Harborwolf, Harborkid, and I moved back in with Harborwolf’s mother a year and a half ago when our first venture into adulthood failed. Since then, we’ve lived with family in hopes to save up enough to buy a house. Well, tempers have flaired, and the battle for power has gotten rather ugly a few times.
Tonight, however, things are ugly. Harborwolf and I are sitting in our room watching Food Network, when we hear his mother say, “Harborkid, just shut up.” We looked at eachother, and Harborwolf called Harborkid into our bedroom for awhile. According to the kid, Mother-in-law’s dog threw up on the floor, and she was using an unconventional tool to clean it up. The kid asked why she was using a spatula (yes, a spatula!), and Mother-in-law screamed at her.
Right now, Harboralpha is composing himself before going out to talk to his mother. I’m just floored. We don’t talk to our daughter that way, and we don’t want anyone else to either-- especially another adult, and double especially her grandmother!
I’m so angry right now, but I don’t know how to handle it. Things get delicate when dealing with relatives, and even more delicate when you have to share a house.
MIL was probably just pissed and frustrated that her dog honked on the floor. Unless she always speaks to people like that, it was most likely just a bad reaction. It’s hard to not say things like that, even when you know you shouldn’t, when you are pissed. Not saying it’s right, but it is understandable.
But I would have asked “Why the crap are you using a spatula?” too, and I’m an adult…
I wouldn’t make anything of it, although it’s really disrespectful to your daughter, not to mention irritating. “Who are you to talk to my kid like that?!”, right?
Unless it happens again, don’t make too much of a fuss over it.
It’s happened to me in the past as well, when I lost it and told my nephew to shut up, and only after did it hit me that it was a rather shitty thing to say.
If it happens again, enter Alias.
Her house, her rules.
Don’t like it, move out.
It certainly should serve as further inducement to get out on your own as soon as you are able, no?
3 generations under one roof is always a challenge. Good luck.
Our neighbors have never, ever told their four year old daughter to shut up, or be quiet, or calm down.
You can hear that brat screaming, yelling, crying, and demanding attention pretty much every waking hour.
I want to tell her to shut the fuck up.
Sorry, but I’m siding with mom-in-law, and let’s be honest, it doesn’t sound like she was planning to duct tape your daughters mouth shut.
Most likely it was a spur of the moment snap.
Get over it.
If not, it really is time to do some apartment hunting.
Why didn’t your kid try to help her grandmother clean up after the dog? That is what a ‘good kid’ would do.
Exactly right.
Another one for her house, her rules. I know how annoying kids can be. “But why?” I think if you are taking advantage of their hospitality to save up for a house you wil have to deal with it or move into an apartment ASAP.
I say shut up to my kid 2 - 3 times a week. It’s because he talks too much and asks questions at inconvenient times and I need him to, well, shut up. Don’t read too much into it. Would you have been happier if MIL had said “Be quiet” or “Stop talking”? If yes, why? They mean the same thing and sometimes kids and others need to be told that their words aren’t welcome.
So…another vote for “get over it”.
Another vote for the mother-in-Law. Saying “shut up’” is no big deal, and certainly having to say to a kid to shut up isn’t an unusual circumstance.
What’s the next step in this every day more protective behavior regarding kids? Not allowing anybody besides their parents to even talk to them?
You might have decided that you won’t ever tell your kid to shut up, but if you expect the whole wold to follow your rules, you might be disapointed and I advise you to homeschool them and hide them in the basement, in case they could actually meet another adult who doesn’t share your views.
And it’s especialy true for this woman, who isn’t a stranger but the kid’s grandmother. And in her house, no less.
Sorry, another vote for “don’t like it, move out”. What exactly is a failed venture into adulthood? A year and a half of living in MIL’s house as adults w/kid is inexcusable - time to grow up, suck it up, and venture forth.
Because my daughter was eating her dinner. We tend to frown upon the cleaning of heavings during meal times unless unavoidable. As my mother was done with her dinner, she was in a better position to clean it up. Any other insinuations about my daughter being less than a good kid, and we shall have words since you know next to nothing about her or how she behaves. You dig?
This was most definitely an angry outburst. I’m not going to go into a whole lot of detail, but she does have temper issues. As such we have decided for the time being that Harborkid just ignore the outbursts or that she come tell us. If it becomes a frequent occurance, it will be discussed in a civil manner. “Her house, her rules” is fine but we do ask some simple courtesy. I do not think a smidge of temper control is too much to ask.
As for taking advantage of hospitality, we may live rent free but we do easily 98% of the grunt work to keep the house from becoming a dump. We do the cleaning. We do the easily done repairs. We do the cooking. We take care of the animals for the most part, hers and ours. This relationship is mutually beneficial.
Your venture into adulthood didn’t fail. You’re the parents of a child. You may not like it, and you may not be acting like it, but you’re a grown-up now. Your child is the one you may have failed.
Another vote for ‘her house, her rules’. You’re not sharing a house. You moved in with his parents…you’ve extended your dependent status. You are NOT in charge. This doesn’t mean that I think it’s okay when anyone, relative or not, says shut up to your kid. But, really, in the grand scheme of things, you’ve got bigger worries than that. A one bedroom apartment would be a step up at this point. I think you should consider it.
And FYI, this is not overprotective behavior on our part. I’m not saying this to comment on how everyone else raises their children, but we are trying to raise our daughter to be as respectful as possible. She gets her fair share of discipline and she is very well behaved.
Oslerknew, a failed attempt into adulthood involves living with roomates until our jobs tanked and we could no longer afford to do so. The regional economy is seasonal by nature and moving slowly recently. Alias and I decided that we would rather be saving money for a house as opposed to slugging away simply to pay rent and having nothing at the end of it.
I’ll be blunt. There are reasons for our circumstances that I will not get into as I find this amount of personal posting to be unpleasant at best. I will say that neither of us is happy with it and we are doing absolutely everything we can to get out of it and be good parents to little Harborkid. We do earn our keep in this house. If you wish to continue to throw around terms like “grow up,” feel free.
Sounds like temper issues of the mother in law. If you really think I was insinuating your daughter was not a good kid, then I am sorry I gave that impression. But I did want to hear why your daughter didn’t help. I would think it perfectly normal for a good kid to say “Yuck, your using a food spatula, that’s gross” in similar situation. And for even an angelic grandmother to get huffy and say “shut up” in reply. Shouting “Shut up” would be out of place unless shouting at each other is a common occurence in the household.
I hope your anger was just a blip though, if you are always hostile at even the imagined idea that someone thinks you or your children are less than perfect then I would be worried about how much you let things get to you.
Eh, MIL is fine. Was it the nicest thing in the world to say? No, probably not. But do you not realize it’s kind of annoying, when you’re cleaning up dog vomit to have some kid say “Hey why are you using that spatula?” Especially since kids have a wonderful way of asking questions like that in quite a snotty manner. I doubt I’d have told your daughter to shut up, but if she said that to me I’d probably pretty harshly say, “Do you want to clean this up? If not be quiet and eat your dinner because I’m going to clean it up how I want.”
To act like saying shut up to a kid is any great wrong is just overreaction. Kids aren’t made of crystal, I don’t see any great harm in telling a kid to shut up if the kid is being somewhat annoying.
Factor in that if I was in your MIL’s situation I’d probably be pretty stressed out every day because 3 people were living in my home and that’s not something I’m used to dealing with, be they relatives or not.
Whooooa. All I want to say to this is that there are many different models for grown up living that are valid and not indicative of acting like a child. This is one of them. In what way has the OP shown herself or hubby to have been acting like children? In what way have they shown that they’ve failed their child?
You’re bringing some heavy and personal accusations to bear, when we know nothing about the situation beyond what was presented.
And as for everyone who’s said, “her house, her rules,” that may be true, but being a jerk because you can doesn’t excuse one from being a jerk (I’m not insisting MIL was a jerk, just saying that if she was out of hand, it being her home does not excuse her behaviour.
I understand that the OP was looking for support for wounded and indignant feelings about how mother/MIL behaved to your daughter. Unfortunately many of the replies, including mine, don’t seem to provide that. Feel free to ignore what you wish. Life is full of tough choices and things don’t always work out the way we hope they will. Growing up almost always involves doing things that you don’t want to do because you have to. Maybe you didn’t “want” to move in w/ family, but you did. Maybe you “want” to buy you own house, but if you can’t and it’s been a year and a half, perhaps what you want isn’t going to happen and its time to do something again that you don’t want (take an apartment and move out) Anyone can be derailed along the way, and families are a wonderful fallback for many of us when we get derailed, but IMHO, the OP sounded to me alot like whining (which again is only my perception). BTW, airing this on the SDMB was a choice made by the OP…
To be honest, I wasn’t happy with this being posted at all. My families personal problems are just that, but it’s here and there is not a lot that I can do about it. Scrolling through this thread I saw a lot of comments that were very accusatory and I resent the hell out of it. When I saw something that looked similar aimed at my daughter, it’s going to get to me even more. I’m sorry if I seemed angry, but it looked as if a line was crossed.