XMIL spanked my kid. Update post 9 - I called her.

[minkajane]

XH's stepmom watches DS sometimes. DS told me today that she smacked his butt, but "she only does it when I'm mean." I. Am. LIVID. Even if you agree with spanking, it's not ok to do it to someone else's kid!

I called XH and kind of freaked out about it. XH was never spanked as a kid, so one would hope that he would want to protect his kid, but when I found out that his girlfriend was smacking DS's hand, he pretty much denied the whole thing and didn't do anything, so I ended up calling her myself and telling her that she'd better not lay a hand on my kid again if she wanted to keep said hand. (ETA: I didn't actually say this, I'm exaggerating, but I told her that I'd make sure she wasn't legally allowed to be alone with DS if it happened again)

XH says he's going to call and talk to her and call me back, but knowing him, he'll not call and lie about it. He's the biggest pushover and will do anything to avoid confrontation. If I call, I'll end up freaking out on them again like I did when she and GMIL decided to take DS for his FIRST haircut because his not even shoulder length hair was "too long."

I just don't know what to do about this other than what I've done and assuring DS that he did not deserve it and what she did was NOT ok.

[cycle]

I would not allow her to watch him anymore and I would call her myself, especially if you think your ex won't call.

[minkajane]

Problem is, when XH has her, I have no say as to whether he leaves DS with her or not. She lives near our hometown, 3.5 hours away and I often don't even know when he goes home to visit until afterwards, if at all. If I ask XH not to leave DS with her (there are plenty of other people that will watch him if XH wants to go get drunk), he'll agree and leave him with her anyway because he doesn't think it's that big of a deal. He lies constantly and half the time just tells people what they want to hear and does what he wants anyway. There is no way whatsoever for me to keep DS away from her every other weekend when XH has him.

The worst part is, XFIL and XMIL are named as guardians in my and XH's wills if we both die. DH and I are going to buy will kits on Sunday to change that.

[paquerette]

Is it possible to amend your custody orders so that you have right of first refusal?

[thedenverduo]

It has to be soooo hard to not have control over who disciplines your ds. I have been a nanny for the same family for 4 years now and they have been divorced for a year and a half (since the twin girls I take care of were 5). dad: very toxic/manipulative/corporal punishment. Mom: awesome. So while I don't have firsthand mama experience I do have a couple ideas to help you brainstorm.

First, I would definitely considered calling (or writing/emailing) XMIL. Make it very clear to her (without losing your temper) that spanking is never okay. Maybe she is at a loss at what to do, so it might help to tell her how you handle things at home. Give her some pointers as to how you would like her to treat ds. Pitch it like: I know you are a big part of ds's life and I want things to be consistent so he isn't confused and so it is easier for both of us. If she is responsive, let ds in on it and let him know that XMIL and you had this conversation. Given, this assumes that she is a semi-reasonable person, which may not be the case.

I am also assuming (maybe incorrectly) that ds is "acting up" when this occurs. I am sure that her definition of "being mean" is ridiculous and I also truly believe that spanking is never ever okay. However, if you have no control over whether ds sees her or not you could help him figure out how to avoid the situation in the first place. For instance, maybe he feels frustrated and yells at XMIL, you could help him try to save his yelling for when he gets home, and then give him time and space to get the yelling out in a safe place.

I would be totally honest with him and let him know that spanking is never okay, and that he doesn't deserve it at all. So that might be a fine line to walk depending on ds's maturity. Hopefully he could understand that while it isn't his fault, there are things he can do to be in control of the situation. As he grows up he's going to see that different people have different rules and that different things are okay depending on which house he's at. He's also going to see that you are the only one giving him consistency, emotional safety, and honesty.

I hope some of this at least helps you brainstorm a bit, I always feel weird giving "advice" when I don't know your situation or ds at all, so please take this with a grain of salt if it isn't the right sort of answer for you!

[RoViMama]

Teach him to call 911. Or tell Xgma that you have taught him to call the police if he is physically assaulted and that any type of hitting is included.

[minkajane]

I plan on teaching him our phone number and I'm going to make damn sure she knows that if she hits my kid again I will be coming to get him and she will not be seeing him again for a very long time.

XH keeps swearing that there's no answer when he calls, but I very much doubt he's called. I'm going to call tomorrow. This type of thing has been an ongoing problem with her - she completely ignores my parenting choices and does what SHE wants. She took him for his first haircut, fed him meat (we're vegetarian) until he got old enough to say no, washed his hair repeatedly to make it fade when we dyed it green, and now she's hitting my kid. She knows we don't spank, but she probably didn't even consider that. When a kid does something you don't like, you give them a smack on the butt, no thinking involved. It probably never crossed her mind that we might have a problem with that. I am going to disabuse her of that notion pretty damn quick.

[prothyraia]

Originally Posted by RoViMama

Teach him to call 911. Or tell Xgma that you have taught him to call the police if he is physically assaulted and that any type of hitting is included.

This is an epically bad idea.

[minkajane]

Update

I called her. XH repeatedly said there was no answer when I called, but she answered immediately. I very much doubt he called. So she picked up and I said, "L, this is DS's mom. Did you spank my child?" And she hung up without a word. I called back and she picked up the phone and hung it up. I called on DH's phone and she didn't answer. I called XH and freaked out. He finally called her and called me back. She swears that it only happened once because he lied to her, she is sorry, and it won't happen again. She also claims that she actually is respectful of my parenting decisions because the last time DS was with them she didn't feed him any meat. THAT'S BECAUSE HE KNOWS BETTER NOW!

I hate to say it, but these are just horrible people. They refused to attend DS's first and second birthday parties (the only ones we had in our hometown) because a woman would be there that XFIL didn't like (even she has no idea why to this day), they fed him meat every chance they got until he was old enough to ask if something had meat in it, they washed his hair three times in a day and a half because it was dyed green, I could continue. They are just the most inconsiderate people who are completely convinced that their happy little safe box is the one and only way to be and anything outside that just doesn't exist, so we can ignore that. I just feel lucky that XH and I were together when DS was little because it would not shock me in the slightest if XH took him to visit them and they talked him into getting DS circumcised!

ETA: Is there any way I can get a legal order forbidding anyone besides DS's biological parents from practicing corporal punishment on him? I know XH won't hit him, so that would protect him from anyone else and give us some legal stance for keeping DS away from them if this happens again.

[Arduinna]

She hung up on you when you asked? Um yea I do whatever I could to make sure she isn't alone with my kid again. She doesn't even have the maturity to talk to you on the phone.

[lynsage]

Originally Posted by Arduinna

She hung up on you when you asked? Um yea I do whatever I could to make sure she isn't alone with my kid again. She doesn't even have the maturity to talk to you on the phone.

Time to lawyer up.

[One_Girl]

I don't think her reaction was necessarily immature and it may not be enough for the courts to care about. How are your interactions with her normally? If she expected you to threaten her physically or blow up with out of control anger towards her based on your past interactions and what she knows about your interactions with her son's girlfriend then hanging up on you seems like a reasonable thing to do. If you have always had conversations with her, not angry phone calls that result in threats like the one you made to your ex's girlfriend, then I think that it was unreasonable of her to hang up. I don't think it is wrong to be protective, but I think you cross a boundary when you start making physical threats. I don't know that she even has to talk to you about what she does with your son when he is in your ex's custody because that is between her and your ex at that point.

I think you can get a clause put in the divorce decree so you have right of first refusal, but that will probably go both ways. You may also be able to go back to court to get her right to be around him alone terminated, but that is going to get very messy and I am not sure that they would allow it even if she spanks frequently. There are also all sorts of clauses that people put into divorce decrees so you may be able to get one about no one else using corporal punishment on him, especially if your ex agrees to it.

[minkajane]

One_Girl, I was exaggerating what I said to XH's girlfriend. I basically told her that if she smacked DS again, I'd make sure she was never legally able to be alone with him again. I've never made physical threats to anyone. Till now I have never had any bad interactions with them outside of when they cut DS's hair (2 years ago). When they cut DS's hair, I called XH's grandma and basically said "How DARE you? You had NO right to do that." I made no threats of any kind to any party involved. I did tell XH that I would do my best to get some kind of decree to protect DS from corporal punishment, but I don't consider that a threat. Hanging up on me like that was completely ridiculous and childish.

[prothyraia]

I'm sorry things are going so poorly- I think seeing if there's anything you can do in the legal realm is a probably the best way to go at this point.

I would be livid if I were you, but I think it's likely you're more upset about this than your son is. Not that that makes it okay by any means, but children are resilient. I would spend a lot of time reinforcing with him that what she did was not okay, that he did not deserve it no matter what he did, that you're going to try to stop it from happening again, and also maybe why gma would do such a thing (i.e. lots of people when she was young used to think it's okay to hit kids, and some still do, but YOU know it's wrong), etc.

It's possible that there's not going to be anything you can do, at which point I think you're going to need to repeatedly sit down and talk with your son about what's going on and how both of you feel about it. If you can't prevent it, you can at least help him work through his feelings about it and make sure he knows how *you* feel about it.

[One_Girl]

Originally Posted by minkajane

One_Girl, I was exaggerating what I said to XH's girlfriend. I basically told her that if she smacked DS again, I'd make sure she was never legally able to be alone with him again. I've never made physical threats to anyone. Till now I have never had any bad interactions with them outside of when they cut DS's hair (2 years ago). When they cut DS's hair, I called XH's grandma and basically said "How DARE you? You had NO right to do that." I made no threats of any kind to any party involved. I did tell XH that I would do my best to get some kind of decree to protect DS from corporal punishment, but I don't consider that a threat. Hanging up on me like that was completely ridiculous and childish.

It is good that that was an exaggeration, but you sound very intense and that can be scary to some people. My early years were spent around violence and a conversation with an intense person leaves me shaken all day. I have cut people out of my life so I don't have to have that feeling. I am just trying to offer another perspective. If she is like this and you still want to have conversations with her, even just about your child, you may need to keep in mind that she can't handle intense people and adjust your approach accordingly even if you are furious.

[2xy]

Originally Posted by RoViMama

Teach him to call 911. Or tell Xgma that you have taught him to call the police if he is physically assaulted and that any type of hitting is included.

I don't know of any states where spanking children is legally considered "physical assault." At best, the cops would laugh at such a phone call. Worst case, someone could be charged with misuse of 911.

[LynnS6]

I think you might find it helpful to post in the Single Parenting forum -- I think a lot of parents there know what sort of legal arrangements can be made. You can put in your parenting agreement, for example, that spanking is not to be used by anyone who cares for your son. But whether you can enforce this is another question.

why is his mother taking care of him? Are you available to take care of him while he's grandmother does? If you can, you might also think about something call the Right of First Refusal. That essentially means that if your ex can't care for your child, he has to give you the chance to care for him before he can let his mom take care of him.

But it sounds to me like you need some legal help here.

[minkajane]

I have the right of first refusal. But his dad and stepmom live near our hometown, which is 3.5 hours away. He often doesn't tell me when he takes DS to visit and he loves to go get wasted, which pretty much means that DS spends the whole weekend with them. It sucks all around.

We've been divorced for 3 years now, so I don't know that there's a way to get something added into our separation agreement at this point. I never thought to put it in there in the first place because I knew that XH hadn't been spanked and didn't agree with it. I'm especially worried because DH and I were planning on moving out of state next year and that would mean DS spending the entire summer with his dad. Since XH's stepmom is a teacher, she's off all summer, which makes me worry that XH will just dump DS off with them. That's what he did when DH and I were out of the country for a week. He lied about it and I only found out when I tried to call DS while on vacation.

The hardest part about the whole thing is XH's compulsive lying. I never know beforehand where he's going to be with DS, who he's going to leave him with, whether he's going to tell them not to hit him, etc. We have someone in our hometown that I trust immensely that he could leave DS with if he wants to drink, but he chooses to leave DS with these people. If I mentioned it, he would just lie and say he left DS with the trustworthy person when he wasn't.

[LynnS6]

Originally Posted by minkajane

We've been divorced for 3 years now, so I don't know that there's a way to get something added into our separation agreement at this point.

There is. You may have to take him back to court, or you might be able to do this through mediation. People often change parenting agreements. Parenting agreements need to change as children get older. What's appropriate for a 3 year old isn't necessarily appropriate for a 9 year old.

But this is why you need advice from someone who knows what they're doing.

[MissNo]

Originally Posted by minkajane

ETA: Is there any way I can get a legal order forbidding anyone besides DS's biological parents from practicing corporal punishment on him? I know XH won't hit him, so that would protect him from anyone else and give us some legal stance for keeping DS away from them if this happens again.

There is. My sister has one, but I am going to tell you, it is hard to enforce from far away, especially if your XDH is unreliable.