up again. We decided not to call back again but to leave it overnight and try to reason with them in the morning. However, the phone rang and it was DH's Aunty. She said that MIL had called her, that we were breaking MILs heart and that neither of them had cut DSs hair. She then said that he must be confused because whilst he was there she had been having her hair cut by the local mobile hairdresser! As soon as she said this I knew that all three of them were spinning us a line. I knew DSs hair was shorter, I'm his mum FGS and yet three people were telling me categorically that I was imagining it.

We need to resolve this today but as long as the PIL are denying that they cut DSs hair there is nowhere for this to go other than DH and I apologise to them which seems so unfair and would stick in my craw. Anybody got any ideas on how to handle this?

Hi dieselten,
How old is your ds? It all sounds very odd, and perhaps there is something else going on that's the real cause of the outbreak. I would be less worried about the haircut than the reaction tbh, because if you leave your child in someones care you need to be able to talk to them about everything and anything that happens when they are together. Little kids do get up to things/have accidents and sometimes things happen that you or your ILs may not be happy about, but if you can't trust them that is not a good place to be in. I would leave it for a while until things have calmed down all round, and then let dh try to reestablish contact.

Just wanted to check in to say thank you all for your posts. Without exception they have been very helpful. We took DS to the park and when we got back MIL had left a message on our voicemail saying that we had left DS coat behind and did we want to come and get it! We were blown away because the last thing she had said was that we shouldn't come over today. So, we thougtht this might be an 'in' in terms of putting the matter to rest so DH called her and was prepared to say "let's move on". The call was sane for about 2 minutes but then MIL demanded an apology from us. At that point DH went ballistic and as soon as he started shouting I took DS out into the garden to kick a ball around so he wouldn't have to hear it. Basically, DH said that he thought they owed us an apology and until we got one they wouldn't be seeing us. I understand why he said it but ultimately it's just taken the whole thing to another level and will, I think, make it even harder to resolve.
Anyway, we must resolve it somehow. Lets hope it will happen over the next few days.
Thanks again to all posters. Much appreciated and sensible advice/comment all round.

They really don't think anything happened do they? Something did though because your ds has had a haircut...again. Any other children invovlved perhaps?

I do think things can happen around older people that we would be straight on to, but they seem oblivious to. Reaction times seems to run a thousand times slower for older people. I've noticed it with grandparents here. They are not the 10 steps ahead of the game the way we have to be, and don't move at the speed of light that I have become accustomed to.

I 'sweep' rooms when we go in removing breakables and delicate things. Many older relatives we've visited have been quite surprised to see me in action doing this. They live in a genteel world of nick-naks and hot drinks and where when you put things down they 'won't be touched'. I don't.

One of three things has happened here: either PIL administered the haircut, or aunty's hairdresser did (in which case she'll soon be out of business) or ds did it himself.

In any of those cases the PILs are going to be defensive because they either approved of the cutting against your known wishes or they were negligent enough to let dh get hold of scissors. Either way they probably knew they were in the sht with you and attacked first. The very fact that they weren't surprised by the content of dh's opening words to them on the phone shows that they knew* about the haircut, despite their protestations. If I had been looking after someone's child and their first words to me were "Has he had a haircut?", I would be surprised and ask what on earth they were talking about, not launch into a tirade and slam the phone down.

If it were me, I'd get dh to speak to his parents and say that unless they are prepared to be honest about what happened and offer an apology for either going against your express wishes or allowing ds access to scissors for long enough to do this, then you won't be able to leave him alone with them for the foreseeable future.

Have you managed to get any more out of ds about what happened? How old is he?