Diary: Day 3

This weekend has been particularly difficult. Guy's mother has been here, and I really don't think she like me or the children.

This has made me think about what we should expect the children to put up with in the name of family. Is she really their family, being their step fathers mother? Guy never sees himself as a stepfather, he is daddy, but she does not see things the same way at all.

It's a very strange situation, because ordinarily if anyone was that rude to my children I would ensure they never came into contact with them again. Certainly if someone was telling the sort of rubbish she comes out with I would take steps to end all contact. I'm not sure if she is being deliberatly nasty or just doesn't realise what she is saying, or understand how much they understand it.

Comments like 'if you spend all day on your computer you will get square eyes' is a) factually wrong and b) very insensitive when their daddy (her son) works as a computer programmer. I now have to reassure them that Daddy is safe at work.

Comments like 'if you didn't have children the house wouldn't need so much tidying up' don't really help either. Talk about how to make children feel insecure and unwanted. As much as daddy is their 'daddy' they are aware that he isn't their father. It's really not good to start planting ideas that perhaps his life would be better without them in it.

If it were anyone else they would be asked to leave, perhaps politely, but asked to go and not invited back. But she is the mother of my husband, and this is his home too. I don't want to ask him to choose - what a choice to have to make.

But my job is to protect and nurture my children, and here I am letting someone in the house who upsets and hurts them. She criticises our liefstyle, our home, our hobbies, what we eat, what we watch - it's very close to just outright criticising us. It's not healthy for them to be around, they don't like it and they are counting down the hours until she leaves.

To me, that is wrong in so many ways. We try teach them how to relate to people, polite behaviour, how to see the other person point of view, but with her that is just so hard. To be honest, I don't want them to see her poing of view and I don't like having such a negative role model around.

As I see it I now have 3 choices:
a) put up with it for the foreseeable future
b) ban her from the house
c) take the girls away when she visits

all have their problems, but I think c) is the favourite. It means uprooting the girls, but maybe we can at least go somewhere fun.