So let’s see if anyone understands what happened. I’m doing my second master’s degree and I have a three-year-old daughter. I had an exam, and my husband arranged his schedule to come home an hour earlier to take care of our daughter so that I could take the exam.
My mother-in-law takes care of our daughter a couple of hours some afternoons so I can go to work. She offered to look after my daughter during my exam. I told her that, in principle, my husband would take care of her. That afternoon, my mother-in-law offered again. I told her I would let her know if it was necessary. The day before my exam, she offered again, saying that way my husband wouldn’t have to come home earlier. They were having dinner at our house. My husband and I ignored her because we had already said no three times.
So, my husband came home at the agreed time, and I took my exam. My mother-in-law told my husband that she is angry and offended because we didn’t let her take care of our daughter during my exam. When my husband told me, I laughed. I mean, why did she get upset? I don’t understand. Now she barely talks to me. It doesn’t really worry me, but I find it incomprehensible.
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Three years… and now they apologize. I don’t know what’s going on., 3 weeks ago
mother-in-law who insists that her only granddaughter spends too much time with her mother, 5 months ago
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I wouldn’t even tried to understand. I would however try to find alternative childcare.
Time to find alternative childcare. She’s becoming entitled like a 3rd parent.
Is she just poopy-pants because she can’t control you or your DH? Or do you think she would have tried to sabotage your exam by having some sort of “emergency ” that prevented her from looking after your kid, causing you to miss your exam?
I wouldn’t even try to understand. I suspect she was looking for extra time with her grandchild. I think i would ask her why she begrudges LO’s daddy from some extra time with his daughter?
That’s awfully entitled behavior. MIL needs to support your decisions as parents and not keep asking the same thing over and over. It sounds like you should probably cut down on her babysitting time.
I sometimes wonder if this is an odd generational thing where these women don’t think fathers should be taking care of their children. You got to do your exam, your husband got to come home early and play with his daughter which is probably more enjoyable then work. Daddy daughter time is important and good dad’s enjoy spending time with their kids. If you can definitely find alternative childcare because it seems like mil is becoming entitled.
How dare a parent care for their child at MILs expense?? Yeah okay. Being this being illogical, shouldn’t she be mad at him for selfishly parenting his own child?
This sounds like a blessing in disguise. She can’t control the choices that you make between you and your husband! Enjoy the silence lol
Maybe she wants to be able to say that she ‘supported’ you through your studies, especially with this important exam. If it is near the ‘end’ of your formal education she may realize that if she is going to be able to say she played a supportive role in your achievements, she’d better do it now. Lol
Does she think her son is inept or something?!
My mind always goes to sabotage. I’m assuming your husband will not let your daughter interrupt your exam, but MIL would.
So his mother either doesn’t think he’s capable of caring for his own child or doesn’t think he, as a man, should have to. Either way, it’s wild and your husband needs to address it with his mother and let her know that he is quite capable and actually wants to spend time with his child.
I think you all should have confronted her to ask why her dad cannot watch his daughter when her mom is busy. She would need to explain to me (us) what the issue is so your husband can shut her down. At the dinner table.
Your MIL is telling you that HER feelings are more important than YOUR decisions, even those you and your husband made together.
She’s likely to bring it up. When she does, tell her that you and your husband made a decision, and you didn’t require her assistance.
Seems like she feels entitled to your daughter’s time and attention. Definitely need to watch out for that!
So you and your husband were adults and worked out a situation to ensure your daughter was taken care of so you could take an exam? You both were actively parenting your child?
I understand why you and DH, did what you did, nice job having each other’s backs and being parents. MIL was told numerous times that you had it under control. She didn’t like that. She felt she needed to insert herself where she didn’t belong.
You guys did great and I am assuming that MIL does this often. I think she wants to appear to be the savior and swoop in to save the day. You took that away from her because you and DH already had things under control.
Take the silent treatment as a vacation from drama, lol.
I don’t understand MILs like this.
Why not just ask if she can take the LO to the park or something? Instead of making it like a child care thing, maybe make it like a grandma day.
Oh dear, MIL realized that you are in charge.
I think a few things could be going on here. Maybe she’s feeling self-conscious because she’s less educated and she’s feeling insecure. That’s if she’s less educated. Or she’s a control freak who wants you to rely solely on her. Or maybe she’s crazy and planned on sabotaging your exam. Has she interfered with your studying? It’s hard to know for sure without more details.
Based on this post and the cafe post, it seems she diligently finds reasons to be angry & offended. Maybe she enjoys those negative emotions.
Laughing at her silliness seems the best way to manage going forward. Hope DH does likewise. Also, I hope he finds ways to speed up the renovation process.
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If people are looking for an excuse to be offended, they will find one. Sometimes people are just the type that offense in order to be dramatic or justify their anger. I’m glad you’re not taking this too seriously because she’ll just find something else to be upset about that’s ridiculous Soon
Your exams are too important to risk relying on MIL. She may have been trying to sabotage you because (insert any bizarre reason).
“MIL, you don’t need to concern yourself around who is looking after our daughter if we already have arrangements in place. If we had needed your help at that time, we would have asked. Husband wanted to come home early and spend that time with her. Please explain why you are so upset that we made plans for our own daughter that didn’t include you?”
“I was under the impression the offer was meant as help. Fortunately, we had it covered. I didn’t realize it was about MIL’s wants.”
“We’ve got it covered,” is something I said to my MIL a lot when she would repeatedly offer to help that we didn’t want or need. She didn’t need to know details, only that we are adults who take care of ourselves.
That’s my mom here. I’m near my term for my third, so we didn’t leave on a vacation this year.
She lives near the see in a touristy area, in a small one-bedroom apartment 10 hours from where we live, or a 2 hours travel by car plus a 4 or 5 hour travel by train (so definitely NOT easy to get there).
My sister send her my niece and nephew for 7 to 10 days in the summer, they take the train and my mom get them at the train station. She then complains how there is not enough space, how they get up too early, how they are picky eaters and whatnot. For some reason she thinks my kids would be easier when one is almost vegan and the other only wants to eat chicken…
She insisted times and times again we send her our kids (4 and 7) so she “could help us”.
I had to be extra clear at the end: it’s NOT helping. It’s more bothersome and stressful for us to organise, knowing in addition to all stated prior that our kids get homesick even when they do a simple sleepover at a friend a street over…
She is still moaning about how she could’ve “helped”.
What’s with those parents dreaming of presenting themselves as helping when they are not?!
“No, and don’t ask again. I won’t ever let you take care of my child.” It’s better to have the war out in the open.
Sorry, I have spent far too much time around my nasty evil monster of a MIL to believe yours is really upset about wanting to babysit for you. It’s not the babysitting. She is mad at you for leveling up in life and pursuing your education. Making up reasons to be upset with you hoping that you’ll do poorly on the exam and take the air out of your achievements. 2nd masters degree, that’s amazing.
With her refusal to take ‘no’ for an answer, I’m REALLY glad your DH had someone to teach him better than that…
She just wants to be in control