Search icon

Parenting

12th Jan 2018

Mother-in-law wants to spank woman’s child without her permission

How would you handle this?

Anna O'Rourke

A pregnant woman has vented her frustration online after her mother-in-law told her she would spank her child in certain circumstances.

Writing on the What To Expect parenting forum, the woman said that she wants to raise her unborn daughter without violence but that her mother-in-law had different ideas.

The mother-in-law claimed that she’d only spank the child “if she ran across the street or something like that.

“Yes running in the street is bad and terrifying, but I do not want anyone putting their hands on my child no matter what’s going on,” she explained.

“I don’t believe that’s the answer and I’m choosing to parent that way.”

The woman mentioned that she doesn’t want to rear her child that way but changed the subject.

“I couldn’t afford to fight with her, every time I disagree with her and tell her about it, I’m giving her ‘lip’ which causes me to get more frustrated and then… I fear I’ll just snap. Which in my particular situation I can not act or talk that way.”

The woman added that her boyfriend “didn’t get it and ended up making me feel like a drama queen.”

If that weren’t enough, the woman said that the mother-in-law and her own mother then started to eat peanuts in front of her, despite her severe peanut allergy.

“I just feel like it was to spite me or something!,” she wrote.

The other parents on the forum were in agreement that the grandmother was in the wrong, with most laying blame on the woman’s boyfriend for failing to see this.

“There is NO way in hell that anyone will hit my child. If they laid even a finger on my child the police would need to be called because of what I would do to them,” wrote one.

“Your boyfriend knows that they did this and did nothing? That boy needs to get up off the dead spot and grow a damn backbone! This is his CHILD and the MOTHER of his child,” commented another.

“I think you need to get out of that house. Can you go home? You may need to get your own place. That woman has no respect for you and treats you pretty badly. The peanuts thing is terrifying!”

“Is there anything your boyfriend does understand? He doesn’t understand threats of physical violence against your yet to be born child, he doesn’t understand how being exposed to something you are deathly allergic to is harmful…if be thinking there is nothing he is going to “understand”, and at no stage does he have any intention of standing up for you or your LO (little one).”

How would you handle this? Join the conversation in the Facebook comments or on Twitter.