Firstly this is not a bad MIL thread. I love my MIL she is fab. She is kind, lovely and adores my whole family. She is also generous and has been under a lot of pressure lately due to her own mother being ill (mil is retired and cares for her mother when she is ill). We are a proper family unit and help one another and are generally very close.
My Mil has offered to look after my 6 month old and 2 year old one day a week while I am at work. The other 2 days they are going to a childminder. This is a kind offer and it is extremely helpful to us as we are on a lowish income and the children will also enjoy being with their nan. Mil has spoken about how she is really looking forward to caring for the kids and had offered to have them for more days but I did not want to take advantage as I think she needs and deserves time to herself to enjoy being retired.
Here comes the nitty gritty bit. Yesterday an incident happened which has made me wonder whether she is able to look after my children safely. This obviously is my priority and I need to feel 100% that they are happy and safe while I am away from them.
My mil was holding my 2 year old on reins. I had the single pushchair with my 6 month old in it. (My mil likes holding the reins and is usually confident and able to do this). However, we had just gone into school to collect my elder son. We were walking out of school. My eldest started moaning about having too much to carry so I stopped walking and put his book bag on the pushchair/sorted it out. My mil was distracted even though I was already sorting out my son. My mil let go of the reins (I didnt see her let go as I was sorting my son and wrongly assumed that she would not let go of the reins) and started fussing over eldest son. I saw my 2 year old running towards the main road. I screamed his name and started running with my pushchair to try and catch him. My mil started running and managed to catch him just as he was running off the kerb and into the road. He was ok thank god. He wouldnt have stood a chance if a car had been coming as the drivers would not have been able to stop in that time.
I know that accidents can happen but my concerns are firstly that she let go of the reins. Secondly she had not noticed that my son was running away. She only noticed when I screamed and started running. We were all incredibly shook up and I know that my mil was as upset as me but I am scared that if she is distracted then something may happen again.
My OH and I are going to speak about this to her (I was in shock after it happened and did not speak about it at the time as I was shocked iyswim). OH felt that I was overacting slightly. I would rather send my children to a childminder for an extra day than worry that this will happen again. On the other hand I also know that my mil is anxious about her mum and was distracted and in addition my eldest was distracting and nagging. I just dont know what to do. I guess it depends on the how this talk goes with mil really.
Sorry its long. Need other perspectives
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(MIL related, sorry) Should I trust my MIL? WWYD
15 replies
littlebearandthecoconut · 09/02/2013 08:34
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