Advice / Frustrated / Vent

[Guest guest]

I need suggestions and a vent please…. Sorry if this is long……situation:

Last night we went to my in-laws farm. Kids had fun picking

watermelon, veggies and feeding cows with us, my FIL, SIL and BIL. We got

rather muddy (clothes) since we had a boatload of rain yesterday.

We get back up to the house and my MIL lets the kids play in

the sink, something I don’t let them do since our water rates are crazy. (The

MIL knows EXACTLY how I feel about playing in the sink)Anyways, it’s just

wasteful especially when we have been so dry, almost a drought. I teach my kids

to be conservative and not waste things.

It was getting late and we wanted to get back home. Our

daughter started screaming and crying, like blood curdling screams saying “No,

I don’t want to go, I want to stay here†Then she started screaming she wanted

to go to Dairy Queen, the cabinet shop, a gas station and the house with the

blue roof….. (The blue roof and cabinet

shop she has never been to before it’s just what she does) Then Meltdown mode…..

My MIL is saying everything opposite that

we are while we are trying to get her out of there. She questioned our

parenting (we were being calm). I finally told her it is not because she wants

to stay there with her. I told her she does this at the grocery store,

gymnastics, the park, even at the doctor’s office where she hates to go. My MIL

looks at me and said so you have degraded me and compared me to a grocery

store?

My husband said it’s not a comparison this is just what she

does and this is a meltdown and has nothing with wanting to stay here. He tried

to once again explain the behaviors and when she doesn’t get her way ect…. SO

they STILL don’t get it! UGH! She said more crap I couldn’t even hear over the

meltdown. My MIL said it wasn’t a meltdown and if we would let her take care of

it these wouldn’t happen! (She means spanking the crap out of her with a wooden

spoon) I swear I want to scream when she degrades us like that and suggests

this can be cured with beatings/spankings, it can’t! She doesn’t realize how

hurtful and unsupportive it is to us. She doesn’t understand how this attitude

of hers is extremely destructive and why we won’t send our 4 year old into a

place where my MIL is just wanting and waiting to spank her, just to “prove†to

us she can fix her. OH and it also drives me nuts when she tries to teach my

daughter to be subjugated. What irks me

the most is she does this in a soft spoken yet condescending way. UGH!

After I got her in the car my MIL said some stupid crap about

how she is only crying because I don’t let her have play dates with her. We do

not let her go to my in-laws alone because they don’t have a clue and defy

EVERYTHING we ask/tell them not to do with our daughter. It’s so important for consistency.

They (MIL) say “What mommy and daddy won’t let you do, we willâ€. Yes they

really tell that to a four year old. Also she is allergic to some foods, they

try to feed her the stuff she is allergic to and they say don’t worry, you know

God will take care of everything….. WTF? I don’t want to sound blasphemous but

that’s dangerous and really stupid. Their nonchalant attitude really triggers

us. She thinks if we feed her foods she is allergic to it will make the allergy

go away?

Several weeks ago I had a talk with her, she criticized us

and I got diarrhea of the mouth and everything that we had a problem with came

flying out. There were no sugarcoated words it felt very good to get it off my

chest but then she started crying but no tears. I don’t know if it was fake or

not? (I do know every time I have ever cried tears come out.) My husband came

in from work asked what was going on, his mom told him, and he said OK now are

we clear? I think his mom wanted him to side with her. It’s a mess and it seems

like she still doesn’t want to understand. Not to mention it’s not about sides.

Anyways, I feel like this is such a toxic situation at

times. We all still get along or at least pretend like we do. We just feel like

we are always doing damage control when she is around. I do love my in-laws and

they are good to us. It is just this situation we really need help with

correcting. I don’t know if this helps but for what it is worth she is condescending

to my SIL too. If you’re not blood or their religion you get treated

differently.

Is there a book to help her get it? It would have to be in

layman’s terms. She told us she got it in April, clearly she didn’t get it at

all.

Thanks in advance!