“There is no need to count his mistakes every single time. He is a good boy just like his father. It is a small un itentional thing...children do such stuff all the time. Don’t create a scene about it. You go, do your work,” said my mother-in-law and sent me away. She gave this angry, vicious response to a situation that wasn’t hers to intervene in any case.

I stay in an apartment building that has a grocery store. Keyan had been asking me for a packet of chips and chocolate. Given that there are strict rules about children loitering around, and something that I endorse, I told him that I will get him both the things in the evening when I go down to buy groceries. He had gone to his grandmother, my mother-in-law, with the same request. She instructed me to listen to him and give him the money rightaway to which I had politely told her that he will need to wait till the evening when I would go and buy the things for him.

She had muttered something about me being a useless and insensitive mother, but I let it go. When I woke up in the evening, after a short afternoon nap, I caught Keyan watching TV with a bag of chips in his hands, a half eaten chocolate and a bottle of soft drink. I demanded where did he get the things from and the money to buy the stuff. 

After his initial lies were all caught out, he started to cry and told me that he had taken the money from my purse and sneaked out in the afternoon to the grocery shop.

I was furious at this for more than one reason--not only did he take money without asking me, but he went downstairs without telling me and especially during the pandemic; in his sneaking out he also did not wear his mask, possibly forgot rules of sanitization and social distancing at the shop, exposing himself to a huge risk and all of us along with it. 

It was during this furore that my mother-in-law stepped in and rather than explaining to Keyan his mistake, told me to get lost, that too in my child’s presence!!!

I have been a mother for 10 years of my life. And for correcting my child’s incorrect behaviour I have become an un-fit mother. I have no answer to why it is so easy for my in-laws to target me. Do they not see that all I was doing, was instil correct values in my child--tell him right from wrong, and tell him about keeping safe? As a mother, is it not my place to scold my child once in a while?

And as a grandparent is it okay for them to rebuke me before an errant child, thereby overriding my authority and making the child think the worse of me? Did she not understand the outcome of her actions...such repeated behaviour from her would only make Keyan think that it is okay to disobey mom since grandmother can override her authority?  

But my mother-in-law doesn’t understand this. Even if I tell Keyan to catch-up on his school work and be sincere she cuts me off saying, “I’ve taught my son well. So your husband is earning fine, right?” She indirectly pitches her voice to a sarcastic level of saying - Don’t teach me how to manage kids!! The world and education system has changed, but she wouldn’t even make an effort to understand why I scold Keyan when he procrastinates his homework. 

Last week, Keyan started making faces on the dinner table. I agree he is used to eating one meal of the week from a restaurant or at the restaurant, and this is the longest that he has been having homemade food at a stretch. I asked him to stop his tantrums and eat whatever the rest of the family is eating, but instead of backing me up and making Keyan eat his food, my in-laws told me off and went in to make something interesting for him. 

Yesterday, Kartik was on a zoom meeting and Keyan was screaming on top of his voice because he wanted to have chocolate shake. I asked him not to scream, but instead of being supportive his grandparents encouraged him and said, “He is just 10, it is fine for him to scream. Let him act his age.” 

Why can’t they just understand why I am doing all this? I mean, I understand you love your grandson but instead of correcting his behaviour they are just indulging him and supporting his tantrums.

Instead of making him a resilient boy who will come on top of every situation, they are making him a weak person who wants everything right away and when denied his small pleasures is miserable. But the world is a tough place to survive and it is not possible that Keyan will never ever hear a “no” from anyone. He will and he has to learn to take it in his stride.