How do I crawl her eyes out lol
I don't have the best relationship with my in-laws. I let my husband deal with them most of the time. We go to visit them for every long holiday and birthdays. I dread going because i genuinely feel like I'm walking on eggshells the entire time, but I do it for him and the kids. The kids are 3 and 4 months old. The last visit, my daughter being a toddler, was bouncing off the walls. Their house isn't exactly child-friendly. So I'm super exhausted running after my daughter telling her not to touch things or sit still. (Often expensive and fragile)It's also not the right environment to discipline my daughter with watchful eyes.
After 5 hours, with an exhausted toddler from travel and no nap... We packed our things, thanked them and started our 'good-bye, until next time'. At this point, my exhausted daughter sat down on the kitchen floor and "I don't want to go, I want to stay here". I was pretty overstimulated too, so I straight up said "fine stay here" and walked away. I do this occasionally, especially in stores and she knows she's reached a limit, so she gets up and follows while sulking.
My MIL automatically interjected and consoled my daughter telling her that she'd be able to stay in the future and sleep over. She then turned around and muttered. She thought I didn't hear it but she said "and maybe then you'll be taught some respect". She then realized we were standing there and switched the beat. She emphasized that we could leave the girls with her and it would give us some rest too. She's been hinting to leave the girls with her in the future. But honeslty, that comment solidified what I was fearing. Leaving my children with her would give her the opportunity to reinforce her beliefs (Beliefs that my husband found too rigid and hypocritical growing up).
I found the comment very disrespectful. I'm wondering if I'm overreacting. My partner doesn't think it was her place to say that either. But he's super avoidant with his parents and I feel like his opinion is a bit biased. I want to bring this up to her next time, but can't put together the words to how I'm feeling or why I find it disrespectful. I just feel like her expectations are misplaced and she's not behaving like a grandmother. She is also talking about lack of respect when she's clearly disrespecting our parenting. The child was overreacting because it's been a 2 hour roadtrip with 4 hours being locked in a house and another 2 hours back with zero nap or kid friendly entertainment . She's 3! MIL is the ' victim when confronted' type and super dramatic. How would you handle this?
Edit: I want to confront her, but don't know if it's worth it. I'd like to claw her eyes out, the same way she passive aggressively talks to me. But I also want to keep the peace for my husband's sake. So for the past 5 years, I've legit kept quiet every time she disrespected me or my family. But now I feel like shes crossed a line with my kids. I need to mama bear it and set a boundary.