on June 23, 2025, 11:25:21, in reply to "Grandparents not allowed to be alone with grandchild (sad story)"
My MIL comes over to our house to watch the kids a couple of times a year. She smokes in her house, so we don't really want to expose the kids to that.
My FIL has never watched our kids either at our house or at his. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to it, but my wife and him have had a bit of an up and down relationship over the years, so I don't think she is really interested in that.
Previous Message
This kind of story gets repeated a lot, and I've seen it enough in advice columns. Sometimes the concerns are real, if the grandparents are out-of-it or reckless. Good friends of ours are wonderful people, with it, and were wonderful parents when their kids were around.
One of their offspring is married with a kid of about two years old. The parents will not allow the grandparents to be alone with the child unless one of them is also there. Well, it's the daughter-in-law, really. The son is in a tough spot. The grandparents are sad and hurt.
The parents now have newborn #2. Will things change?
My daughter and her husband were more like, "Sure, take her!" (Or them, when the second came along.)
What has been your own experience?
“the intensity of a conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing over whether it is true or not.” - Peter Medawar35
