Original thread here.Hello fellow parents. The pool safety discussion with my in-laws yesterday didn't really go great. Sorry this is quite long, I just need a place to get my thoughts down at this point. I am kind of a wreck.My husband knew I wanted to discuss things further at dinner on Saturday and he suggested that we take his dad out of the equation completely and only speak to his mom who is much more reasonable and had already expressed her own concern about our 3-year-old's safety.So kind of awkwardly, my husband just said to me while we were in the kitchen with his mom, "ok would you like to tell my mom about your pool concerns?". It felt... weird? Pressured? I don't know. But yes, I did want to talk to her. I tried to be casual and to the point, not accusatory or anything. I said I had been thinking a lot about the safety of the pool and really the best thing would be a pool fence.Her response was: "yeah... no." with a look on her face that made it obvious that was never really under consideration.That caught me off guard since I was under the impression she was concerned about pool safety as well. But okay. I brought up my other though which was that the side of their backyard needed to be fenced in at least because a side door of their house is often open, easy for kids to open, and gives access to the pool.My sister-in-law said "well we can just tell the kids to keep the door closed". Of course, that makes no sense. Why would you want to rely on a bunch of kids to keep a door closed? And again, it's OPENABLE by the 3-year-old, so that doesn't solve anything at all. I also brought up that if we were in the front yard, a kid could get into that side area, and again, be able to get into the pool.I introduced my other idea which was to fence off that side area with a simple wrought iron gate (that husband can build to their specifications). It seemed like everyone felt this was unnecessary, but, MIL did agree that the gate was okay. So that is definitely good. We would have a pool alarm plus a new gate that would eliminate what I feel is probably the most likely path for a kid to get into the pool.My husband asked if I had anything else to say which felt really weird. Then he asked me quietly if I was happy. You know what? I wasn't. I felt like the whole conversation wasn't about us being concerned about the safety of our kids, but how can we get me to shut up about this. In that moment, I was frustrated and upset. I quietly (but not quietly enough) said something like "this is crazy, that pool is a fucking death trap. Why is the appearance of the yard more important than a kid dying."At this point, my husband actually got very, very angry with me. He said "okay, now you're just being ridiculous." And we parted ways for a bit. I tried to compose myself and I realized while I was upset, I made a huge mistake by being a dick within earshot of his mom. Small backstory, I have spent 8 years trying to improve my relationship with his mother and it's really great now, so I knew I probably just made a huge mistake.I chatted with my SIL a bit about other stuff. Then my husband told me he needed to talk to me when I was done talking to SIL. I could tell he was mad. We really never fight, so this felt very shitty. I decided the first thing I needed to do what apologize to MIL for being rude, I did feel bad for having an outburst.I was not tactful about my apology. When MIL walked into the room, I just sort of blurted out "I AM REALLY SORRY IF I'M COMING ACROSS AS RUDE OR OVERBEARING ABOUT THE POOL THING... I'M JUST... REALLY WORRIED ABOUT 3-YEAR OLD... AND MY FRIEND'S KID JUST DIED IN THE POOL... AND I'M HAVING NIGHTMARES...AND..."And then I just started crying. I am not a weepy person, none of these people have EVER seen me cry. (Let me also clarify, my friend's kid did not die in a pool, a friend of a friend's kid did and the whole story was posted on Facebook for me to see. "Friend" is just what came out at the moment, IDK if this is relevant at all.)MIL, SIL, and BIL who all witnessed my breakdown did not know how to react except to try to comfort me. They are not assholes, I was obviously very upset. Then my MIL said something that just completely shut me down:"You have nothing to be sorry about, you just didn't grow up around a pool so of course you're worried."I did not know what to say. This right here is what our discussions will always come back to. No, I didn't have a pool, but that doesn't mean their pool isn't unsafe. I couldn't compose myself to continue the discussion after that, but at least I had apologized for saying "fuck" in her kitchen...?While this was happening, the older kids (6, 7, 9, 11) were swimming with FIL watching them. At least I thought so. Turns out, FIL was watching them at some point, but had come inside for a bit. I heard him open the sliding door and yell at the kids to get out of the deep end (6 & 7 can't quite swim yet) then he just came back inside.My husband knew I was on edge about the pool already, so he asked what was going on. FIL said "as soon as I left, they went into the deep end!". Yes, that's what kids do. That is why kids need constant supervision in the pool. Why is this not obvious?I went outside where my husband was alone and I asked him if he still wanted to talk to me. He said he didn't know what I wanted. I was already on edge at this point and broke down crying again. He doesn't see me cry much so he knew I was obviously upset. He had me sit down with him so we could talk.He said he was mad because he didn't know what else to do to make me feel better. He felt that he had done a lot to facilitate the conversation (he did for sure) and that I was being unreasonable now.I explained that I was just really, really worried and didn't want any of our kids to die. He said they're not going to die. Ok. No one thinks their kid is going to die in a tragic accident though. He said I need to explain to his mom how passionate I am about this so she understands. I told him I already did, and that she said I was upset because I didn't have a pool growing up.He said we will ask his parents to be more vigilant. I told him that vigilance would only happen when someone is actually worried about something happening, which they do not seem to be. He reminded me that his mom DID say she was worried. But then I asked, if she is so worried, why are we the ones who have to ask for safety measures? I asked him, if we had a pool and we were worried about our grandkids, wouldn't we figure out how to make the pool safer? I pointed out that just an hour ago, his dad had left the kids outside unattended and they immediately went to the deep end. That is NOT vigilant.My husband said he didn't know what else to do except to really stress to his parents how important this is. Again, I don't know if that makes a difference. The conversation ended at this point because it was time for dinner.I spent the rest of our time there just kind of withdrawn and continued to be weird for the rest of the night after we got home. I couldn't stop playing it out in my head how I would deal with it if one of my kids actually died in the pool. Would I be able to survive it to raise my other kids? Would I ever be able to talk to his parents again? Would our marriage survive it?I couldn't sleep so I went outside to get some fresh air to try to calm down and I just totally broke down again thinking about this stuff. I kept thinking of all the pictures I saw on Facebook of that poor mother with her little boy in his hospital bed, hooked up to tons of machines, basically dead. I thought about leaving my kids with their grandparents overnight and getting a call that one of them drowned.I just sat out there and cried for a while, then eventually got tired enough to go to bed. I'm still feeling a lot of anxiety about this today. Husband is working so we haven't discussed further, although I honestly don't even know what to talk about anymore. When it comes down to it, no one in his family believes a safety issue even exists and they believe I'm only worried because I never had a pool.They have offered to host our kids for a sleepover next weekend so we can celebrate our anniversary, and I'm wondering if I will even be able to enjoy the evening. I'm trying to convince myself that a pool alarm plus fencing in the side is a huge improvement (it is) and that they will be vigilant just for the sheer fact they don't want to prove me right in the shittiest way possible.I'm sure my husband and I will talk some more when he gets home. He does want me to feel good about whatever choices are made, but he does not see the pool as a safety risk, at least not to the degree that I do. I am not sure where this will all end up at this point, but right now I am almost paralyzed with anxiety that I'm trying to work through so I can at least have a somewhat normal week at work.Okay, that is it. Thank you to anyone who actually reads this crazy wall of text. And again, thank you all for your support in my previous thread. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2aE5Ceo
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