PuzzledHeart

Kids are the priority. No exceptions.

My father had suspicions that my nanny was emotionally unstable, but she was very good at hiding it when my parents were around. If your MIL is sneaking alcohol into her daily routine, you have no idea if she's being emotionally abusive towards your children. My nanny used needles so she couldn't leave marks, but that really wasn't the worst part of it. It was the walking on eggshells on a daily basis that really caused the most distress. My sister and I had no idea if she was going to love us or scream at us. My sister internalized it. I ended up cutting her out of my life completely, even though my family told me that I needed to forgive her (especially my dad.) . Now that my sister has fallen down the rabbit hole, my family has dropped that as an issue.

I'm a working mother, and I KNOW how stressful finding day care can be, but this is something you cannot mess around with. Your kids will most likely clam up if you ask if anything is wrong with MIL. My nanny threatened to give my parents a laundry list of everything that was bad about us if we said anything, and because we were very young we believed her. You do not want your kids to have the same experience.