Potty training your toddler is an experience that is rife with so much … drama. It can seriously upend the lives of many parents and their kids, and it's definitely an experience you want your kids to feel like they're supported through. So that might help explain why one mom is so mad at her son's grandmother over potty training that she has "banned" the grandmother from "ever seeing him again." Yikes!
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The mom explains that everything was going great until a few weeks ago, when grandma came over:
“His grandma (my husband’s mom) was visiting around that time about two weeks ago, and I was taking my son to go use the bathroom. She then decided to tell my him ‘Be careful, a monster might pop out of the toilet!’ My son then started crying, and he refused to use his potty and wet his pants instead. My husband and I asked Grandma what the [redacted] she was thinking, and she only got defensive and insisted that it was just a joke. She refused to apologize. So we kicked her out of the house.”
She also says that the potty training is now totally derailed:
“My son has been refusing to use his potty since then for the past two weeks, and we had to put him back into diapers for the time being. After discussing with my husband, we mutually decided to permanently ban his mom from ever seeing our son again.”
It is understandable that the parents are concerned, but it's kind of wild that they have totally banned the child's grandmother from seeing him over what was probably an innocent joke:
“Now that she realized that this is serious, she has been begging for our forgiveness. But she refused to apologize the first time, and she’s only sorry now because there are going to be negative consequences for her. We don’t forgive her, and she isn’t entitled to any forgiveness whatsoever. She isn’t welcome in our home anymore.”
As you might imagine, people have a lot to say about this, and not all of it is in favor of the parents. One commenter noted, "It's obvious why she sucks. You suck because the ban is too long. Ban her until Christmas or he's potty trained, that will be a direct correlation to her offense."
And this is basically the main issue: A lifetime ban for a bad joke definitely doesn't feel fair.
Another commenter agrees, unless there are other details that we don't know about the grandmother.
“The joke is very harmless but the baby reacted negatively about it and that sucks, but the lifelong ban is extremely ridiculous. Unless we are heavily missing some details about how the grandma is, like if she has done things like this before then this little incident is like dropping a bomb on a flower.”
One person defended the parents and said this might be only the beginning of a pattern of behavior that would be difficult to undo:
“This ‘joke’ is only the beginning. What if she causes him to be scared of other stuff in the future? She clearly thinks it’s a harmless joke so what’s stopping her from doing it in the future?”
Others jumped in with agreement, mostly because the mom's husband has been OK with banning his own mother from the life of his child, which is kind of suspicious. It's easy to see why anyone could assume there's more going on here:
“For the husband to have decided that his own mom should never see his son again, I’m fairly certain that there’s more going on here than just the potty-training thing. Either that or OP is like, Jedi-level convincing and able to get her husband to just ditch his mom super quickly.
“The lack of apology until real consequences came down is also pretty telling. This isn’t just somebody with a [expletive] up sense of humor, this is a toxic person who refuses to accept when they’ve done something wrong.
“I don’t think OP is taking it too far, but mostly based on inferences that can be drawn from details of the story rather than the story itself.”
Another person hopes that the mom who originally shared the story becomes the kind of "flawless" grandmother she seems to hope for:
“Maybe a ban until he’s potty trained, but life?
“She threw a stone, you threw a nuclear bomb.
“I sure hope you plan to be a flawless mother-in-law and grandmother, lest your son find someone as reactive as you.”
Another person said that if this is the first time the grandmother has made a big mistake, put her on probation:
“If this is her first offence, then put her on … probation. If Granny has done stuff like this before, then she does need to be at least kept minimal contact. The not apologizing is also a bad sign.”
At the end of the day, it seems that what isn't mentioned here is really the most important part of the story. There has to be something else going on in this relationship … right?
“There are absolutely other issues here. It sounds like OP has previously wanted a justification to do this and what she thought was the perfect opportunity came along. I’d normally assume the issues are the MIL but the lack of details and the blasé attitude about barring someone from seeing their grandchild after something incommensurate speaks volumes.”
Potty training is a time period that can feel like it's taking absolutely forever, and parents are often frustrated and looking for any help they can get while they tackle the skill. A lot of preschools require that 3-year-olds are potty trained before they begin, and that puts a lot of pressure on everyone involved to make sure the job is done. Any kind of joke that makes a child scared of the process is ultimately super unhelpful, but the jury seems pretty decided that a lifetime ban for only this particular offense is too harsh a sentence.
