fam1820

I meant to add, to me, the worst part of what you’re describing is the “don’t tell mommy and daddy…” part. That will probably lessen or go away if you don’t enforce the boundary, but that one would be my hill to die on. I work in the court system and I hear that phrase a lot associated with far more nefarious behaviors. I tell my children no adults should ask you to keep secrets from them, and I would tell my mother in law that’s teaching the children a dynamic which normalizes them to accept it from child molesters, so stop.

For me, there’s almost no ability to set boundaries. My parents do not care what my rules are, and they will not (/cannot) adjust their behavior. I had a lot of frustrating talks with my husband about it, and we tried a number of things. What has unfortunately worked the best for us is to accept that having a relationship with their grandparents is worth the harms they come with- except for things which constitute what we consider to be unreasonable threats to their safety (examples of this were our hard line rules on no food in carseats, no blankets of any kind in crib, no cosleeping). When those kinds of rules are violated we have a serious talk about whether they can be alone with grandparents. Otherwise we know we have to readjust our kids to rules and boundaries when they return.
Unfortunately, my husband’s family serves as a stark reminder of the usefulness and beauty of letting things go. My husband’s family (mother, father, and three adult siblings who still live at home about 2.5 hours from us) have very little contact with our children. I wish my parents could honor boundaries, but unless they’re truly toxic people, to me the trade off is very worth it.