Just venting here, but I am so pissed off and I don't know how to just let it go.
My husband's family owns a beach condo that is vacant most of the time. We arrived home earlier this evening from spending a week there. His grandmother (who I love very much) flew in and spent the last couple of days there with us. She wanted to visit us (mostly our 3-year-old daughter). We had a lovely vacation including the time that we were spending with her.
That is until last night. The four of us went out to dinner together. The restaurant we went to isn't fancy but is very nice. It is a chain, but a VERY nice chain restaurant. On our way into the restaurant my daughter started to go into melt-down for some unknown reason. As we were seated it developed into a full-blown tantrum (disruptive to our own table but not others around us) so I took her back outside and to the car until she calmed down and was able to go back inside and use good restaurant manners (good 3-year-old manners, remember she is only 3). When we returned she kept a nice, quiet, inside voice. She ordered her drink and did not get upset when the restaurant did not have the apple juice that she wanted but easily and calmly made a second choice of drinking water instead. I gave her crayons and she wrote/drew until her dinner arrived. She ate well. As we were all finishing our meal but waiting to pay the check she started to grow a little bored. First she slipped under the table to get to the other side and sat on that booth between my husband and his grandmother. She was sitting quietly and being quite still. As we waited for DH's grandmother to be ready to leave my daughter decided to sit under the table to entertain herself. I realize that sitting under the table at dinner is not the ideal situation but she was being very still and quiet and not disturbing anyone in the restaurant. She wasn't even bothering those of us sitting at the table. We wouldn't even have known she was there without looking under the table and seeing her...she wasn't bumping into any of our legs or anything. She was silent. She was just watching the other people in the restaurant. This is the point where I choose to "pick my battles". We're in a very nice restaurant, she's not disturbing anyone, we've been there for quite some time and she's grown bored. I just let her sit under the table.
Holy Cow...did my husband's grandmother have a problem with that! She thought she was being clever and she asked what DD's grandfather (her son, my FIL) would think of how DD was behaving. I told her that FIL wouldn't have a problem with it. DH chimed in to say that DD wasn't disturbing anyone in the restaurant and even his father doesn't have a problem with it when DD does this. (Again, I know this isn't ideal and I want her to learn not to do it. But she's 3...can't be perfect all of the time (at this point DH's grandmother had been with us for almost 48 hours and this outing was the first time DD had misbehaved)...and I just have to pick my battles sometimes.) DH's grandmother went on to say just how awful it was. I told her that DD had been quite naughty when we first arrived and I took her outside and dealt with her poor behavior but she had come back inside to be well behaved through dinner and that she was growing bored. I told her I was choosing to pick my battles and she told me, "I told want to hear that crap. I'm not listening to that crap." I started to defend my position when she said that she would, "Slap the crap out of her." (not saying that she would do it, but that if she were in my position that is how she would handle it. she was telling me that's what I should do to my daughter.) My jaw almost hit the table. I told her no one was going to hit my daughter and that there are other ways to teach her. She tried saying something else but at that point I was so upset I didn't really hear anything else. I got the car keys from my husband, picked up my daughter and stood up. I leaned over the table toward her and hissed at her that if she thought slapping my daughter was the solution she should ask her grandson what that had accomplished for him. (I've wrote on here previously about my husband hitting my daughter almost a year ago and all the turmoil it has caused in our family ever since. She's fully aware of the situation.)
I take DD to the car and wait for DH and his grandmother to join us. I'm very upset and fighting back tears. She gets in the car and tries talking to me like nothing has happened and I'm not very talkative. I'm not ignoring her but only saying the minimum because I'm very upset with her. She then proceeds to tell me that I'm hurting HER feelings and that she doesn't appreciate it. I tell her that she's hurt my feelings. She tells me (and she's told me this many times before) what a wonderful job I'm doing with raising our daughter. I tell her obviously she doesn't really think so. She says well you've done a great job SO FAR, but the way she acted in there was not acceptable and something has to be done about it. I again tell her that when she had bad behavior I took her outside but that after that she was good for her age. I told her there are other ways to handle a situation without hitting. I reminded her that DD is only 3 and was acting age-appropriate. She just got upset with me because I still refused to agree with her point of view.
After we returned to the condo she decided to turn on the tears so then I'm patting her on the back and telling her that everything is okay and not to be upset. This really pisses me off, too, because I still think she was wrong for saying what she did but now I'm backing down and worrying about whether I've hurt this 84-year-old woman that I do love very much. Before we left this morning, she did the crying thing again and I had to console her (she's the one that had bad behavior, not me, but I'm apologizing to her and telling her everything is okay).
What would possess someone to think it is okay to tell a mother she should "slap the crap" out of her child? I do understand that this 84-year-old woman was raised in a different era and that in her time "children were to be seen and not heard". We do not parent that way. I understand she most likely has different expectations of how a child should behave but how does she justify making those kinds of comments to me?
Can you tell that inwardly I am still seething over this incident? I want to just let it go but don't know how.
My husband's family owns a beach condo that is vacant most of the time. We arrived home earlier this evening from spending a week there. His grandmother (who I love very much) flew in and spent the last couple of days there with us. She wanted to visit us (mostly our 3-year-old daughter). We had a lovely vacation including the time that we were spending with her.
That is until last night. The four of us went out to dinner together. The restaurant we went to isn't fancy but is very nice. It is a chain, but a VERY nice chain restaurant. On our way into the restaurant my daughter started to go into melt-down for some unknown reason. As we were seated it developed into a full-blown tantrum (disruptive to our own table but not others around us) so I took her back outside and to the car until she calmed down and was able to go back inside and use good restaurant manners (good 3-year-old manners, remember she is only 3). When we returned she kept a nice, quiet, inside voice. She ordered her drink and did not get upset when the restaurant did not have the apple juice that she wanted but easily and calmly made a second choice of drinking water instead. I gave her crayons and she wrote/drew until her dinner arrived. She ate well. As we were all finishing our meal but waiting to pay the check she started to grow a little bored. First she slipped under the table to get to the other side and sat on that booth between my husband and his grandmother. She was sitting quietly and being quite still. As we waited for DH's grandmother to be ready to leave my daughter decided to sit under the table to entertain herself. I realize that sitting under the table at dinner is not the ideal situation but she was being very still and quiet and not disturbing anyone in the restaurant. She wasn't even bothering those of us sitting at the table. We wouldn't even have known she was there without looking under the table and seeing her...she wasn't bumping into any of our legs or anything. She was silent. She was just watching the other people in the restaurant. This is the point where I choose to "pick my battles". We're in a very nice restaurant, she's not disturbing anyone, we've been there for quite some time and she's grown bored. I just let her sit under the table.
Holy Cow...did my husband's grandmother have a problem with that! She thought she was being clever and she asked what DD's grandfather (her son, my FIL) would think of how DD was behaving. I told her that FIL wouldn't have a problem with it. DH chimed in to say that DD wasn't disturbing anyone in the restaurant and even his father doesn't have a problem with it when DD does this. (Again, I know this isn't ideal and I want her to learn not to do it. But she's 3...can't be perfect all of the time (at this point DH's grandmother had been with us for almost 48 hours and this outing was the first time DD had misbehaved)...and I just have to pick my battles sometimes.) DH's grandmother went on to say just how awful it was. I told her that DD had been quite naughty when we first arrived and I took her outside and dealt with her poor behavior but she had come back inside to be well behaved through dinner and that she was growing bored. I told her I was choosing to pick my battles and she told me, "I told want to hear that crap. I'm not listening to that crap." I started to defend my position when she said that she would, "Slap the crap out of her." (not saying that she would do it, but that if she were in my position that is how she would handle it. she was telling me that's what I should do to my daughter.) My jaw almost hit the table. I told her no one was going to hit my daughter and that there are other ways to teach her. She tried saying something else but at that point I was so upset I didn't really hear anything else. I got the car keys from my husband, picked up my daughter and stood up. I leaned over the table toward her and hissed at her that if she thought slapping my daughter was the solution she should ask her grandson what that had accomplished for him. (I've wrote on here previously about my husband hitting my daughter almost a year ago and all the turmoil it has caused in our family ever since. She's fully aware of the situation.)
I take DD to the car and wait for DH and his grandmother to join us. I'm very upset and fighting back tears. She gets in the car and tries talking to me like nothing has happened and I'm not very talkative. I'm not ignoring her but only saying the minimum because I'm very upset with her. She then proceeds to tell me that I'm hurting HER feelings and that she doesn't appreciate it. I tell her that she's hurt my feelings. She tells me (and she's told me this many times before) what a wonderful job I'm doing with raising our daughter. I tell her obviously she doesn't really think so. She says well you've done a great job SO FAR, but the way she acted in there was not acceptable and something has to be done about it. I again tell her that when she had bad behavior I took her outside but that after that she was good for her age. I told her there are other ways to handle a situation without hitting. I reminded her that DD is only 3 and was acting age-appropriate. She just got upset with me because I still refused to agree with her point of view.
After we returned to the condo she decided to turn on the tears so then I'm patting her on the back and telling her that everything is okay and not to be upset. This really pisses me off, too, because I still think she was wrong for saying what she did but now I'm backing down and worrying about whether I've hurt this 84-year-old woman that I do love very much. Before we left this morning, she did the crying thing again and I had to console her (she's the one that had bad behavior, not me, but I'm apologizing to her and telling her everything is okay).
What would possess someone to think it is okay to tell a mother she should "slap the crap" out of her child? I do understand that this 84-year-old woman was raised in a different era and that in her time "children were to be seen and not heard". We do not parent that way. I understand she most likely has different expectations of how a child should behave but how does she justify making those kinds of comments to me?
Can you tell that inwardly I am still seething over this incident? I want to just let it go but don't know how.
