Am I unreasonable to want my daughter playing downstairs with grandad?

[Lalaland2020]

Am a weird for feeling uncomfortable with my 6 year old daughter being alone upstairs in the bedroom with her grandad (my father in law - my dad isn’t around). My in laws keep the kids toys upstairs in the bedrooms, so she often goes up alone with him there (grandma is usually downstairs in the kitchen or with my son). I have asked my husband to bring the toys downstairs so they can play around other family members, but he says there isn’t an issue with her going upstairs to play and she asks to go up. I came home today to her and grandad being upstairs in her room with the door closed whilst my husband, grandma and my son were downstairs playing in the front room. When I asked my daughter to come down she said that they were on her bed with the iPad. I’ve sad to my husband that I’m not comfortable with this, but he said I’m making it weird and making my daughter feel bad. Am I a freak for feeling like this?!

Just tell your husband and his parents that you do want this to happen because it normalises being taken off alone by an adult for your daughter. That way it is not about him being a risk but about appropriate social development of your children. Children normalise what trusted adults do.
Your child your boundaries but you don’t have to infer he is a sex offender.
Also, complete NSPCC pants work with your daughter - lots of resources on their website. All parents should do this.

I would put it to DH and the PIL that you don't want DD to get into a habit of using devices upstairs out of sight of her parents as you need to be able to monitor what she is seeing especially as she gets older, so you and she need to get into good habits now. Then I would stretch that into always playing downstairs. I can see why PIL want to keep children's things upstairs when they aren't used daily but they can be brought down

I would also always trust your gut. We pick up tiny cues of body language without being able to articulate what we have noticed
I would also talk to DD at time when its just the 2 of you about inappropriate touching and give her the opportunity to say if anyone has made her feel uncomfortable.

So far as I know, I have only ever met one. He was a loving carer to his disabled wife, a good neighbour, friendly and outgoing, not especially anything really, you wouldn't have picked him out from the local community.

This is the key to get across to your husband. Separating himself off from his other grandchild is weird and for me this massively pushes this behaviour into red flag territory. I wonder if your husband is so defensive because he knows his father is inappropriate and he can’t bear to admit it.

Not a freak. That would be weird to me as well, especially if your son is playing in the lounge.

Have you spoken to your daughter about this at all? Subtly obviously. Have you also taught her about bodily autonomy, consent, private parts and safe/unsafe touch?

So the OP should ignore her instincts and the fact that her FIL insists on taking a little girl away from everyone else and shuts himself in a room with her, with an iPad whilst ignoring everyone else just because you looked at some birds with a different man?

What on earth do you imagine the police will do about it? Seriously, what do you think they will do?

You're absolutely right that this is the nuclear option though - and the fallout could well be devastating for OP's daughter.

Because your H is enabling his father, you need to play smart. Your DD does not go anywhere alone with your FIL in the interim. Call the NSPCC helpline for advice. Tell them what you've told us including that your H refuses to intervene and refuses to support your efforts to safeguard your DD. This is important because you need them to document your concerns. Tell your H their advice and if he doesn't get on board, talk to your GP and talk to the MASH in social care/local authority. Do a Sarah's Law request anyway. Your FIL has ALL the red flags. He's either a paedophile hiding in plain sight, or a narcissist who is so arrogant he thinks rules that protect vulnerable children don't apply to him. Possibly both things. You are under-reacting. Please don't allow this ever again. You have to do whatever it takes here to safeguard your children.

You cannot just magic up supervised visits, or withhold contact. This is what I mean - these comments are bordering on ridiculous. "I'd do this and I'd do that" - sound great but completely unrealistic and unhelpful

We parent differently (although not convinced you are a parent).

my 6 year old would not be playing up stairs alone behind a closed door with a man I felt unsettled with. The end.

and if that led to the demise of my marriage then quite simply - if I felt that this was
continuing and I had concerns… I would call social services. But my daughter by then would be a little older and I’d have told her by that point that to simply say she’d like to play downstairs is her prerogative. Her father is hardly likely to manhandle her upstairs to his father and shut the door on her is he?

No, you just be strategic about it. Lay the foundations for court, get it in text messages. "Is dd upstairs alone with FIL again? Don't understand why he needs to close the door and separate her from us". Have dh's anger and defiance over it documented. Present him as a safeguarding danger. Refuse him contact, and by the time it gets through court, dd hasn't seen grandad in over a year, breaking the spell.

OP I agree that you should feel uncomfortable with this. Why would a grandfather need to be upstairs with the door closed and watching the iPad with a 6 year old?!!

Surely he would understand the optics of this. It seems so odd. Especially keeping secrets, I would hate that regardless if it was just in relation to sweets… nobody child should be asked to keep a secret.

Make sure you voice your concerns no matter how your husband dismisses you. Who cares if you make things uncomfortable, your DD is the only person that needs protecting.

It’s actually infuriating to hear how your husband is handling all of this. He should be listening to your concerns.

I'd always trust my gut on this op.
can you phrase it as now your DD is getting older you need to be teaching her about setting boundaries and safe/unsafe situations? She needs to be able to recognise social situations that could potentially put her at risk.
Can you speak to DD about making some rules, we have a house rule that all doors stay open when playing wether that is alone, with family or friends.
we also have a family rule that if anyone ever asks you to keep a secret you must tell mum or dad, we can keep surprises because surprises always come out but we aren't allowed to keep secrets.
it is concerning op, your not wrong to be feeling how you are about it. It's not so much the fact they are upstairs playing but the door being closed is a red flag.

With a normal grandfather.
I had one normal one and one who wasn’t ‘normal’.

If you had read the full thread you’d have seen that on this random thread alone, only a few pages in, people on this very thread were sexually abused by a grandfather at a young age.

Does your dh have any sisters and are they happy and relaxed around their parents?

It’s reassuring that @Werideatdawnmaybelater is very much on her/his own with their peculiar view. A relief actually.

Exactly

It's not a peculiar view to say that grandstanding on the internet is very different to actual real life.

Yeah but sadly lots are, why would you take the risk

Normal men don’t habitually take their little granddaughters upstairs and shut themselves in a bedroom to watch an iPad and jump about on a bed together. Dirty old bastard. He’s also champing on the bit to take her to toilets.

I would go see him and tell him you’re onto him. Then I’d tell his wife. Your husband is a fucking idiot. I’d be eaten up with remorse if this were my father.

How can nobody else in the family see how fucked up this is? I 100% think he will have all kinds of evil on his hard drive. Just reading about him makes my skin crawl. Get your daughter away from him. I also think your husband sounds like he’s either in some way complicit or is just a complete moron.

I am a survivor of CSA. Good men would have the foresight to realise why this would be a no-no. Not because they were at risk themselves but because of the reality of CSA. It is unusual for him to want to take his GD upstairs and shut the door. Trust your instinct. It’s a shame that your DH doesn’t understand this and the lens that this is being looked through. But at the same time I empathise with how upsetting this must be for him to hear. If he is threatening divorce over this I would imagine this reflects other issues. Personally, I can’t get over how unusual this set up is, his insistence to take her upstairs and close the door. It is unusual behaviour. I understand why you see this as a red flag. It is hard to be the one standing against the trend, but on this occasion, advocate for your DD. Make the rule clear and if the fil insists this in itself is strange. However, I also hear your concern about your DH then stating he would take them around without you. You are doing the right thing by reinforcing the message with your DD. I have had the pantysauras run through with my daughter and also made it clear that anyone who try’s to force this she should scream and fight (although sadly I appreciate in these situations your body may go into shut down). Would it be possible for you, DH and his parents to talk this through? With ground rules that everyone has a chance to talk and there’s no shouting? Also, I ask this gently - have you experienced CSA? Because I know that my own experience can heighten my own response to things like this. Of course this is not to say my responses are wrong, but it has caused past traumas to be surfaced which then makes it very difficult to handle things like this with clarity and calm. I feel I’ve garbled, trust your instinct, I get why you would feel it’s odd (it is), advocate for your DD.

I think that at least they can give advice about what she should do and it would be planting a flag. As I said also it might help her husband to see how in earnest she is about this. From other posts she has made on this thread, it seems like this might be only one of the issues in her marriage.

Nah that's fucking weird.
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