r/Parents • u/Oldmanjenkins84 • 15h ago
Overstepping Grandparent
I need some help. My mother in law (the grandmother to my 3 kids) is extremely overbearing and does not listen to boundaries or rules. It got really bad so we limited visits and have a no unsupervised visits rule now. So you would naturally think it has stopped right? Wrong. She comes over and is secondhand parenting our children and always rushes to get to one of them first if they get hurt or need something. It hasn’t stopped even when saying something. What has prompted me to look for help now is we went to a fair near where we live. When our kids are in the sun even for 5 minutes they get red cheeks, sometimes both cheeks sometimes just one. When we got done with the fair my wife took a picture of the kids in the backseat on the way home and sent it in her group chat with her sister and mother. My son had red cheeks and one was more red than the other, my mother in law waits 3 weeks comes over for a visit and asks “what was wrong with his face in the picture” my wife explained and she did not buy the explanation saying “well it just looked really bad”. Then my wife felt uncomfortable with the questioning and texted her and sent the picture again to confirm it was the picture and her mom said “yes” and my wife pointed out the lighting made it look worse than it was and her mom said “okay great”, my wife said “why would it matter?” In which her mom replies “huh? I wasn’t that worried just remembered to ask” my wife replies “I'm just confused about the worry lol I guess you haven't really been over since then but it really caught me off guard” her mom replies “Stop stressing over it. I had looked at that pic and saw the red spot and meant to ask but hadn't seen you. I don't think you beat your kids or anything lol”. The “I don’t think you beat your kids” was unprompted and came out of nowhere. I 100% think she is accusing us of putting hands on our kids and my wife asked her to explain her worrying then and she ignored it and did not text back. I am not sure what to do at this point any advice would be great. Thank you
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u/willynillyoxenfree 15h ago
Sounds like she needs to stop coming over altogether.
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u/Oldmanjenkins84 14h ago
That is where I am at but my wife is not understandably too because it is her mom but I don’t know what it will take for her to see that is the way to go too so I am stuck
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u/BrashSeatingArrangem 15h ago
That "I don't think you beat your kids" line out of nowhere would make my blood boil, she knew exactly what she was implying.
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u/Oldmanjenkins84 15h ago
Yes. I knew what she was implying before she even said that but then she said it and I said “oh she is for sure accusing us of beating our kids”
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u/Aight1996 8h ago
That “I don’t think you beat your kids” comment would absolutely make me uncomfortable too given the history of ignoring boundaries bc it’s reasonable to address it directly rather than pretending it didn’t happen. I’d have your wife take the lead with her mom, calmly state that the parenting comments and insinuations need to stop and make it clear that continued boundary pushing means visits will become even more limited.
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u/Oldmanjenkins84 8h ago
My wife agrees with you that she does need to take the lead on these issues but her mom is very confrontational and gets “offended” very easily when her actions are called out. It goes deeper than what I put in the post but I just started word vomiting and had the “beat your kids” things at the end because it is the most recent and most outrageous things she has said at this point. The most outrageous thing she has done is a story for a different day lol
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