‘My MIL took food away from my 14mo and said she’s getting too fat … again’

“When my daughter did the grabby hands wanting to be held for comfort, my MIL grabbed them and held them down by my daughter’s side hissing, ‘Only good kids get cuddles.”’

Jennifer* and her husband Chris* welcomed their little boy Joseph* and baby girl Florence* 14 months ago - it’s their first time parenting, and they’re enjoying every second of it. 

One day while Chris was still working at the farm, his mother, Paula* stopped in unexpectedly for a visit.

Jennifer had finished work early that day and decided to pick her toddlers up from daycare, taking them home to enjoy their grandmother’s company. 

Now, Jennifer has nothing against her mother-in-law, but things started getting dicey when Paula began commenting on Florence’s weight. 

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Paula has been making comments about her granddaughter's weight. Picture: iStock

“You’re not getting your cracker back, you’re far too fat!”

“She has a protruding belly but she’s completely in the normal for weight and height for her age,” Jennifer told Reddit. “If anything, we are having problems getting her to take solids rather than her eating too much.”

While Jennifer was in the kitchen, she let her MIL watch over the kids. Soon, her son “stood up and toddled over” to his mum asking for a cracker. 

The American mother often gives her toddlers plain crackers to enjoy, whether they want to eat them or simply play with the food.

Soon after giving her son the cracker, her little daughter Florence did the same thing. After she handed her children the food, Paula asked why Jennifer gave Florence the snack. 

“I told her the twins love their cracker time and it had been a while since they had last had one,” she explained. 

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Jennifer continued cleaning the kitchen while her toddlers returned to Paula, who was sitting in the living room. 

Suddenly, the sound of Florence’s screams and cries filled the house, ricocheting off the walls and piercing the eardrums of everyone in the area. 

“I shout if everything’s OK and my MIL shouts back everything is fine,” Jennifer wrote, but she wasn’t convinced. When the crying didn't cease, she walked into the living room. 

Sitting on the floor was Joseph, “gnawing on the cracker happily.” Then Jennifer turned to the old playpen sitting at the front of the house; Chris and Jennifer planned to throw it away as the kids had outgrown it. 

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Sitting in the playpen was Florence, “holding the bars as tears stream down her face, which is all red as she cries at the top of her lungs.” 

Paula told her DIL the 14mo was being “disrespectful”, which confused Jennifer beyond comprehension. “She’s a baby and doesn’t know respect or disrespect,” she hit back at her MIL. 

“My daughter began reaching her hands up and doing grabby hands to signify she wanted me to pick her up,” Jennifer continued, leaning down to pick up her crying daughter.

But as she reached out, Paula “swatted my arms away” and caused the 14mo to “fall down on her butt” and make a “high pitch shriek” at the top of her lungs.  

Horrified, Jennifer demanded Puala tell her why she was punishing her toddler, to which Paula told her DIL the 14mo “needed to learn.” 

Perplexed, Jenifer asked her MIL what she meant. 

Then Paula made a horrifying comment: “She’s getting too fat, so I took [the cracker], she kept reaching for it back from me, and when I refused, she started to cry, so I put her in the pen.” 

It’s safe to say that Jennifer was disgusted by the comment, but Paula kept going, pulling the toddler’s shirt up and rubbing her stomach. “See, she’s f**king fat!” she screamed. 

Jennifer calmed her daughter down and walked alone into another room, closely monitoring her MIL’s movements with the baby cam. Florence would, once again, reach out for her cracker, only to have it snatched away by Paula and given to Joseph instead. 

“You’re not getting your cracker back, you’re far too fat,” Paula “hissed” in the toddler’s face, who was visibly upset.

“When my daughter did the grabby hands wanting to be held for comfort, my MIL grabbed them and held them down by my daughter’s side hissing, ‘Only good kids get cuddles.’”

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“I would have physically thrown her right out the front door”

The Reddit community were horrified by Paula’s actions, unable to comprehend what would cause a grown adult to be so aggressive to a toddler. 

“Keep her far away from your precious babies,” a concerned parent wrote.

“So maddening. And tell the rest of the enablers that you won't allow your children to be abused and that they should mind their own damn business.”

Others commended Jennifer for her patience with Paula, arguing they would not have been so kind. 

“I would have physically thrown her right out the front door,” someone said. 

“No one keeps me from my child,” said another. “She's almost 10, but I will swing first and ask questions later.”

“If I were you, she would never be seeing my children again,” wrote a third.

*Names have been changed

Originally published as ‘My MIL took food away from my 14mo and said she’s getting too fat … again’