This may take a little time to explain…I borrowed a child’s booster seat from my husband’s sister. Its the kind you can use with straps or with the lap belt instead of the 5 point restraint. She didn’t give me the straps so I was using it with the lap belt. My husband thought that our daughter was too small to use it that way and told me to get the straps form his sister. It was missing a piece a small metal bar. When I asked if she still had that piece she said it didn’t use a metal bar. We had a long discussion on how the seat worked with her adamant that it didn’t need a metal bar.
I left it at that. I was either going to get the metal bar form the manufacturer or buy a new seat. The straps and how they worked seemed to be a big problem between us. I could tell she thought I was stupid for thinking it needed the metal bar.
My husband on the other hand asked her one more time about the metal bar and she said that I told Laura a 100 times it doesn’t need it. He looks at me and says, “Linda says it doesn’t need a metal bar.” I answered, " Well, Linda is wrong." She was sitting there when I said it. I then went outside, after I left she announced that I was RUDE. She is now mad at me.
So tell me, was I rude to say she was wrong? If it makes a difference I went to babies-r-us and purchased the exact seat and it uses a metal bar. So she was in fact wrong.
I’m sorry, but your child’s safety is way more important than this stupid woman’s opinion of you. Way to go on buying a new seat rather than taking the idiot’s word for it. If you had used her seat and something terrible had happened to your child, would she have been able to live with herself? That is the issue, not how you worded your feelings about placing your child’s life in danger.
Born O.K. the first time…
If you are born again, do you have two belly-buttons?
I think it was Oscar Wilde (no doubt someone will correct me if I’m wrong about that) who said “A gentleman is never unintentionally rude”. I think the same is true for a lady. Sometimes you have to speak frankly. On this occasion, it sounds like you had to, and you did. All credit to you.
I agree with the others that your child’s safty is more important than someone’s feelings of you.
If she gets all mad that you said she was wrong about whether a child seat needs a metal bar or not, then she is a little weird IMHO. I mean I get told I am wrong about silly stuff all the time and I do not get bothered, because for the most part it does not matter.
I agree with the others that your child’s safty is more important than someone’s feelings of you.
If she gets all mad that you said she was wrong about whether a child seat needs a metal bar or not, then she is a little weird IMHO. I mean I get told I am wrong about silly stuff all the time and I do not get bothered, because for the most part it does not matter. (Of course they are the ones who are wrong ).
Something’s wrong with the space-time continuum, StrTrkkr! We’re caught in a causality loop! You must crawl through the Jefferies Tube to engineering and save us.
I think it was hubby that was rude to make you ask her AGAIN when you’d already asked her. Plus SHE was rude for saying “I told her 100 times.” I can just imagine her snotty voice.
In the overall scheme of things, Lemmon, I’d guess you were 95% right for sticking up for your child’s safety, and 4% right for not being a door mat. That leaves 1% unaccounted for…
If you did anything wrong, speaking of someone present in the 3rd person is usually considered impolite. I also wasn’t there & would suggest that perhaps Linda was responding more to a tone of voice than to your words.
Other wording might have been less likely to tick her off, but you know, we’re really into the small stuff you’re not supposed to sweat.
OTOH, this is your sister-in-law, with whom you’re likely to have many future dealings. An apology along the lines of being worried for your child’s safety, and mad at your hubby for not understanding you, and letting the exasperation creep into your voice & words would go a long way toward making future encounters more pleasant…
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Majormd, your right she is an in-law and I did apologize on the spot after I realized she was mad. I told her that it wasn’t about her and my tone was meant for my husband. She was still so mad that she was red from the neck up. She is rather strange anyway. I think I’ll just steer clear for a while.
I really hate “me too” posts. But, I’m going to do it anyway.
You were not rude. You were worried about your child’s safety. She was rude and owes you an apology. Did you tell her you got a new seat and that the metal thingy was there? If physical evidence that she was wrong doesn’t make her apologize, nothing will.
OK, we have enough youth. How about a fountain of smart. =^…^=
I really hate “me too” posts. But, I’m going to do it anyway.
You were not rude. You were worried about your child’s safety. She was rude and owes you an apology. Did you tell her you got a new seat and that the metal thingy was there? If physical evidence that she was wrong doesn’t make her apologize, nothing will. (Does she care that little for her own child’s safety that she didn’t realize it was needed in the first place?)
OK, we have enough youth. How about a fountain of smart. =^…^=
Minxsmom, I sent her seat back with the straps and a wooden dowel in place of the metal bar. I also wrote a note that basically said I was in no way intending to be rude to her. I told her that I was angry with her brother (my husband) not her. That she took what I said personally and it didn’t have anything to do with her.
That was the very next day and I haven’t heard anything from her. Not that I expect to. She is a very miserable person. She has problems with her husband, father-in-law, nieghbor, the neighbors kid, and just about everyone else in her life. I have always been very meek around her for just this reason. I guess she just couldn’t handle the truth.
In retrospect and after reading all of the preceeding posts, I must change my answer.
You are rude. How dare you question the obvious wisdom of you sister-in-law? Do you not realize that she knows quite a bit more than you. You should have kept quiet on the matter and placed your child in the seat.
If it needed a metal piece it would have come with a metal piece. Obviously, the seat you purchased later was the inferior look-alike. After all it needed a metal piece to make it safe, her’s did not.
Should you choose to question her statements in the future, let this be a lesson to you, DON’T.
In closing, Do not be so rude next time, your family relationships depend on it.
DITTO! And I’m not even sorry about that! Screw her and her attitude. Your child’s safety comes first. I don’t have children but I sure as shit don’t screw around where my dog (my hairy-bowlegged-child) is concerned. If someone doesn’t understand my attitude I tell them exactly where they can go. I’ll go so far as to draw them a fucking map just so they don’t get lost!
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