Four Days with the Mother-in-Law: A Mistake I Won’t Repeat
I made the biggest blunder of my life by leaving our eighteen-month-old son under my mother-in-law’s care for just four days. I thought I’d covered all bases: I wrote a detailed four-page A4 guide outlining every aspect of caring for him at home. It covered everything from porridge recipes and compote to instructions on dressing, walks, hygiene, and, of course, sleep. I even noted which foods were strictly off-limits for him, no matter how pleadingly he looked at the plate. I detailed the words he already knows, what he likes to show in pictures, and how he mimics a cat and a dog. Think I’m overreacting? Maybe. But my mother-in-law is a character, and I prepared for a lot – just not everything, as it turned out.
In fashioning her maternal instincts, it seems the powers that be mixed anxiety with indifference, added a generous portion of chaos, and wrapped it all up with the phrase: “Bring him over, it’ll be such fun!” And so, we did. We handed over our son along with the instructions. From there, it appears the manual was opened and then closed just as quickly. My mother-in-law waved it off with: “We raised our four without any guides, and look how they turned out!” and dove into her own grandmotherly wisdom.
My son wandered around the house aimlessly, with my mother-in-law trailing behind, chanting: “Oh, he’s going to fall! Oh, he’s going to bump into something! Shut the balcony door, he’ll fly out! Move that – it’s sharp!” He was given whatever they were eating, with breakfast, lunch, and dinner all the same. Meals were served not by routine, but with the logic: “Better to eat than sleep. Eat up, darling, resting comes later!”
He didn’t nap during the day at all, since, why bother? Instead, he enjoyed a marathon of cartoons until late at night. The schedule I so carefully crafted was thrown off by two hours. Nowadays, I become a sort of entertainer each day, running three-hour “show programs” to get him to sleep without a meltdown. If anyone needs a host for a kid’s party, look no further, I’m experienced.
The conclusion is simple yet disheartening: my mother-in-law possesses an inherent cunning. She never says “no,” but always does things her way. Instead of sleep, my son gets another plate of pasta, instead of a routine – chaos, and instead of peace – her constant fussing at every turn. “Let him eat, poor thing!” and he’s offered everything under the sun once more.
That phrase is now a curse in my mind: NEVER again will I leave my child with my mother-in-law! Not for an hour, a day, and definitely not for four. Call me a worrywart, an overbearing mother, or just plain stubborn, but my child isn’t a test subject for grandma’s experiments. He’s a little person who needs order, attention, and love, not constant overfeeding and late-night cartoons.
How about you? Do you often trust your children with your mother-in-law? Does she respect your wishes, or does she go by “I know best”?.
