**Diary Entry – Emma Whitmore**
**30th October**
My name is Emma Whitmore, and I live in Manchester. I’m thirty years old, and today I need to write about something that still weighs on my heart—though not with regret, only sorrow for what had to be done.
Six months ago, I gave birth to twins—beautiful, cherished, long-awaited babies. We named our daughter Charlotte and our son Oliver. They were nothing short of a miracle for my husband James and me. After years of hoping, tests, and treatments, hearing the words, “You’re having two,” at the ultrasound left me in tears of joy.
But not everyone shared our happiness. From the beginning, my mother-in-law, Margaret Harwood, was like a splinter in every tender moment. You’d think a woman of her age, a grandmother, would know better. Instead, she turned absurdity into an art form.
*”There’ve never been twins in our family,”* she’d mutter, eyes narrow. *”And that girl—Charlotte—doesn’t look a thing like James. We’ve only ever had boys.”*
The first time, I bit my tongue. The second, I clenched my teeth. By the third, I snapped that maybe fate fancied a change. But then came the worst.
One morning as we dressed the babies for a walk, Margaret was strapping Oliver into his pram when she turned to me, calm as you please, and said: *”I keep noticing… Oliver’s nappy area doesn’t look like James’s did. Odd, isn’t it?”*
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Disbelief gave way to hysterical laughter. Gripping the changing mat, I forced out, *”Oh? Did James have a girl’s bits, then?”*
Then, for the first time in my life, I told her—cold and steady—to pack her things. *”Unless you bring a DNA test proving these are James’s children, don’t bother coming back.”*
I didn’t care how she’d get it, who’d pay the £200, or who’d hand over a cheek swab. Enough was enough.
James stood by me. He’d had enough too—years of her poison, her whispers, her suspicion. He *knew* the children were his. He’d waited for them just as I had. And her words wounded him as deeply as they did me.
I don’t feel guilty. I didn’t throw an old woman out for spite. I protected my family, my motherhood, my babies. A woman who hints at infidelity, peers into nappies, and dissects a newborn’s features has no place in my home.
Some might say it’s cruel. *”Respect your elders,”* they’ll scold. *”She’s their grandmother.”* But tell me—should a grandmother spend her days undermining her son’s fatherhood and rotting a family from the inside?
I choose peace. I choose a home where love isn’t laced with doubt. Better my children grow up without a *grandmother* than with one who serves suspicion at breakfast instead of toast.
So yes—I shut the door on my mother-in-law. And I won’t apologise for it.
