A few months ago I gave birth to a son. He wasn’t my only child — I also have a seven-year-old daughter.
After the baby was born, my mother-in-law seemed to lose her mind — she came to our house every day, interfered in everything, taught me how I should lay the baby down, how to feed him, how to bathe him. In her opinion, I did everything wrong, and if I dared to object, she would cause a scandal, scream, get offended, and try to turn her son against me.
My daughter sometimes told me things that I didn’t take seriously back then.
— Mom, is Grandma feeding the baby the right way?
— Mom, she hugs him very hard… maybe it hurts him?
I was tired, irritated, sleeping two hours a night, and I didn’t pay attention to a child’s words.
But…
One morning I woke up to feed my son and, with horror, saw that he wasn’t breathing. His lips had turned blue, his skin was cold, his body lifeless.
I screamed, called an ambulance, but it was too late. The doctors gave the reason — sudden infant death syndrome. It happens, they said. It happens…
My mother-in-law arrived first. She cried louder than anyone, hugged my husband as if she had lost a child, not me. I stood nearby like a shadow, feeling nothing.
During the funeral, when the small white coffin had already been lowered into the ground, my mother-in-law suddenly lifted her head and loudly said:
— My boy is gone because he had a mother like her.
Her words hurt so much I nearly fell. I already blamed myself for everything, but to hear that from her… it was unbearable.
And at that moment my daughter, who was standing next to me, suddenly lifted her eyes and quietly said:
— Mom, can I tell them what Grandma did with baby brother?
Everyone present was horrified by my daughter’s words 😢😱 Continuation in the first comment 👇👇
A heavy silence fell. I knelt down next to my daughter, trying to understand what she was saying, but she didn’t look away and calmly continued:
— When you weren’t home, Grandma always came and took baby brother. She said he was too attached to you and that “real children should listen to their grandmother.” Sometimes she didn’t let him eat for a long time, saying that this would make him stronger. And if he cried, she pressed him tightly against herself and shook him hard, saying he was being fussy.
My daughter hesitated, then added:
— One time she covered his mouth with a pillow and said he had to “learn to be quiet.” I got scared and wanted to call you, but she said that if I said even one word — she would take me away and I would never see you again. After that baby brother coughed for a long time.
I felt my knees buckle. People around us stood pale, shocked, some even started to cry. My mother-in-law stood motionless, with a stone face, then suddenly screamed:
— She’s lying! She made it all up! She’s a child, why are you listening to her?!
But her voice was shaking, her hands trembling, her eyes flashing — and it was immediately clear that the truth had come out. My husband stood nearby, pale.
And I just stared at this woman who came to my house every day with her advice, with her lecturing, with her fake care — and now I understood that, possibly, it was she who took my son away from me.
