Letting your in-laws watch your kids is really a roll of the dice. Sure, if your in-laws are usually great, things might be just fine, but if they're not — things could end in disaster. One woman is steaming after she discovered her mother-in-law decided to take her almost 2-year-old daughter for a short drive while sitting in Grandma's lap.
It's not like she didn't ask her in-laws if they needed a car seat before letting them babysit.
But they specifically told her no because they didn't have plans to be going out anyway, the mom explained in a post on Mumsnet.
Of course, her MIL did end up taking a little trip to the grocery store.
But instead of leaving her toddler at home with grandpa or calling mom to see if they could get the car seat, her in-laws decided to drive the entire 13 miles round-trip with the little one on grandma's lap.
When her husband found out, he went "mental."
He told his mother that "it's not acceptable at all." His wife agreed it was not OK.
The drive caused a huge fight in the family.
Her MIL doesn't see what the big deal is "they said she was 100% safe." And then flipped things around on the mom and her husband — "they are upset that we think they would put her in danger."
In fact, they even tried to argue that her daughter was safer on her grandmother's knee than in a car seat.
"And said that's just what they do?!" she wrote. "They have numerous grandkids."
The mom doesn't want "a huge falling out" over the issue.
But she doesn't want them to just get away with it either.
"[Are We Being Unreasonable]? To be mad re this??" she asked. "They didn't tell us they'd gone out it was till a few days later we realized from pics they sent of having her."
Most people agreed -- her MIL can't be trusted.
One person advised: "You don't have to fall out with them. You just stop having them babysit." The commenter added: "You can still do visits as a family, but you will always be around so you can be in charge of safety decisions."
"They cannot be trusted," someone else added. "You are not being unreasonable."
"So they NEVER have her alone," a third person chimed in. "They are a danger to her basically, unless you are there to supervise."
A few people chalked it up to a generational difference.
"Perhaps a generation thing but they might not even get or accept any safety videos you show them," one commenter wrote. "The only option you have is to either install the car seat by yourself and preempt any visits (but then you're reliant that they'd use the seat properly/strap her in) or just not letting them have her alone."
"It's absolutely unacceptable. But from their generation viewpoint would have once been normal," someone else agreed. "Rather than arguing with them (it's already done and no one was luckily hurt) instead show them some evidence they can understand."
But a third person pointed out there was a real flaw with this theory: "Unless they are in their seventies or eighties it is not a generational thing." The commenter explained, "I had my first in 1977 and his carrycot was strapped in (lots didn't) and when he was old enough he had a car seat. Lots of ads in the 1970s and 1980s about children in accidents."
There is basically no excuse for not putting a young child in a car seat. No matter how *small* the distance and for no amount of time. The mom needs to make sure her in-laws understand this or they should be prepared for supervised visits only.
