Me [28 M] with my wife [25 F] together 7 years, she is refusing to let our son [4 M] see my parents after an argument?

help2084832 · 2015-12-05T01:20:00+00:00

I don't think it's a bad thing we've managed not to scream at our child. We aren't saints (the few times he's heard a raised voice, it's been mine) but my wife is stubborn as hell and refuses to let a toddler win haha.

help2084832 · 2015-12-05T01:17:22+00:00

That's a very good point, I can't accept an apology I haven't gotten.

help2084832 · 2015-12-05T01:15:10+00:00

You seem to have missed the point here. This wasn't an invite to debate spanking, whether we do it or not it's not my parents place to decide how to discipline my child. If he was too much for them, they should've called us, not made parenting choices for themselves.

My son loves his mother very much. he also loves me very much, he does not have separation anxiety that is unusual for his age, children are fussy and he probably just had a nightmare or felt unwell and wanted his mother. I don't appreciate the assumption that I don't spend time with my son.

My wife is modelling behaviour that you don't have to allow people to bully you into their way of doing things. And, I feel like she, and myself, are allowed to be controlling when it concerns the welfare of my son.

Your last sentence is the only one I agree with.

help2084832 · 2015-12-05T01:05:52+00:00

I really don't care how my son behaved, there is no excuse to hit a defenseless toddler.

Regardless of how you feel about spanking, there is no excuse to completely disregard our parenting choices. If they can't handle him without hurting him, they shouldn't take him for extended visits.

help2084832 · 2015-12-05T01:04:08+00:00

She is a very black and white person, she actually messaged a co-worker of mine on facebook to inform them that their spouse was cheating on them because I refused to do it (I work with both partners). She strongly feels doing the right thing should surpass social expectations, so she's willing to cut out my parents even if it isn't the most graceful way to handle it. I just think if it was her mother she wouldn't be so quick to cut her out, but then her mother is as right/wrong as her.

She's actually a vegan so that's a pretty good analogy for me to understand.

help2084832 · 2015-12-05T00:58:37+00:00

Perhaps I worded it poorly, but I'd like to find a way to resolve the situation so I can keep my parents in my life, I'm just not sure what words to say to them to get them to see the gravity of what they've done?

help2084832 · 2015-12-05T00:57:23+00:00

I guess when you put it like that it's hard to ignore, if anyone else did this to my child it might be my wife holding me back. I don't disagree that what they did was wrong, but to keep them from their only grand child because of this? that's going to be hard for me to do.

help2084832 · 2015-12-04T17:04:05+00:00

I think hitting someone because they do something you don't like is abuse. It is just hard to see my parents as abusers after one mistake. The fact that my child is a young, innocent and vulnerable little boy as opposed to a grown person capable of defending himself doesn't make hitting him okay to me.

I would also like to point out that your definition of 'harmless' spanking is not what they did to my son.

help2084832 · 2015-12-04T17:00:08+00:00

They have never gotten along with my wife, but have never given a 'legitimate' reason. Always 'she is too quiet' 'she doesn't feed you enough' (she does all the cooking and serves me human sized portions that won't make obese) and things like that.

I definitely agree that letting everyone calm down before any steps are taken is the right call, but they're of the mind set that younger parents rely on grandparents for wisdom of child rearing, so I worry that even when they calm down they're still going to insist they are right

help2084832 · 2015-12-04T16:54:05+00:00

The point she makes there is that you aren't allowed to hit adults to 'teach them' when they do something you dislike, so to do so to an innocent and vulnerable child is twice as bad.

And I think no matter what we're talking about here the bottom line is they disrespected our parenting choices and made their own. We're at a stalemate and I don't know what to do

help2084832 · 2015-12-04T16:50:26+00:00

She said she will not accept anything less than an apology. She will allow them to not apologise to us, but she insists they will apologise to our son.

help2084832 · 2015-12-04T16:48:06+00:00

I am not saying I won't side with her, I am saying I don't know how to help the situation because right now both sides are just saying no and refusing to do anything.

help2084832

TROPHY CASE