This Is Why We Call Her The Monster-In-Law

CONTENT WARNING: Child Abuse

My husband and I have recently had our first child. I am struggling with major postpartum depression, and my mother-in-law offers to watch our daughter for a few hours so we can have a date night. I am at first reluctant, but she insists and everyone tells me it’ll probably be good for me.

When my daughter is about three months old, we accept my mother-in-law’s offer. When we drop my daughter off, we explain that since she is still so little and young, we don’t let her cry it out and ask them to not do so.

When we go to pick her up afterward, my daughter is near hyperventilating. After further questions, we find out that she had started getting fussy and my mother-in-law didn’t want to deal with it, so she let her cry it out until the point where she was inconsolable. The second my daughter sees me, she whimpers and reaches out for me. I am fuming. 

Me: “We asked you to not let her cry it out. Why didn’t you comfort her?”

Mother-In-Law: “You don’t get to complain about free babysitting. I can do whatever I want when I’m watching her.”  

She continued to make statements like, “Are you sure she’s not colicky?” and “It’s a good thing her crying doesn’t bother you; I would just shut her in a room with a vacuum on.” She never understood why we never took her up on her offers to watch our daughter again or why, for months after, whenever our daughter saw her, she would instantly burst into tears.