Monster-in-Law
My mother-in-law killed her grandchild, my daughter. She was two years old at the time. My husband and I let her babysit the baby while we were busy with job-related things. It was summertime and they were staying in the mother-in-law’s house that has a pond next to it. My daughter loved water; bath-time was her favorite time of day.
They were playing at the edge of the pond and then the mother-in-law remembered she had to take clothes out of the dryer, so she left a two-year-old alone next to the quite a large body of water. My daughter’s childlike curiosity plus her love of water resulted in her getting into the deep part of the pond and drowning. All because she considered clothes in the dryer an important enough reason to leave a toddler unsupervised.
When she realized what happened, she started to panic and call for help. Her neighbor heard her, they got into the pond and called an ambulance, but it was too late. Imagine what it’s like for a parent to come home to the person you trusted your child with and they tell you your child is gone. Somehow though, it got worse than all that.
Throughout it all, she was begging us not to involve the authorities into this. She kept repeating it was an accident and she “doesn’t know how it could have happened,” “was only gone for a moment,” ”feels even worse than we do” and “calling the authorities won’t bring her back.” We did call them, of course, and she was charged with negligence and sentenced to three years behind bars, which, in my opinion, was too light of a punishment.
Now recently she was released, and my husband was the first person she looked for contact with. He never once visited her while she was behind bars. It doesn’t matter that she served her sentence, neither I or my husband will ever forgive her for this. Besides, she hasn’t asked for forgiveness; all she gave us were excuses and more excuses.
In the courtroom, my husband told her she’s not his mother anymore and that he never wants to see her face again. Our marriage was damaged too, we were depressed, we fought a lot, and there were times when we were on the brink of divorce. We separated for a while, and I left for another country thinking that this was it for us. However, my husband came to look for me and we managed to save our family and continue our life together.
I couldn’t bring myself to have any more children for a long time but eventually, I got pregnant again and last summer we welcomed our son. He’s nine months old now. Obviously, we weren’t going to tell my mother-in-law we’re parents again, but then my nightmare happened. She saw us walking with a baby stroller and realized that once more she has a grandchild.
So she tried to get in the contact with my husband. First, she reproached him for not visiting her, cried about how hard it was for her to spend all those years behind bars, that she shouldn’t have been there because she’s too old for that, how could he do this to his own mother, how could he abandon her, etc. Then she was like, “But I saw you have a new baby, I’m so glad I have a grandchild again!”
Then she went on about is it a boy or a girl, when will she be able to see them and meet them because she wants to take care of them so much. My husband told her immediately that she doesn’t have anything, this is our child, and ours only. Our son doesn’t have a grandmother, we’ll be telling him this as he grows up, and he will never ever in a million years be anywhere around her.
We’re 100% on the same page about this. The loss of our daughter still hurts and we’re going to do everything we can to protect our son from her. He doesn’t need an irresponsible grandmother who would likely endanger his life just like she did with his sister. My mother-in-law was shocked to hear this and began to wail about us being so evil and cruel towards her, that we’re going to hold that against her forever even though she paid for it and we cannot be so heartless to prevent her from seeing her grandchild.
But what was she thinking? What was she hoping for? That we’re really going to let her around our baby? That we’ll ever trust her with babysitting again? Honestly, I’m not sure if I can leave my son with any babysitter. I don’t trust babysitters anymore, because if a grandmother can be careless enough to let a child perish, who knows what an unrelated person could do.
So my husband told her firmly that she’ll have no access to the baby and he doesn’t want to talk to her either so she should do something useful with her life and leave us alone. My mother-in-law wasn’t having it. That evening, she came to our house, asking to see her grandchild again. We didn’t let her come in, obviously, and she got mad, claiming that as a grandmother, she has rights to meet her grandchild.
We told her that she lost all her rights to our children when she let our daughter drown. If a trust is broken, it cannot be repaired and there are some things that just cannot be forgiven. She escalated it from that point. She told us that she’ll go to court and she’ll demand permission to meet the baby. I’m not sure if there is such a thing but if it’s true, I highly doubt she’ll get it considering her record.
If we need to go to court and prove she’s not the type of grandmother you should let around your child, we’ll do it. If she comes back again, we’ll call the authorities. If we need to leave this country and go live somewhere else just to be away from her, we’ll do it too. Nothing’s impossible. I’m amazed at her lack of shame. She knows very well she tore apart our lives three years ago.
No parent should bury their child, but we had to because of her, and now she comes to us as if she’s the best relative ever, as if nothing ever happened.