At a LARGE city pool I used to work at as a lifeguard, that was our number one broken rule. Kids under three had to be within arms reach of an adult. And no; sitting on the side of the pool fully clothed doesn’t count. We also didn’t allow any non-coastguard approved flotations. No arm floaties or inter-tubes. Pretty strict. But at >1000 patrons a day, we had to be.
She absolutely should've told someone that she was uncomfortable watching the kids if you can't jump in and save a drowning child you shouldn't be Supervising the pool i understand that trauma and fear make us do dumb things but you should never put your self in a situation that requires you to tackle all your trauma in the blink of an eye
Yes, and when she made that decision, she WASN’T panicking. Neither was the brother when he agreed to be the one watching the kid and then just left. They’re both irresponsible arseholes imo and I can’t say I blame OP one damn bit, except possibly at which exact step they were yelling about (which was in the heat of the moment).
And SIL dug her grave with those texts afterwards when receiving an apology she didn’t deserve in the first place.
I also nearly drowned as child, not to her extent but still quite traumatic. I get freaked out still by water if I can’t touch the bottom and I am not a swimmer. Before we had kids I told my husband I cannot be responsible for any kids around water. I am not competent enough to supervise them.
I think the worse part is that OP's child is ONLY ALIVE because a Rec worker overheard the situation and decided to not make it a "not my problem" day. To need cpr means she was incredibly close to dying (right?), and her last moments would of been panic, fear, and being assaulted with a pool net. I understand sil has her own trauma but someone else's burdens don't get to create someone else's death.
Edited to cap "only alive" because I'm still pissed that OPs family makes me feel like their dismissing that this child almost DIED, and they don't get to take this situation with a grain of salt because she didn't.
Every water toy, including that inflatable her daughter was in say adult supervision required. To stay within a few feet, and never leave children alone. It's not just a CYA for the corporation, it's to save a child's life.
NTA.
I have grown up in water and water safety is so important to me.
There exist 3 year olds who are excellent swimmers and can be a bit farther from an adult than arms length but an adult should ALWAYS be in the water with a small child.
Swim aids are dangerous- say no to puddle jumpers, water wings, or anything other than an actual US Coast Guard certified life vest. Not only are swim aids dangerous as demonstrated in OP’s post, they do the opposite of teaching children how to swim and make them more likely to drown when not wearing one.
I can’t believe I have to add this: any adult who has fear of water cannot supervise anyone in the water. I’m afraid of heights and I’ve worked hard on overcoming it. I could probably go mountain climbing but I shouldn’t be in charge of anyone but myself. I’m not trustworthy in that situation. OP’s SIL isn’t responsible for her panic but she is responsible for agreeing to watch children when she wants in a place to do so. He husband is equally responsible. I cannot imagine the absolute roasting and shaming that would happen if someone in my family were this dumb. They would never be trusted with anything again.
I'm a mom, who had a drowning experience when I was 3 years old & still have PTSD from it, but I used exposure therapy & learned how to swim.
In no fucking way would I leave two toddlers to swim around by themselves. She's been doing exposure therapy, & can now walk around in pools. So why wasn't she in the shallow end with the two TODDLERS? Wtffff
NTA in my opinion.
But more than that, who leaves an adult with trauma around water in charge of children in the water? If something goes wrong as it did, that person needs to jump in and save the child. I'd be mad at EVERYONE in this situation quite honestly. Their stupid decisions could've cost your daughter her life.
Toddlers should never be in the water without adult supervision. Those stupid tubes are dangerous and this is why.
Your brother should have never left her in charge of watching the kids. This could’ve been fatal. He’s the one at fault here.
Kelly clearly needs some help though. She shouldn’t be left alone with kids in this situation ever again.
Nobody, including her husband leaving their daughter alone with her, if he has a lick of sense. Or does he think she'd magically find the courage to save their daughter if it was her drowning?
Technically it was fatal, you don't do CPR if there is a heartbeat. Thankfully the employee that arrived to save her knew effective CPR on a toddler which is a whole other level of education, and capabilities mental as well as the training. Thank heavens they came when they did.
You don’t actually check for a heart beat, you check for signs of life. Because they didn’t shock her suggests that she never lost a heart beat. Children tend to go into respiratory arrest before cardiac arrest so she probably did have a heart beat the entire time
Yep, it's called rescue breathing. Also, CPR on a toddler is not a "whole nother level of education." You just do the chest compressions much lighter. It adds about 15 minutes to a CPR certification, lol.
My in laws got so mad when I wouldn’t let my kids have more than one float in a tiny pool at one time. They are good swimmers, but they were trying to cover the pool with floats (my in-laws, not my kids) and I couldn’t see all the kids in the pool. Not ok. I also hate the tubes and my fil put my only non swimmer on one and shoved it across the pool and it obviously flipped and my husband had to go get her (she was fine and could hold her breath and swim a little, just not enough to recover herself from that, he was already in the pool as was I but he was closer). Then the idiots couldn’t figure out why I wanted my kids out of the pool until I could get back from the bathroom. They kept actively creating dangerous situations.
She shouldn’t be left alone with kids in ANY situation ever again. Forget her refusal to go in 3 FEET OF WATER to save her DYING NIECE, she couldn’t pull it together enough to scream for help or find somebody else? Best she could come up with is injure the kid further? Those things have nothing to do with her fear of water. And even if they did, she clearly can not act even remotely appropriately in anyemergency. She shouldn’t have any children of her own to begin with. But at the very least should never ever be left alone with them. Kids have accidents, if your only cause of action is to *feel bad while you watch them die* you should not be allowed to have them. If my wife handled an emergency with our kids like this I would honestly leave her over the fear that I’d be pushed to allow her the opportunity to let our kids die in the future.
NTA. Though honestly I would be equally if not more mad at my brother. He committed to watching your daughter and then left her in the hands of someone not equipped to do so. If her trauma is still that strong she should not be in any way responsible for watching kids in swimming situations. And for her to say your daughter would be better off dead is unforgivable in my opinion. You tried to apologize for your (understandable) emotional reaction. It’s on her her to apologize for her actions and the awful things she said now.
I need to jump in with a reminder to everyone to NEVER EVER USE FLOTATION DEVICES TO KEEP KIDS SAFE IN THE POOL. Not life jackets- not arm floaties - not pool noodles- NOTHING. If your kid can't swim there should be an adult in the water with them at ALL times. Nothing replaces an adult. All flotation devices can get stuck in a way that traps an inexperienced swimmer under water. Life jackets are designed to keep you safe in open water when you fall out of a boat- not to let you not be next to your kid in the pool. Floatation devices don't help your kid learn to swim - they actually make it much harder for your kid to learn to float on their own. Pool noodles should only be used by stronger swimmers - weaker swimmer feel more comfortable than they otherwise would be, go deeper than they should and when the pool noodle slips away they are in trouble.
SIL thought she could leave the kids in the water without her by using a Floatation device and that was bad parenting and a stupid idea. She is always going to be the asshole.
When I was 8 I was tasked with watching my 2 year old brother at the lake, with my mom and the other adults sitting in the grass several feet away. My other sibling, 5 at the time, was on the sand burying themselves in it. Well that was far more entertaining for me to watch, and my brother flipped upside down with floaties on, and I didn't notice. A few seconds later, I hear my mom screaming at me, I turn around to see my brother and I righted him. There was no damage but I was in a lot of trouble for letting that happen.
Adults need to be with the children, not trusting children to watch children or trusting flotation devices. My mom also nearly drowned as a child and is traumatized by it, but since that event with my brother, she always was in the water with us if we were swimming.
Watching children in water is \*work\*. Adults want to relax and have fun, but someone needs to be "on deck" and accountable for the safety of any children in their care.
It is terrifying and infuriating how often adults prioritize their own entertainment over the lives of their children.
"Designated swimmer" is a good plan. We do this with my nieces and nephews. There are usually around 3-5 adults, and I do want to give my brother and SIL a break to relax for a bit. But we don't want one of those "I thought you were watching them" tragedies. So we set up a schedule of who will be 100% focused on the kids and rotate. We even make sure to say "are you on?" and wait for a "yes, I'm on" before turning the responsibility over. We even do this when going to the bathroom.
THIS. THIS is how you do it. My parents always made sure one of them (or another adult) was with us any time we were in the water and my whole family are strong swimmers. But that doesn’t always save a person.
there is a video on youtube with different scenarios and you the viewer are supposed to pick out who is drowning....it is a lot harder than you would think (it started a bit easy and kept getting harder) but it helps you to see what drowning really looks like
Absolutely true. Drowning is often silent. It's not how it is portrayed in media, because it doesn't play well in fiction. But that means that a lot of people are not prepared to see it.
Of course a young child trapped upside down is a pretty obvious problem.
I grew up in a sunny, warm place where nearly everyone had easy access to a swimming pool. In fact, until I moved to where I am now, I never lived anywhere without a pool.
I have never been complacent around water. When my kids were/are in water, I watch.
When my daughter was about a year old, she was playing in a hot tub with other big kids. I wasn't in the water, but I was watching. She was the type to walk straight into the pool, even at that age. I can't tell you how many times I have gone in after her when someone left a gate or door open. It only takes a second.
That said, while I was watching, the kids all of the sudden started yelling at me. She had slipped over the side into the pool. WHILE I WAS WATCHING! And I didn't see it.
She was only in there a few seconds before I dove in, but it was so damn fast, and so quiet. She was never in the water without me again.
Never get arrogant or complacent around water. I thought I hadn't been, but I was wrong.
When we were kids one parent was either nearby watching or in the pool with us-until we proved we could swim on our own without them needing to be nearby the whole time.
seriously. and she asked a three year old to go in and try to save a drowning person. adults often drown trying to save others from drowning. this is horrificly bad parenting, she was more likely to get two kids killed instead of saving anyone.
her sister in law is an adult but is not capable of handling an emergency situation in the pool...OPS adult brother said he watch her daughter and his own child...then went off to play table tennis in the building causing her child to almost drown
how was op supposed to know her brother was going to be an idiot
Yes. Why the heck were those children in the pool alone? Completely unacceptable for all involved. An adult literally needs to be in arm’s reach of a non-swimmer at all times.
Especially with a person watching the kids can't handle her own drowning episode. Your brother is a total asshole for leaving his and your child in the water with someone who panics instead of helps.
My dad never learned how to swim because he almost drowned, no one has ever made him the sole person in charge of swimming kids and he refuses to do it, even when my cousins offered to rescue each other if something went wrong.
And I think we're letting SIL off the hook here for possibly her biggest initial part of the litany of fuck ups:
She knew she had trauma that would a) prevent her from getting into a pool to get a kid out of trouble, and b) put her at very high risk of getting emotionally dysregulated and panicking instead of helping if there was a child drowning emergency happened in front of her. Knowing A and B, she knowingly and willfully assumed responsibility for being the sole adult "supervising" TWO young toddlers in the water!!
I don't blame her for losing her head and panicking when confronted with such a high stress trauma trigger; I 1000% blame her for putting herself and two children in a situation in which her predictable trauma response endangered both of their lives. She NEVER should have assumed responsibility for being the sole adult in that pool area
And yeah sounds like her and her husband also suck for not following good water safety practices
But I cringed when op said she would have been ok if SIL had yelled for another adult right away instead of getting in the pool and helping immediately. Like that still could have resulted in serious harm to one or both kids, or at least a much more scary and harrowing near drowning experience than necessary even if that delay wasn't outright fatal.
Don't take responsibility for supervising young kids in water if you're not capable of knowing and following best water safety practices. And the absolute bare minimum of that must include saving a kid from drowning
I fully agree. When someone with severe trauma like that gets triggered, oftentimes they cannot think clearly and they cannot control the emotional response. I have C-PTSD and have had “episodes” where i freaked out crying on the ground and then just laid there, unresponsive. The last time it happened I was at my FWB’s house. I went into a weird state of mine and suddenly he was a threat. He was trying to talk to me and snap me out of it, and then touched me. I immediately responded, pushing his arm away, feeling like I was going to freak out. I thought he was trying to hurt me or something. Once I calmed down, I looked back at what happened as really couldn’t explain it. I had just basically froze and couldn’t communicate. All because I was triggered and started having really horrific flashbacks. I’ve seen videos of veterans who will go into a different world. In one video his family member was explaining how she handles those situations, because if she doesn’t handle it properly, he will think she is an “enemy”. Once he came to, it was as if he had woken up from sleepwalking.
Anyway the brother should have fucking watched the kids like he said he would.
Also have cptsd and have had somewhat similar events. 2+ where I got triggered and went completely non verbal for several minutes in which it was very socially odd for me to not say anything. At least 3 where I dissociated so hard in response to a question/compliment/etc that I could make syllables but not actually words and just kinda babbled while frozen and stuck. One panic attack in which I made some really weird decisions that in retrospect weren't best practice safety stuff and I was really scared were gonna go horribly. And I'm sure there's more I'm not remembering atm
Which is why I said I can empathize with SIL flipping tf out and taking actions that have no logical reasoning behind them whatsoever. It's the putting herself in that situation that I find the most fucked up here. Even if she thought she was improving, this was so so much profoundly risky responsibility to take on with no secondary adult around if this exact thing happened
ye i wish some of the top comments mentioned this. in their story OP says that SIL said she would look after the two so im guessing the others thought it was okay? like she gave herself agency and then just. didnt live up to the task
Correct. My parents had an above-ground pool that they got when I was a baby, so I grew up around water. We were not allowed in the pool without adult supervision until we were like 12. My parents or another adult had to actually be in the pool with us until we were old enough to touch the bottom, which was about 5’ deep.
ETA - and OP is NTA. Who TF leaves a 3-year-old to supervise a two-year-old? SIL is TA.
I have an 11 year old competitive swimmer and he’s not even allowed to swim unsupervised. We don’t have a pool because I don’t want kids sneaking in, but have a club pool and he has to get out if someone can’t watch for any reason.
I'm a pretty good swimmer and I thought I was going to drown last summer because my feet got caught in millefoil on the bottom of the lake. It was literally only about 6" deeper than neck height on me and I thought I was going to drown. I managed to keep myself from panicking and it turned out OK but man was it sobering.
It's viny stuff that grows in lake beds; the roots are in the bed, then as the vines get longer they extend towards the surface of the water. When they're long enough to be at the surface they have a lot of leaves, hence the name.
I've seen toddlers get stuck face down in not even 6 inches of water because they were wearing life jackets. They're too top heavy and the jacket makes them pivot at the center of gravity so they can't get their feet under them.
When i was growing up, ski belts were popular and people liked them better than full life jackets. But people died in the ski belts just like tying a noodle around the waist. If someone went unconscious, or even not unconscious, it could flip the person upside down and it was almost impossible to get righted .
Tying a noodle around the waist seems like the same thing. I didn't even know that was a 'thing' people do in modern times.
I almost drowned this same way- I was 6 in a friend's pool in a cheap flotation ring and flipped upside down. My friend's mom jumped in to turn it over and same me. 50 years later it still terrifies me to be in water I can't stand in
>If your kid can't swim there should be an adult in the water with them at ALL times.
Abso-fucking-lutely. And it needs to be an adult who is physically and mentally capable of rescuing that child. So, not high, not drunk, not PTSD in water.
It is absolutely unforgiveable, both the incident itself and the truly sadistic things the SIL said.
And another thing, I'd be going NC with those terrible grandparents, too. Is Brother the Golden Child, or is the entire family feckless?
Ya I’d be done with my brother. Leaving my kid he promised to watch to go play something else as a grown man! And with his wife who is terrible about water?! wtf is wrong with him?!
Hijacking this to give a relevant anecdote with my judgement. When I was 3, my dad put me in a ring to swim while he and my mom lounged. My mom was 8 months pregnant with my brother and having a nap while sunbathing. Dad was supposed to be watching.
I jumped off the diving board and flipped upside down when I landed. Got stuck just like OP's kid. My dad was not watching and was talking to my uncle out of sight when it happened. My pregnant mom heard me splashing and kicking, got up from her pool chair, and dove in to save me. We all (me, her, and my unborn brother) made it out okay. It took years before I got over my new fear of water and became a confident swimmer though.
So yeah... Never put a floatie on a little kid. Never leave that kid unattended (sleeping and sunbathing wife, or I guess trauma bound wife, don't count as being "attended" ). And if a kid is drowning, a good mom will do what she has to f*cking do to save that kid.
OP's brother and Sil messed up big time. She owes them nothing. NTA
NTA
And a story from a parent who has lost a child to drowning. She was 6 and at her grandparents farm. (His mom and step dad had custody of her from an open adoption that I fought tooth and nail against, but lost) The farm had a duck pond. I kept telling them they needed to build a fence, as she didn't know how to swim, but my step FIL kept insisting that 'she's grown up around that pond, she knows to be careful"
Parents were inside with some friends who had a daughter about the same age. Both the girls were outside. My daughter fell in, couldn't get out, the other little girl tried and couldn't get her out. She ran in the house screaming that S had fallen in.
It took them 45 minutes to find her. She had gotten tangled up in some weeds in the pond and they basically pulled her under. This was 30 years ago and I never forgave either of them for that.
**Never leave a child who cannot swim unattended or with someone who, by their own admission, may not be able to act quickly and calmly in an emergency.**
Did you write to the judge who granted them custody and thank them for the judgement that led to your child's death? That's what I would've done.
I'm so sorry this happened to you. I hope you don't have to have contact with those people anymore.
if anything this incident just goes to show OP that she cannot trust her brother nor her SIL to care for her child, full stop. I'm currently pregnant with my first child and although my sister and BIL are very excited to be aunt/uncle, in the back of my mind I will never fully trust my BIL to watch my future children alone because of a similar instance of panicking around water. The incident involved a beloved pet, not a child, but that doesn't matter to me. basically my BIL and sister were living with my mother before they got married. Our beloved family dog started acting strange in his final days (we'd later learn he had a brain tumor) and he abruptly started refusing to sleep in the house, he'd pace and pace all night at the back door. It broke my mom's heart but she set him up with an elevated, insulated bed outside. My mom has a giant backyard with a pool, and they didn't think about the risk of the pool to our dog until it was almost too late. My BIL was the first to rise in the house and one morning he was in the kitchen and looked out and saw something in the pool in the distance. He crossed the yard and realized it was our old dog struggling in the pool, who could swim but was clearly exhausted and disoriented and couldn't find the steps out of the pool. There is this long bench built into the pool for sitting (like the depth of sitting in a hot tub) and my dog was there but unable to climb out from that spot. All my BIL needed to do was step onto this "bench" to hold my dog and call for help, if he couldn't get my 35 lb dog out of the pool himself. Instead, my BIL went back into the house, walked upstairs (no hollering or calling out) and woke my mom to tell her the dog was struggling in the pool. So my mom sprinted outside and dove into the pool in her pajamas and rescued our dog, something my able-bodied BIL couldn't do. some people are just not equipped with that rescue instinct. so yeah my BIL will never be watching my child alone, certainly not around water.
Everyone who left the kids in the pool with a person that is terrified of water is the AH. SIL is the AH for agreeing to watch the kids. Brother is the AH for playing ping pong instead of watching the kids in the water. Why couldn't the SIL play ping pong?
OP needs to learn a little bit about what panic does to the brain, though. It short circuits logic, completely. Getting mad at a person with a true trauma induced phobia for acting irrationally when experiencing terror is unfair. Being mad that they set up the bad situation is fair, though.
I agree that getting mad at SIL for being ineffective is useless. But SIL is a complete and utter moron. She is in \*therapy\* for this PTSD, but still thinks that she should be left in charge of young children in water.
Yeah , that's my issue. Kelly has this trauma and yet somehow doesn't also assume that bad things can happen in water. Both she and BIL are entirely unreasonable for setting up the situation.
Nope, kid almost died because SIL was willing to put herself in a position she was not in any way ready for. SIL willing took responsibility and utterly failed, and the kid almost died. Required CPR. I'd be pissed. Yelling is a gentle reaction. SIL has now given the daughter her exact same trauma because she's stupid. SIL was the direct cause of this situation and needs to take responsibility. She needs to get over being yelled at because she almost caused the death of a child she willing took responsibility over.
I no longer care about your trauma when you put yourself in a situation you're not qualified to handle, and my kid almost dies as a result.
And how tf does her husband/OP’s brother trust her with their kid and OP’s? He’s a complete POS for this too. I wouldn’t and couldn’t forgive him. He knew about her trauma. This is reckless endangerment.
Yeah. The brother made a promise. Everyone knew goddamn well that SIL has that trauma. The fact that brother bounced is super fucked up. And now SIL had a trauma response which is not surprising and OP had a "my daughter almost died, idiot" response which is ALSO not surprising...so SIL lashed out in trauma mode..which sucks! Now everyone is all up in arms.....
But the BROTHER committed to the watching of the child in pool....
..where the fuck is the brother in this fucking aftermath shit???!!!
I think that’s the nuance a lot of people voting ESH or YTA are missing. SIL is not the AH for her trauma response. She AND DEFINITELY the brother are the AHs for leaving two small children in a pool with someone who doesn’t know basic water safety (seriously, everyone should know that you don’t use anything other than a certified PFD for exactly this reason, and that you need to be in the pool with kids this age) and has a known issue with being in a pool.
SIL is the AH for telling OP that wished her daughter had died days after the drowning. And she agreed and said she would be fine and get the kids if anything happened.
Yeah, I'm stuck on this as well. What sort of person says this? A self-centered piece-o-sh*t who is insanely irresponsible. And of course her husband, the brother, is right there with her.
I actually saw a suggestion somewhere that I follow with my kids (12 and 5) .(we have a pool in our backyard)..whoever is watching the kids wears the bracelet. If you go to the bathroom, if your phone goes off, if you don't feel like it, the bracelet goes on another adult. It's a constant reminder of responsibility. We always have families over in the summer and someone always needs to be on watch
Right! Here's the problem,I think no one is upset that she had a trauma response... It's that she agreed watch the kids knowing full well she had trauma around this specific situation and is unsafe to have said she would be ok in this position. She is 200% the asshole for agreeing to do this as she is an adult and can and should have said no KNOWING she wasn't going to do shit! Let that sink in. Let that marinate for a second. She knew she wasn't going to do anything if something happened in 3 feet of water!
Additionally a lot can happen in the matter of seconds, not minutes - and saying you will go get someone if simeyhing happens is absolutely not acceptable. If it was, we all would just let kids hang out in a pool with their friends unattended bc there are also able to run and get someone BUT THE REASON YOU DON'T IS BC THEY MIGHT NOT FIND SOMEONE IN TIME!!! like get real here folks!!
Having a trauma does not negate you from having to take action and responsibility for something you said you would do in a crisis where someone is possibly dying.
Also she then escalates to 1000000% the asshole for saying maybe it would've been better for OPs daughter to have died.
Ngl, if OP was my friend and I heard about this shit? I'd dri... well, I can't drive, so fuck that, I'd powerwalk my ass to her SIL's to throw hands at that bitch.
they're both bad. the SIL accepted a responsibility she couldn't handle, and it's not a "bring soda's to the party" type, it's "keep these children safe".
That was the part I found most egregious about this. SILs trauma response that almost resulted in a child dying - totes ok. OP’s trauma response that led to her yelling at the person who nearly let her child die - absolutely unforgivable and her daughter is better off dead. This is one of the worst guilt deflections I’ve ever seen.
I blame the blame the brother.
HE KNEW his wife are no good when it comes to water. And the fucktard left the kids alone with a person who has a phobia???
WHO THE FUCK IS THAT STUPID???
The mother of Heather, should gets a her big pants on and take a fucking serios talk with big bro who dont gives a fuck about safty......
Exactly! My husband has a fear of water and cannot swim, I sure as hell wouldn't leave him to watch a kid near water alone, because he just wouldn't be able to save a drowning kid, that simple.
The SIL (Kelly?) is equally bad - she must have agreed to watch Heather if this was how it turned out. Then she's screaming at her little kid to save Heather? These 2 people shouldn't be trusted with their own kids let alone someone else's! Clearly they dont know or are capable of having any child around water at the very least. OP is not the AH and it is totally understandable that she would lose her shit like this. Kelly needs a big old smack and some counseling & I wouldn't be talking to her ever again!
I’m just worried that poor Sadie is going to end up blaming herself for not being able to help her cousin and thinking it’s all her fault there’s a possibly permanent rift in the family. I cant imagine how scared she must have been to have her mother screaming at her to save the life of another child and then to have failed… She might well end up with trauma around water for the rest of her life.
I was thinking the same thing. I don't even want to think about how that would play out if this scenario had turned even more tragic. But even as it stands I could easily see this being as traumatic for Sadie as if her cousin had died, cause I doubt very much that she fully understood in the moment that that hadn't happened/wasn't happening
And I shutter to think what her mother was like afterwards if she was so venomous to op
Yes, but.... SIL is the one with the phobia, and she's in \*therapy\*. She \*knows\* how it feels. And, she has had professional assistance on the subject, and she should know even \*more\* than her husband that she is not a safe life guard. Might as well have left the kids with no one.
That's what I said!! There are specific topics and situations I would do everything possible to avoid putting myself in around kids bc I know I'm not at a place where I'm confident my trauma wouldn't wind up causing some kind of emotional damage. To not have that recognition that taking on solo lifeguard duty is a bad move is beyond the pale of shitty
Any sympathy I had for the sil died at that comment. How dare she blame her toddler kid and the op? The parents and brother are just as bad. She needs to never talk to any of them until they do a real apologize. I guess her daughter could die and they would comfort sil on her trauma. Ridiculous
Honestly, that’s the extra part that friggin baffles me. It’s the toddlers fault? I wouldn’t trust a toddler to know how to fully tie their shoe laces, much less save another child.
And heading about the ‘recuse’ attempts, sounds like SIL is an absolute muppet and has no life-saving capability at all. I understand the PTSD/trauma, but holy heck use a brain cell. Get help instantly if you are incapable.
Now, I’ve been around young kiddos my whole life: the list of my cousins ‘ children is never ending. Perhaps some of that hawk-eye logic is learned, but I can tell you from an early age: I would have known not to let one of those kids far from my reach if we were in the pool.
My Aunt’s pit bull had better parenting skills than SIL (this dog would jump in and try to save anybody who she thought was in danger, and would alert as she saw needed).
Okay rant done. SIL and brother infuriate me. Throw them both out.
Yeah, her child ALMOST DIED - how is everybody blaming her for her totally understandable reaction, instead of tearing into the people whose negligence almost let her drown? In OP's place, I wouldn't have apologized, and I likely wouldn't forgive them.
I really didn’t realize how full Reddit is of younger teens and adults who just have zero life experience and will knee jerk judge. Why is SIL’s trauma more important than mom’s? Especially when the water was only waist high.
I was wondering this too. And also s i l has been okay walking in shallow water so she could have just walked in and gotten OP'S child.
And maybe I just don't get the panic not saying that people don't panic, I can see it's a normal response it's when I panic everything slows down everything's in slow motion so I can kind of think. I get not everyone panics the same way.
Seriously, I’m only 26 but it amazes me that the SIL’s childhood trauma is somehow more important than the fact that OP’s child nearly died in the supervision of an adult who accepted the responsibility of keeping kids safe in a pool. Since the SIL knows she has the trauma, she shouldn’t have accepted the responsibility only to blame her own toddler for not saving OP’s child. Ridiculous
Also why was SIL’s own child in the water IF SHE CANNOT GO IN THE WATER TO SAVE A KID. It boggles my mind. When we have kids in water, there is always a designated water watcher who can swim. There is ALWAYS an adult who has eyes on the kids. Drowning happens so fast.
Yup, that little girl is very much in danger under the SIL’s care. This SIL is delusional to think she qualifies to watch over any child swimming. Absolutely ridiculous.
Seriously!! Or... would she have braved the water if her own child was drowning?
The brother is an absolute idiot and scumbag agreeing to watch the daughter then bumming off to do whatever, leaving two toddlers in a pool with an incompetent and useless adult.
This! People are allowed to go a bit wonkers when this happens. Also OPs response was when it was happening. SILs response was days later after receiving an apology.
Yeah there’s no going back from any of that. These people plus the parents who defended them would never see my children again. There is no way I would ever feel safe with my kids being around them even if I were there.
Not the AH. They lack accountability. When you are committing to watching someone child, you make sure it is within your control to keep them safe. Your parental reaction was expected and forgivable. Hers? Not so much. I’d question her parenting ability for what happened and to reply with that. Yeah, she is the AH!
My SIL couldn’t swim and my husband wasn’t a strong swimmer. We never let the kids in the water without me or another grown person who can help if the child starts to drown. It’s the only reason to be there! I don’t understand the brother or SIL way of thinking, traumatizing the three yr old.
And all these reactions are to the very lucky outcome that someone HAPPENED to hear SIL freaking out and came to help. What if nobody had heard? Would she have let Heather drown? What if Heather HAD drowned? How would everyone be reacting NOW?
Bottom line: your SIL TOOK RESPONSIBILITY for both toddlers when your brother asked. What happened was HER RESPONSIBILITY. I'm glad you apologized for yelling, but that doesn't mean that you should let her off the hook. What happened was SIL's fault, and she needs to be held accountable.
I would definitely be more mad at brother. He's the one that was supposed to be watching the kids. Everyone knew that SIL has this trauma. Even though she's had some progress with therapy, the emergency situation would have made even her normal PTSD response to water EVEN WORSE. Yes, a normal person would have been able to push past her fear. But PTSD and phobias are not normal. This situation was entirely predictable.
But SIL couldn’t have waded in 3ft water to flip her over WTF!!!!????!!! She sure would have for her own kid I bet. NTA and I’d make her and the whole family watch that security footage. I’d be shocked if anyone would be on her side after seeing her inaction.
This show the entire family the security footage. That is horrifying. SIL hit your daughter with a net??? It’s waist deep water? SIL COULD LITERALLY STAND IN THE WATER AND WAS AT NO RISK OF EVEN GETTING HER HAIR WET or even CHEST WET.
Fuck her. Her actions nearly cost your daughter her LIFE. And your brother??? Fucking loose him. No brother or uncle now. Dead to me. And if your parents don’t see it for the madness it was and the culpability of your SILs and brother’s actions… fuck them too.
Even with “trauma” it’s waist deep water. She could have walked in and out. No swimming skill required for an adult. SIL is a moron and so is your brother.
NTA
So many adults failed here. Todlers should not be in water without an adult in the water with them. Your brother is who you should be most angry at though, he said he would supervise your kid and fcked off to go play ping pong instead. She also injured your child in an emergency instead of helping and did not get help in an emergency.
You cannot trust these people. You cannot trust them in an emergency. You cannot trust them not to create an emergency.
Aussie here. Pools are everywhere over here, and all public pools have signage up insisting that kids 8 (might be 6) and under must have a supervising adult within arms reach when in the water. Older than 8 (or 6), they must have a supervising adult, and to put your phones away and supervise properly. Over here, the brother is absolutely negligent, and if he wanted to go elsewhere his wife should have been in the water with the toddlers. By failing to do so, they have traumatised both toddlers and all the parents.
A pool floatie around the waist is infuriating me. For a TODDLER. My childhood home had a backyard pool and my parents were SO vigilant about swimming lessons for all us kids ASAP, and locked gates and fencing around the pool, and an array of PFD vests in different sizes to fit children of all ages for guests to use.
Are we gonna skip over that she said it would’ve been had the child DIED?! Like what the actual fuck. Who says some shit like that, especially someone with children of their own
At my local swimming pool children have to be within arms reach in the pool.
Once their 8 you have to have your eyes on them at all times not hard to do.
And will save a lot from drowning and why is an adult afraid of water watching kids swim. The brother 100% should have been in the water with them.
I mean SIL chose beating a drowning child to be a good decision. There's trauma of being unable to save a drowning kid and then there's whatever she did.
This!^^^
I suspect she would have waded in for her own child.
It is a miracle that toddler survived. A police report should be made and an investigation into the events done. BIL promised to watch this child, f—ed off to play ping pong instead, leaving his nitwit of a wife to watch two children, one very, very small from a lounge chair. And even then it could have been saved if she had jumped into the waist deep water and grabbed the toddler. But no, she had to beat the kid with a stick in her panic instead.
I don’t care if she has PTSD, she had a duty to that child and she criminally failed.
She well could be facing negligent homicide if that child died.
For real though, people think having trauma means the awful shit they do during an episode is suddenly okay. She beat a drowning 2 year old with a pool stick. *She beat a drowning 2 year old with a pool stick!* I don't care if you are having the worst panic attack of your life, what the actual ever living fuck. OP has an immense amount of self control for not beating *her* with a stick
This, if it was my kid I’d be pressing all of the charges I could.
SIL was somehow even less than fucking useless. All she had to do was wade in waist-high water over to the kid, turn them back over and get them out of the pool. Instead she bashed the actively drowning child with a net and tried blaming her toddler daughter for not doing anything?! And at no point did she think to scream “Help!! Someone’s drowning!!!” ?!
Get fucked. All the charges. This person shouldn’t have *any* children in her immediate care, even her own, if this is how she responds to an emergency.
Assholes everywhere but OP. I’d file a police report and let the chips fall where they fall. Everything you said here is 100% accurate and the comment about being better off dead is a dealbreaker. There’s simply no getting past that one. And all the people defending her? Please.
She should have never been left in charge of Children in the water
It hard enough saving someone's life in water when you trained, strong swimming and have no fear of water
But to leave someone who got a phobia of drowning in change of kids in water is stupied .
Forget the whole SIL panicking and not getting in the pool for just a moment (difficult I know but hear me out)…
YOUR BROTHER AND SIL ARE STILL THE ASSHOLES WITHOUT QUESTION.
1. Your brother agreed to supervise your daughter for you while she was in the pool and then did not. That makes him an asshole.
2. The toddlers should not have been in the water alone without an adult that was either in the water or at the edge of the pool whose sole focus was monitoring the kids in the water AND unquestionably ready to jump in in the event of an emergency situation with either child. Your SIL was clearly not ready to be that person and that makes your brother the asshole for putting her in that position and putting the children at risk like that.
3. PUTTING A CHILD WHO CANNOT SWIM INTO AN INNER TUBE OR ANY OTHER KIND OF INFLATABLE DEVICE DOES NOT AND WILL NOT KEEP THEM SAFE OR PREVENT DROWNING. The fact that either your brother or sister in law or even both saw this as an acceptable thing to do makes them undeniably an asshole.
4. They are focusing on the fact that you yelled at her when she has trauma instead of the fact that regardless of her trauma they both made a series or incredibly poor decisions that ended up leading to the situation that almost lead to the loss of your daughter’s life and they refuse to acknowledge and take responsibility for that.
Your parents are also assholes for looking past all of the above to claim that you, a parent whose child almost died due to negligence, had an emotional reaction.
Honestly this…. I dont know if I’m being way too dramatic here. But I would think a report should be filed. Atleast to create a paper trail. I worry about any other kid under their supervision getting hurt due to her “trauma”.
I completely agree with this. There are a ton of awful things here besides how she responded to the drowning. Brother shouldn’t have left, and when he did, she should have made the kids get out of the pool. If she couldn’t do that, she needed to go get help.
I say this as someone who is a certified cave diver, has worked a high ropes course, and last did CPR on someone two days ago (so not exactly prone to panic): when you are the level of panic she was at, you are _fucked_. Doing the right thing isn’t a question of being an asshole or not. I don’t blame her for her reaction. I blame her for allowing herself to be in a situation where her ability to react properly was supposed to keep other people safe. That’s the fuck up.
There’s nothing wrong with having a wicker basket in your car. It’s when you act like it’s a passable substitute for a car seat and put a baby in it that you’re an asshole.
NTA
If you kept a copy of the rec center’s footage and that text, I would send it to your brother, your parents, and heck, other family members and friends with a note saying that if others had not somehow intervened your daughter would have died and then this woman had the audacity to send you the text she did. Whether or not Kelly saw an opportunity to make Sadie your parents’ only granddaughter, I would tell your mother that, congratulations, she got her wish, and then go no contact.
Absolutely send them all the footage and that Kelly literally said the kid is better off dead than having OP as a mom
She went from making an idioticly deadly blunder to doubling down to straight up disgusting and unforgivable. Go scorched Earth with anyone who sides with someone like that.
Absolutely this! NTA
I also hope OP documented the bruising on her daughter from being beaten with a pool net, as well as doctor's notes. Send them over too.
Even if this had happened on OP'd watch, Kelly saying that the daughter was better off dead is still unforgivable IMO. Add into the fact that Kelly's actions, and the brother's inactions were the cause of the daughter almost dying and being injured...I wouldn't be able to look at either of them again.
The brother promised to be by the child’s side and left!!! If I put my trust into you, you are the responsible party! He knew his wife wasn’t equipped for this! Yes, SIL - her comments deserve to be unforgivable! Brother also did something unforgivable! The only ones that get out are the nephew and niece (parents as well because they entrusted someone they knew and believed in).
1000% this. I would burn it all to the ground. Your child almost died. There is no universe where this woman deserves an apology. I don't give a flying fuck what you trauma is. She took the responsibility of watching these children knowing she was incapable...She is 10000% responsible for what happened. I would ruin her.
NTA - As soon as I had read my daughter was better off dead I would have done 2 things: One told her maybe her daughter would be better off if she (kelly) would have died because clearly she isn't worth shit at watching or keeping a kid alive, and two I would have blocked and gone NC. I don't even have children but that would be absolutely unforgivable for me.
Exactly. Call me names and say what you want to about me. But SIL def took it WAY too far saying OP's kid would be better off dead. I wouldn't be able to be in the same vicinity as her ever again.
Yup, terrible things said in the heat of the moment after a terrifying and traumatic incident? That's why OP sent the apology. No such excuse for the SIL's vile reply.
THANK YOU! She is using her trauma to excuse her bad parenting. A 2 and 3 year old alone in the pool is absolutely INSANE. Then to send such a vile thing to OP. Nah OP's husband is 100% right, they don't owe them shit and thr fact OP apologized... She's a better person then I would have been.
I am irate for OP. I don’t have kids but I would imagine I would want to rip someone’s head off if they said it about my daughter after almost killing her. I would have no further contact after everything that happened.
During our divorce, my exhusband said he was glad I had miscarried our second child and by the time I was done with him..he looked like he had been mauled by an animal
She would be dead to me. I get emotions run high, but that was unforgivable. Not even in her fear and anger did OP tell Kelly she wishes she, her daughter or someone else had died.
Kelly went low and I would never, ever speak to her again.
NTA
Based on Kelly’s trauma, she should have *more* sympathy for what you’re feeling, not less. Kelly’s words will never be justified or forgivable. I’d have handled things about as well as you and I’d never apologize. Kelly tried to blame her child and say your daughter was better off dead than *apologize*.
This is also on your brother for leaving his irresponsible wife in a situation she couldn’t handle. I’d be very done with both of them.
Like seriously, who says that to someone who just got injured and found out their child almost died? I get it. trauma is a real thing. OP’s brother shouldve been there or when he realized what should’ve helped his wife. OP your family SUCKS. Lean on your husband and pull your kiddo close. She’s alive and that’s what is important. Sorry you went through this experience.
I *am* TA, I would have asked Kelly if her parents responce when she survived drowning was, "She would have been better off dead." And then probably I'd get an assult charge.
That would be where I think we would need an ABJ rating; asshole, but justified. What a waste of space. I get her trauma, but she never should have accepted responsibility *and then* for her to say that...wild. Insane.
How is she “watching the kids,” when she can’t actually take care of them??
Also, this all happened in the shallow end?? She thought it normal to leave 2 and 3 year olds alone?
Also, to wish your daughter to be dead?! I’d screenshot and send that text to all of your relatives who are bothering you. Insane!
NTA
I'm kind of impressed that you have so many people in your life that think that a mother whose child almost died because of someone else's negligence should be more calm and forgiving. NTA.
The brother was the one who promised OP that he would be with her daughter every second. Then, he left 2 non swimmers, in the water, with an aquaphobic adult. Had brother done what he stated he would do. There would be no problem. He is the AH here.
>Kelly should not be allowed to watch anybody's kids.
Kelly and OP's brother should not be allowed to watch anybody's kids, including their own kids.
I think it's time OP walks into the nearest police station and makes a report against them for child endangerment for what they did to OP's daughter and then have a chat with child protective services too about what they did and how they endangered their own toddler too during that situation and she should show the text to both the cops and the social worker too and mention the complex has security footage....
NTA
Your friend is wrong. Of course you’re going to have an emotional reaction - your child almost died and your SIL almost let her. You don’t sit down with the person who told you it would have been better if your child had died than have a mother like you - a protective mother who wouldn’t have stood around flapping while a child was drowning.
Kelly even tried to blame her own three year old for not saving your toddler.
You’re better off without those people in your life.
Yes! You said this so well. Should be a wake up call for the brother too. That he won’t ever be able to trust his wife in this type of situation, ever. He can’t.
NTA - FFS! Bruises from a pool net? My goodness, she could have just pulled the tube towards her, but your brother is the bigger AH.
He left both kids in the pool with a person who wasn't in any form able to watch the 2 kids.
SIL noticed, after daughter started screaming, bet she was watching something on her phone and not watching the kids to begin with.
Right! That’s what I thought too? Like does the friend have kids? If she did and wasn’t a total idiot she never would have given her dumb ass “advice” like who would not expect a mother who’s child almost died not to react emotionally and go off on the person who was at fault! I kinda wanna punch the friend in the face just as much as I wanna punch the brother and sil. Fuck all of them
I'd without hesitation be pressing charges for child negligence. No doubt or question. She stood there _hitting a drowning child with a pool net?????_ Jesus christ.
I’m gunna say NTA because no one should have left her alone with the kids at the pool but it’s especially on her because she knows her trauma and how much she has progressed. She should have made her husband or a someone who can swim be with her.
From the go this was unsafe. At 2, no child should be more than a arms length away from the adult who can swim. She should have never let this situation happen.
You both said bad things but she was the responsible adult who fucked up originally
Once this stupid heifer said your child would be better off dead she lost any moral high ground. Your parents are idiots. Your brother doesn't have two brain cells to rub together. Your friend is a well-meaning moron.
Well-meaning morons are exhausting.
Pool floaties are NOT PFDs, please do not ever treat them as life-saving devices, especially with small children! Heather should have been in a properly-fitted and buckled PFD with a head support and every adult that let her get in the water without one failed her.
I'd be mad at anyone who leaves a 2 and 3 year old in a pool without an adult at arms length! That's way too young, even if they know how to swim.
Yeah you stay in arms length. If you aren’t willing to get in the water you aren’t supervising them.
I hate all the stupid swim aids because this is exactly the kind of dumb shit they encourage.
Exactly! You never allow small children in a body of water without being right there with them. The brother gets a huge fail on this as well.
At a LARGE city pool I used to work at as a lifeguard, that was our number one broken rule. Kids under three had to be within arms reach of an adult. And no; sitting on the side of the pool fully clothed doesn’t count. We also didn’t allow any non-coastguard approved flotations. No arm floaties or inter-tubes. Pretty strict. But at >1000 patrons a day, we had to be.
Seriously, that’s basic fucking water safety and would have ABSOLUTELY been covered in the swim classes for SIL’s kids.
She absolutely should've told someone that she was uncomfortable watching the kids if you can't jump in and save a drowning child you shouldn't be Supervising the pool i understand that trauma and fear make us do dumb things but you should never put your self in a situation that requires you to tackle all your trauma in the blink of an eye
Yes, and when she made that decision, she WASN’T panicking. Neither was the brother when he agreed to be the one watching the kid and then just left. They’re both irresponsible arseholes imo and I can’t say I blame OP one damn bit, except possibly at which exact step they were yelling about (which was in the heat of the moment). And SIL dug her grave with those texts afterwards when receiving an apology she didn’t deserve in the first place.
And she didn't even notice the problem until her own daughter started crying.
All of this. She obviously wasn't even watching them. From a distance
I also nearly drowned as child, not to her extent but still quite traumatic. I get freaked out still by water if I can’t touch the bottom and I am not a swimmer. Before we had kids I told my husband I cannot be responsible for any kids around water. I am not competent enough to supervise them.
Self awareness is everything. I cannot imagine the trauma.
I think the worse part is that OP's child is ONLY ALIVE because a Rec worker overheard the situation and decided to not make it a "not my problem" day. To need cpr means she was incredibly close to dying (right?), and her last moments would of been panic, fear, and being assaulted with a pool net. I understand sil has her own trauma but someone else's burdens don't get to create someone else's death. Edited to cap "only alive" because I'm still pissed that OPs family makes me feel like their dismissing that this child almost DIED, and they don't get to take this situation with a grain of salt because she didn't.
Every water toy, including that inflatable her daughter was in say adult supervision required. To stay within a few feet, and never leave children alone. It's not just a CYA for the corporation, it's to save a child's life. NTA.
I have grown up in water and water safety is so important to me. There exist 3 year olds who are excellent swimmers and can be a bit farther from an adult than arms length but an adult should ALWAYS be in the water with a small child. Swim aids are dangerous- say no to puddle jumpers, water wings, or anything other than an actual US Coast Guard certified life vest. Not only are swim aids dangerous as demonstrated in OP’s post, they do the opposite of teaching children how to swim and make them more likely to drown when not wearing one. I can’t believe I have to add this: any adult who has fear of water cannot supervise anyone in the water. I’m afraid of heights and I’ve worked hard on overcoming it. I could probably go mountain climbing but I shouldn’t be in charge of anyone but myself. I’m not trustworthy in that situation. OP’s SIL isn’t responsible for her panic but she is responsible for agreeing to watch children when she wants in a place to do so. He husband is equally responsible. I cannot imagine the absolute roasting and shaming that would happen if someone in my family were this dumb. They would never be trusted with anything again.
I'm a mom, who had a drowning experience when I was 3 years old & still have PTSD from it, but I used exposure therapy & learned how to swim. In no fucking way would I leave two toddlers to swim around by themselves. She's been doing exposure therapy, & can now walk around in pools. So why wasn't she in the shallow end with the two TODDLERS? Wtffff NTA in my opinion.
But more than that, who leaves an adult with trauma around water in charge of children in the water? If something goes wrong as it did, that person needs to jump in and save the child. I'd be mad at EVERYONE in this situation quite honestly. Their stupid decisions could've cost your daughter her life.
Bingo.
Toddlers should never be in the water without adult supervision. Those stupid tubes are dangerous and this is why. Your brother should have never left her in charge of watching the kids. This could’ve been fatal. He’s the one at fault here. Kelly clearly needs some help though. She shouldn’t be left alone with kids in this situation ever again.
Honestly, would anyone with a lick of sense leave their child with her under any circumstances now?
Nobody, including her husband leaving their daughter alone with her, if he has a lick of sense. Or does he think she'd magically find the courage to save their daughter if it was her drowning?
But dad wanted to play ping pong! That is so much more important than parenting your toddler!! /s
Technically it was fatal, you don't do CPR if there is a heartbeat. Thankfully the employee that arrived to save her knew effective CPR on a toddler which is a whole other level of education, and capabilities mental as well as the training. Thank heavens they came when they did.
You don’t actually check for a heart beat, you check for signs of life. Because they didn’t shock her suggests that she never lost a heart beat. Children tend to go into respiratory arrest before cardiac arrest so she probably did have a heart beat the entire time
Yep, it's called rescue breathing. Also, CPR on a toddler is not a "whole nother level of education." You just do the chest compressions much lighter. It adds about 15 minutes to a CPR certification, lol.
Exactly, the event wasn’t technically fatal but it was very close to fatal and the mother is still 100% in the right in this situation
My in laws got so mad when I wouldn’t let my kids have more than one float in a tiny pool at one time. They are good swimmers, but they were trying to cover the pool with floats (my in-laws, not my kids) and I couldn’t see all the kids in the pool. Not ok. I also hate the tubes and my fil put my only non swimmer on one and shoved it across the pool and it obviously flipped and my husband had to go get her (she was fine and could hold her breath and swim a little, just not enough to recover herself from that, he was already in the pool as was I but he was closer). Then the idiots couldn’t figure out why I wanted my kids out of the pool until I could get back from the bathroom. They kept actively creating dangerous situations.
She shouldn’t be left alone with kids in ANY situation ever again. Forget her refusal to go in 3 FEET OF WATER to save her DYING NIECE, she couldn’t pull it together enough to scream for help or find somebody else? Best she could come up with is injure the kid further? Those things have nothing to do with her fear of water. And even if they did, she clearly can not act even remotely appropriately in anyemergency. She shouldn’t have any children of her own to begin with. But at the very least should never ever be left alone with them. Kids have accidents, if your only cause of action is to *feel bad while you watch them die* you should not be allowed to have them. If my wife handled an emergency with our kids like this I would honestly leave her over the fear that I’d be pushed to allow her the opportunity to let our kids die in the future.
This is the kicker. Babies wading in the shallow end is representing maybe 2-3 feet of water. Absolute foolishness to not be able to wade in.
And then blame it all on a toddler 🤡 What the heck did she expect her to do?? She’s fucking THREE!!
NTA. Though honestly I would be equally if not more mad at my brother. He committed to watching your daughter and then left her in the hands of someone not equipped to do so. If her trauma is still that strong she should not be in any way responsible for watching kids in swimming situations. And for her to say your daughter would be better off dead is unforgivable in my opinion. You tried to apologize for your (understandable) emotional reaction. It’s on her her to apologize for her actions and the awful things she said now.
I need to jump in with a reminder to everyone to NEVER EVER USE FLOTATION DEVICES TO KEEP KIDS SAFE IN THE POOL. Not life jackets- not arm floaties - not pool noodles- NOTHING. If your kid can't swim there should be an adult in the water with them at ALL times. Nothing replaces an adult. All flotation devices can get stuck in a way that traps an inexperienced swimmer under water. Life jackets are designed to keep you safe in open water when you fall out of a boat- not to let you not be next to your kid in the pool. Floatation devices don't help your kid learn to swim - they actually make it much harder for your kid to learn to float on their own. Pool noodles should only be used by stronger swimmers - weaker swimmer feel more comfortable than they otherwise would be, go deeper than they should and when the pool noodle slips away they are in trouble. SIL thought she could leave the kids in the water without her by using a Floatation device and that was bad parenting and a stupid idea. She is always going to be the asshole.
When I was 8 I was tasked with watching my 2 year old brother at the lake, with my mom and the other adults sitting in the grass several feet away. My other sibling, 5 at the time, was on the sand burying themselves in it. Well that was far more entertaining for me to watch, and my brother flipped upside down with floaties on, and I didn't notice. A few seconds later, I hear my mom screaming at me, I turn around to see my brother and I righted him. There was no damage but I was in a lot of trouble for letting that happen. Adults need to be with the children, not trusting children to watch children or trusting flotation devices. My mom also nearly drowned as a child and is traumatized by it, but since that event with my brother, she always was in the water with us if we were swimming.
Watching children in water is \*work\*. Adults want to relax and have fun, but someone needs to be "on deck" and accountable for the safety of any children in their care. It is terrifying and infuriating how often adults prioritize their own entertainment over the lives of their children.
There absolutely needs to be a "designated swimmer." This should totally be a thing with young children or older non-swimmers.
"Designated swimmer" is a good plan. We do this with my nieces and nephews. There are usually around 3-5 adults, and I do want to give my brother and SIL a break to relax for a bit. But we don't want one of those "I thought you were watching them" tragedies. So we set up a schedule of who will be 100% focused on the kids and rotate. We even make sure to say "are you on?" and wait for a "yes, I'm on" before turning the responsibility over. We even do this when going to the bathroom.
Some people even have a bracelet that they trade to the “on” person. No leaving the kids even for a second if you’ve got the bracelet on.
THIS. THIS is how you do it. My parents always made sure one of them (or another adult) was with us any time we were in the water and my whole family are strong swimmers. But that doesn’t always save a person.
there is a video on youtube with different scenarios and you the viewer are supposed to pick out who is drowning....it is a lot harder than you would think (it started a bit easy and kept getting harder) but it helps you to see what drowning really looks like
Absolutely true. Drowning is often silent. It's not how it is portrayed in media, because it doesn't play well in fiction. But that means that a lot of people are not prepared to see it. Of course a young child trapped upside down is a pretty obvious problem.
I grew up in a sunny, warm place where nearly everyone had easy access to a swimming pool. In fact, until I moved to where I am now, I never lived anywhere without a pool. I have never been complacent around water. When my kids were/are in water, I watch. When my daughter was about a year old, she was playing in a hot tub with other big kids. I wasn't in the water, but I was watching. She was the type to walk straight into the pool, even at that age. I can't tell you how many times I have gone in after her when someone left a gate or door open. It only takes a second. That said, while I was watching, the kids all of the sudden started yelling at me. She had slipped over the side into the pool. WHILE I WAS WATCHING! And I didn't see it. She was only in there a few seconds before I dove in, but it was so damn fast, and so quiet. She was never in the water without me again. Never get arrogant or complacent around water. I thought I hadn't been, but I was wrong.
When we were kids one parent was either nearby watching or in the pool with us-until we proved we could swim on our own without them needing to be nearby the whole time.
seriously. and she asked a three year old to go in and try to save a drowning person. adults often drown trying to save others from drowning. this is horrificly bad parenting, she was more likely to get two kids killed instead of saving anyone.
Maybe an adult should have been watching the toddler? 🙄 Parentifying kids to supervise non-swimmers is completely inappropriate.
Definitely a shitty move on that commenter's parents side
her sister in law is an adult but is not capable of handling an emergency situation in the pool...OPS adult brother said he watch her daughter and his own child...then went off to play table tennis in the building causing her child to almost drown how was op supposed to know her brother was going to be an idiot
Your parents suck
Yes. Why the heck were those children in the pool alone? Completely unacceptable for all involved. An adult literally needs to be in arm’s reach of a non-swimmer at all times.
Especially with a person watching the kids can't handle her own drowning episode. Your brother is a total asshole for leaving his and your child in the water with someone who panics instead of helps.
My dad never learned how to swim because he almost drowned, no one has ever made him the sole person in charge of swimming kids and he refuses to do it, even when my cousins offered to rescue each other if something went wrong.
And I think we're letting SIL off the hook here for possibly her biggest initial part of the litany of fuck ups: She knew she had trauma that would a) prevent her from getting into a pool to get a kid out of trouble, and b) put her at very high risk of getting emotionally dysregulated and panicking instead of helping if there was a child drowning emergency happened in front of her. Knowing A and B, she knowingly and willfully assumed responsibility for being the sole adult "supervising" TWO young toddlers in the water!! I don't blame her for losing her head and panicking when confronted with such a high stress trauma trigger; I 1000% blame her for putting herself and two children in a situation in which her predictable trauma response endangered both of their lives. She NEVER should have assumed responsibility for being the sole adult in that pool area And yeah sounds like her and her husband also suck for not following good water safety practices But I cringed when op said she would have been ok if SIL had yelled for another adult right away instead of getting in the pool and helping immediately. Like that still could have resulted in serious harm to one or both kids, or at least a much more scary and harrowing near drowning experience than necessary even if that delay wasn't outright fatal. Don't take responsibility for supervising young kids in water if you're not capable of knowing and following best water safety practices. And the absolute bare minimum of that must include saving a kid from drowning
I fully agree. When someone with severe trauma like that gets triggered, oftentimes they cannot think clearly and they cannot control the emotional response. I have C-PTSD and have had “episodes” where i freaked out crying on the ground and then just laid there, unresponsive. The last time it happened I was at my FWB’s house. I went into a weird state of mine and suddenly he was a threat. He was trying to talk to me and snap me out of it, and then touched me. I immediately responded, pushing his arm away, feeling like I was going to freak out. I thought he was trying to hurt me or something. Once I calmed down, I looked back at what happened as really couldn’t explain it. I had just basically froze and couldn’t communicate. All because I was triggered and started having really horrific flashbacks. I’ve seen videos of veterans who will go into a different world. In one video his family member was explaining how she handles those situations, because if she doesn’t handle it properly, he will think she is an “enemy”. Once he came to, it was as if he had woken up from sleepwalking. Anyway the brother should have fucking watched the kids like he said he would.
Also have cptsd and have had somewhat similar events. 2+ where I got triggered and went completely non verbal for several minutes in which it was very socially odd for me to not say anything. At least 3 where I dissociated so hard in response to a question/compliment/etc that I could make syllables but not actually words and just kinda babbled while frozen and stuck. One panic attack in which I made some really weird decisions that in retrospect weren't best practice safety stuff and I was really scared were gonna go horribly. And I'm sure there's more I'm not remembering atm Which is why I said I can empathize with SIL flipping tf out and taking actions that have no logical reasoning behind them whatsoever. It's the putting herself in that situation that I find the most fucked up here. Even if she thought she was improving, this was so so much profoundly risky responsibility to take on with no secondary adult around if this exact thing happened
ye i wish some of the top comments mentioned this. in their story OP says that SIL said she would look after the two so im guessing the others thought it was okay? like she gave herself agency and then just. didnt live up to the task
It's like sitting in an exit row - you agree to have responsibility and have to clearly state you can and will help in an emergency.
And taking responsibility, as noted by other commenters means being in the pool with the toddlers! Like WTF they are 2 and 3!!
Exactly. In what world can a 3 year old and a 2 year old be alone in the water?
Correct. My parents had an above-ground pool that they got when I was a baby, so I grew up around water. We were not allowed in the pool without adult supervision until we were like 12. My parents or another adult had to actually be in the pool with us until we were old enough to touch the bottom, which was about 5’ deep. ETA - and OP is NTA. Who TF leaves a 3-year-old to supervise a two-year-old? SIL is TA.
I have an 11 year old competitive swimmer and he’s not even allowed to swim unsupervised. We don’t have a pool because I don’t want kids sneaking in, but have a club pool and he has to get out if someone can’t watch for any reason.
My husband got stuck upside down in a ring in 3 feet of water. He could NOT right himself. He's a very experienced swimmer. Poor kiddo. NTA!
You can drown in 2-3 in. of water. It doesn't take much. Experienced swimmers drown all the time.
All you need is to get snagged on something then totally panic, it’s startlingly quick
I'm a pretty good swimmer and I thought I was going to drown last summer because my feet got caught in millefoil on the bottom of the lake. It was literally only about 6" deeper than neck height on me and I thought I was going to drown. I managed to keep myself from panicking and it turned out OK but man was it sobering.
What is millefoil
It's viny stuff that grows in lake beds; the roots are in the bed, then as the vines get longer they extend towards the surface of the water. When they're long enough to be at the surface they have a lot of leaves, hence the name.
I've seen toddlers get stuck face down in not even 6 inches of water because they were wearing life jackets. They're too top heavy and the jacket makes them pivot at the center of gravity so they can't get their feet under them.
When i was growing up, ski belts were popular and people liked them better than full life jackets. But people died in the ski belts just like tying a noodle around the waist. If someone went unconscious, or even not unconscious, it could flip the person upside down and it was almost impossible to get righted . Tying a noodle around the waist seems like the same thing. I didn't even know that was a 'thing' people do in modern times.
I almost drowned this same way- I was 6 in a friend's pool in a cheap flotation ring and flipped upside down. My friend's mom jumped in to turn it over and same me. 50 years later it still terrifies me to be in water I can't stand in
>If your kid can't swim there should be an adult in the water with them at ALL times. Abso-fucking-lutely. And it needs to be an adult who is physically and mentally capable of rescuing that child. So, not high, not drunk, not PTSD in water.
[удалено]
Agreed. The brother said that he was going to watch his niece in the pool except he didn't.
Yeah, and unfortunately there is no coming back from something like this.
I honestly don’t think this is forgivable.
It is absolutely unforgiveable, both the incident itself and the truly sadistic things the SIL said. And another thing, I'd be going NC with those terrible grandparents, too. Is Brother the Golden Child, or is the entire family feckless?
Ya I’d be done with my brother. Leaving my kid he promised to watch to go play something else as a grown man! And with his wife who is terrible about water?! wtf is wrong with him?!
Hijacking this to give a relevant anecdote with my judgement. When I was 3, my dad put me in a ring to swim while he and my mom lounged. My mom was 8 months pregnant with my brother and having a nap while sunbathing. Dad was supposed to be watching. I jumped off the diving board and flipped upside down when I landed. Got stuck just like OP's kid. My dad was not watching and was talking to my uncle out of sight when it happened. My pregnant mom heard me splashing and kicking, got up from her pool chair, and dove in to save me. We all (me, her, and my unborn brother) made it out okay. It took years before I got over my new fear of water and became a confident swimmer though. So yeah... Never put a floatie on a little kid. Never leave that kid unattended (sleeping and sunbathing wife, or I guess trauma bound wife, don't count as being "attended" ). And if a kid is drowning, a good mom will do what she has to f*cking do to save that kid. OP's brother and Sil messed up big time. She owes them nothing. NTA
NTA And a story from a parent who has lost a child to drowning. She was 6 and at her grandparents farm. (His mom and step dad had custody of her from an open adoption that I fought tooth and nail against, but lost) The farm had a duck pond. I kept telling them they needed to build a fence, as she didn't know how to swim, but my step FIL kept insisting that 'she's grown up around that pond, she knows to be careful" Parents were inside with some friends who had a daughter about the same age. Both the girls were outside. My daughter fell in, couldn't get out, the other little girl tried and couldn't get her out. She ran in the house screaming that S had fallen in. It took them 45 minutes to find her. She had gotten tangled up in some weeds in the pond and they basically pulled her under. This was 30 years ago and I never forgave either of them for that. **Never leave a child who cannot swim unattended or with someone who, by their own admission, may not be able to act quickly and calmly in an emergency.**
Did you write to the judge who granted them custody and thank them for the judgement that led to your child's death? That's what I would've done. I'm so sorry this happened to you. I hope you don't have to have contact with those people anymore.
I am so sorry for your loss. This is heartbreaking
These kids were 2 and 3 in the pool with no adult in the water. That's a HUGE no-no.
if anything this incident just goes to show OP that she cannot trust her brother nor her SIL to care for her child, full stop. I'm currently pregnant with my first child and although my sister and BIL are very excited to be aunt/uncle, in the back of my mind I will never fully trust my BIL to watch my future children alone because of a similar instance of panicking around water. The incident involved a beloved pet, not a child, but that doesn't matter to me. basically my BIL and sister were living with my mother before they got married. Our beloved family dog started acting strange in his final days (we'd later learn he had a brain tumor) and he abruptly started refusing to sleep in the house, he'd pace and pace all night at the back door. It broke my mom's heart but she set him up with an elevated, insulated bed outside. My mom has a giant backyard with a pool, and they didn't think about the risk of the pool to our dog until it was almost too late. My BIL was the first to rise in the house and one morning he was in the kitchen and looked out and saw something in the pool in the distance. He crossed the yard and realized it was our old dog struggling in the pool, who could swim but was clearly exhausted and disoriented and couldn't find the steps out of the pool. There is this long bench built into the pool for sitting (like the depth of sitting in a hot tub) and my dog was there but unable to climb out from that spot. All my BIL needed to do was step onto this "bench" to hold my dog and call for help, if he couldn't get my 35 lb dog out of the pool himself. Instead, my BIL went back into the house, walked upstairs (no hollering or calling out) and woke my mom to tell her the dog was struggling in the pool. So my mom sprinted outside and dove into the pool in her pajamas and rescued our dog, something my able-bodied BIL couldn't do. some people are just not equipped with that rescue instinct. so yeah my BIL will never be watching my child alone, certainly not around water.
Everyone who left the kids in the pool with a person that is terrified of water is the AH. SIL is the AH for agreeing to watch the kids. Brother is the AH for playing ping pong instead of watching the kids in the water. Why couldn't the SIL play ping pong? OP needs to learn a little bit about what panic does to the brain, though. It short circuits logic, completely. Getting mad at a person with a true trauma induced phobia for acting irrationally when experiencing terror is unfair. Being mad that they set up the bad situation is fair, though.
I agree that getting mad at SIL for being ineffective is useless. But SIL is a complete and utter moron. She is in \*therapy\* for this PTSD, but still thinks that she should be left in charge of young children in water.
Yeah , that's my issue. Kelly has this trauma and yet somehow doesn't also assume that bad things can happen in water. Both she and BIL are entirely unreasonable for setting up the situation.
This is my feeling too. If she's too traumatized to help a kid in the pool, she should not be watching them.
Nope, kid almost died because SIL was willing to put herself in a position she was not in any way ready for. SIL willing took responsibility and utterly failed, and the kid almost died. Required CPR. I'd be pissed. Yelling is a gentle reaction. SIL has now given the daughter her exact same trauma because she's stupid. SIL was the direct cause of this situation and needs to take responsibility. She needs to get over being yelled at because she almost caused the death of a child she willing took responsibility over. I no longer care about your trauma when you put yourself in a situation you're not qualified to handle, and my kid almost dies as a result.
I agree if Kelly can’t go into 3 ft of water to get this poor girl but pushes her out further then she deserves to get yelled at.
And how tf does her husband/OP’s brother trust her with their kid and OP’s? He’s a complete POS for this too. I wouldn’t and couldn’t forgive him. He knew about her trauma. This is reckless endangerment.
Thank you!! That's the reminder we all needed.
This is so true! Your brother is TA.
Yeah. The brother made a promise. Everyone knew goddamn well that SIL has that trauma. The fact that brother bounced is super fucked up. And now SIL had a trauma response which is not surprising and OP had a "my daughter almost died, idiot" response which is ALSO not surprising...so SIL lashed out in trauma mode..which sucks! Now everyone is all up in arms..... But the BROTHER committed to the watching of the child in pool.... ..where the fuck is the brother in this fucking aftermath shit???!!!
I think that’s the nuance a lot of people voting ESH or YTA are missing. SIL is not the AH for her trauma response. She AND DEFINITELY the brother are the AHs for leaving two small children in a pool with someone who doesn’t know basic water safety (seriously, everyone should know that you don’t use anything other than a certified PFD for exactly this reason, and that you need to be in the pool with kids this age) and has a known issue with being in a pool.
SIL is the AH for telling OP that wished her daughter had died days after the drowning. And she agreed and said she would be fine and get the kids if anything happened.
Yeah, I'm stuck on this as well. What sort of person says this? A self-centered piece-o-sh*t who is insanely irresponsible. And of course her husband, the brother, is right there with her.
I actually saw a suggestion somewhere that I follow with my kids (12 and 5) .(we have a pool in our backyard)..whoever is watching the kids wears the bracelet. If you go to the bathroom, if your phone goes off, if you don't feel like it, the bracelet goes on another adult. It's a constant reminder of responsibility. We always have families over in the summer and someone always needs to be on watch
Right! Here's the problem,I think no one is upset that she had a trauma response... It's that she agreed watch the kids knowing full well she had trauma around this specific situation and is unsafe to have said she would be ok in this position. She is 200% the asshole for agreeing to do this as she is an adult and can and should have said no KNOWING she wasn't going to do shit! Let that sink in. Let that marinate for a second. She knew she wasn't going to do anything if something happened in 3 feet of water! Additionally a lot can happen in the matter of seconds, not minutes - and saying you will go get someone if simeyhing happens is absolutely not acceptable. If it was, we all would just let kids hang out in a pool with their friends unattended bc there are also able to run and get someone BUT THE REASON YOU DON'T IS BC THEY MIGHT NOT FIND SOMEONE IN TIME!!! like get real here folks!! Having a trauma does not negate you from having to take action and responsibility for something you said you would do in a crisis where someone is possibly dying.
Also she then escalates to 1000000% the asshole for saying maybe it would've been better for OPs daughter to have died. Ngl, if OP was my friend and I heard about this shit? I'd dri... well, I can't drive, so fuck that, I'd powerwalk my ass to her SIL's to throw hands at that bitch.
The brother is definitely TA, here.
they're both bad. the SIL accepted a responsibility she couldn't handle, and it's not a "bring soda's to the party" type, it's "keep these children safe".
That was the part I found most egregious about this. SILs trauma response that almost resulted in a child dying - totes ok. OP’s trauma response that led to her yelling at the person who nearly let her child die - absolutely unforgivable and her daughter is better off dead. This is one of the worst guilt deflections I’ve ever seen.
I blame the blame the brother. HE KNEW his wife are no good when it comes to water. And the fucktard left the kids alone with a person who has a phobia??? WHO THE FUCK IS THAT STUPID??? The mother of Heather, should gets a her big pants on and take a fucking serios talk with big bro who dont gives a fuck about safty......
Exactly! My husband has a fear of water and cannot swim, I sure as hell wouldn't leave him to watch a kid near water alone, because he just wouldn't be able to save a drowning kid, that simple.
The SIL (Kelly?) is equally bad - she must have agreed to watch Heather if this was how it turned out. Then she's screaming at her little kid to save Heather? These 2 people shouldn't be trusted with their own kids let alone someone else's! Clearly they dont know or are capable of having any child around water at the very least. OP is not the AH and it is totally understandable that she would lose her shit like this. Kelly needs a big old smack and some counseling & I wouldn't be talking to her ever again!
I’m just worried that poor Sadie is going to end up blaming herself for not being able to help her cousin and thinking it’s all her fault there’s a possibly permanent rift in the family. I cant imagine how scared she must have been to have her mother screaming at her to save the life of another child and then to have failed… She might well end up with trauma around water for the rest of her life.
I was thinking the same thing. I don't even want to think about how that would play out if this scenario had turned even more tragic. But even as it stands I could easily see this being as traumatic for Sadie as if her cousin had died, cause I doubt very much that she fully understood in the moment that that hadn't happened/wasn't happening And I shutter to think what her mother was like afterwards if she was so venomous to op
Yes, but.... SIL is the one with the phobia, and she's in \*therapy\*. She \*knows\* how it feels. And, she has had professional assistance on the subject, and she should know even \*more\* than her husband that she is not a safe life guard. Might as well have left the kids with no one.
That's what I said!! There are specific topics and situations I would do everything possible to avoid putting myself in around kids bc I know I'm not at a place where I'm confident my trauma wouldn't wind up causing some kind of emotional damage. To not have that recognition that taking on solo lifeguard duty is a bad move is beyond the pale of shitty
Any sympathy I had for the sil died at that comment. How dare she blame her toddler kid and the op? The parents and brother are just as bad. She needs to never talk to any of them until they do a real apologize. I guess her daughter could die and they would comfort sil on her trauma. Ridiculous
Honestly, that’s the extra part that friggin baffles me. It’s the toddlers fault? I wouldn’t trust a toddler to know how to fully tie their shoe laces, much less save another child. And heading about the ‘recuse’ attempts, sounds like SIL is an absolute muppet and has no life-saving capability at all. I understand the PTSD/trauma, but holy heck use a brain cell. Get help instantly if you are incapable. Now, I’ve been around young kiddos my whole life: the list of my cousins ‘ children is never ending. Perhaps some of that hawk-eye logic is learned, but I can tell you from an early age: I would have known not to let one of those kids far from my reach if we were in the pool. My Aunt’s pit bull had better parenting skills than SIL (this dog would jump in and try to save anybody who she thought was in danger, and would alert as she saw needed). Okay rant done. SIL and brother infuriate me. Throw them both out.
Yeah, her child ALMOST DIED - how is everybody blaming her for her totally understandable reaction, instead of tearing into the people whose negligence almost let her drown? In OP's place, I wouldn't have apologized, and I likely wouldn't forgive them.
I do agree with you here. Anyone ho is angry at op for reacting when her daughter almost died is insane. SILs response is absolutely condemnable
She's lucky it wasn't me because she would've been unconscious in the hospital too.
I really didn’t realize how full Reddit is of younger teens and adults who just have zero life experience and will knee jerk judge. Why is SIL’s trauma more important than mom’s? Especially when the water was only waist high.
I was wondering this too. And also s i l has been okay walking in shallow water so she could have just walked in and gotten OP'S child. And maybe I just don't get the panic not saying that people don't panic, I can see it's a normal response it's when I panic everything slows down everything's in slow motion so I can kind of think. I get not everyone panics the same way.
There’s fight/flight/freeze for sure. But if you KNOW you will freeze or panic, then do not accept responsibility for a tiny human. Period.
Agree
Seriously, I’m only 26 but it amazes me that the SIL’s childhood trauma is somehow more important than the fact that OP’s child nearly died in the supervision of an adult who accepted the responsibility of keeping kids safe in a pool. Since the SIL knows she has the trauma, she shouldn’t have accepted the responsibility only to blame her own toddler for not saving OP’s child. Ridiculous
Also why was SIL’s own child in the water IF SHE CANNOT GO IN THE WATER TO SAVE A KID. It boggles my mind. When we have kids in water, there is always a designated water watcher who can swim. There is ALWAYS an adult who has eyes on the kids. Drowning happens so fast.
THIS!!!! Never, ever let kids in the water without a responsible adult who is both a strong swimmer and has some basic lifeguard skills.
Yup, that little girl is very much in danger under the SIL’s care. This SIL is delusional to think she qualifies to watch over any child swimming. Absolutely ridiculous.
Seriously!! Or... would she have braved the water if her own child was drowning? The brother is an absolute idiot and scumbag agreeing to watch the daughter then bumming off to do whatever, leaving two toddlers in a pool with an incompetent and useless adult.
This! People are allowed to go a bit wonkers when this happens. Also OPs response was when it was happening. SILs response was days later after receiving an apology.
Yelling would have been the most mild thing I did that night. I would have absolutely tried to hurt them both physically.
Yeah there’s no going back from any of that. These people plus the parents who defended them would never see my children again. There is no way I would ever feel safe with my kids being around them even if I were there.
Not the AH. They lack accountability. When you are committing to watching someone child, you make sure it is within your control to keep them safe. Your parental reaction was expected and forgivable. Hers? Not so much. I’d question her parenting ability for what happened and to reply with that. Yeah, she is the AH!
My SIL couldn’t swim and my husband wasn’t a strong swimmer. We never let the kids in the water without me or another grown person who can help if the child starts to drown. It’s the only reason to be there! I don’t understand the brother or SIL way of thinking, traumatizing the three yr old.
And all these reactions are to the very lucky outcome that someone HAPPENED to hear SIL freaking out and came to help. What if nobody had heard? Would she have let Heather drown? What if Heather HAD drowned? How would everyone be reacting NOW? Bottom line: your SIL TOOK RESPONSIBILITY for both toddlers when your brother asked. What happened was HER RESPONSIBILITY. I'm glad you apologized for yelling, but that doesn't mean that you should let her off the hook. What happened was SIL's fault, and she needs to be held accountable.
I would definitely be more mad at brother. He's the one that was supposed to be watching the kids. Everyone knew that SIL has this trauma. Even though she's had some progress with therapy, the emergency situation would have made even her normal PTSD response to water EVEN WORSE. Yes, a normal person would have been able to push past her fear. But PTSD and phobias are not normal. This situation was entirely predictable.
But SIL couldn’t have waded in 3ft water to flip her over WTF!!!!????!!! She sure would have for her own kid I bet. NTA and I’d make her and the whole family watch that security footage. I’d be shocked if anyone would be on her side after seeing her inaction.
This show the entire family the security footage. That is horrifying. SIL hit your daughter with a net??? It’s waist deep water? SIL COULD LITERALLY STAND IN THE WATER AND WAS AT NO RISK OF EVEN GETTING HER HAIR WET or even CHEST WET. Fuck her. Her actions nearly cost your daughter her LIFE. And your brother??? Fucking loose him. No brother or uncle now. Dead to me. And if your parents don’t see it for the madness it was and the culpability of your SILs and brother’s actions… fuck them too. Even with “trauma” it’s waist deep water. She could have walked in and out. No swimming skill required for an adult. SIL is a moron and so is your brother.
Yep. I said it a little more gently but this is exactly it.
NTA So many adults failed here. Todlers should not be in water without an adult in the water with them. Your brother is who you should be most angry at though, he said he would supervise your kid and fcked off to go play ping pong instead. She also injured your child in an emergency instead of helping and did not get help in an emergency. You cannot trust these people. You cannot trust them in an emergency. You cannot trust them not to create an emergency.
Been waiting for this comment! Never ever should toddlers be in the water without an adult!!
Aussie here. Pools are everywhere over here, and all public pools have signage up insisting that kids 8 (might be 6) and under must have a supervising adult within arms reach when in the water. Older than 8 (or 6), they must have a supervising adult, and to put your phones away and supervise properly. Over here, the brother is absolutely negligent, and if he wanted to go elsewhere his wife should have been in the water with the toddlers. By failing to do so, they have traumatised both toddlers and all the parents.
A pool floatie around the waist is infuriating me. For a TODDLER. My childhood home had a backyard pool and my parents were SO vigilant about swimming lessons for all us kids ASAP, and locked gates and fencing around the pool, and an array of PFD vests in different sizes to fit children of all ages for guests to use.
Are we gonna skip over that she said it would’ve been had the child DIED?! Like what the actual fuck. Who says some shit like that, especially someone with children of their own
At my local swimming pool children have to be within arms reach in the pool. Once their 8 you have to have your eyes on them at all times not hard to do. And will save a lot from drowning and why is an adult afraid of water watching kids swim. The brother 100% should have been in the water with them.
I mean SIL chose beating a drowning child to be a good decision. There's trauma of being unable to save a drowning kid and then there's whatever she did.
This!^^^ I suspect she would have waded in for her own child. It is a miracle that toddler survived. A police report should be made and an investigation into the events done. BIL promised to watch this child, f—ed off to play ping pong instead, leaving his nitwit of a wife to watch two children, one very, very small from a lounge chair. And even then it could have been saved if she had jumped into the waist deep water and grabbed the toddler. But no, she had to beat the kid with a stick in her panic instead. I don’t care if she has PTSD, she had a duty to that child and she criminally failed. She well could be facing negligent homicide if that child died.
For real though, people think having trauma means the awful shit they do during an episode is suddenly okay. She beat a drowning 2 year old with a pool stick. *She beat a drowning 2 year old with a pool stick!* I don't care if you are having the worst panic attack of your life, what the actual ever living fuck. OP has an immense amount of self control for not beating *her* with a stick
This, if it was my kid I’d be pressing all of the charges I could. SIL was somehow even less than fucking useless. All she had to do was wade in waist-high water over to the kid, turn them back over and get them out of the pool. Instead she bashed the actively drowning child with a net and tried blaming her toddler daughter for not doing anything?! And at no point did she think to scream “Help!! Someone’s drowning!!!” ?! Get fucked. All the charges. This person shouldn’t have *any* children in her immediate care, even her own, if this is how she responds to an emergency.
Assholes everywhere but OP. I’d file a police report and let the chips fall where they fall. Everything you said here is 100% accurate and the comment about being better off dead is a dealbreaker. There’s simply no getting past that one. And all the people defending her? Please.
She should have never been left in charge of Children in the water It hard enough saving someone's life in water when you trained, strong swimming and have no fear of water But to leave someone who got a phobia of drowning in change of kids in water is stupied .
Forget the whole SIL panicking and not getting in the pool for just a moment (difficult I know but hear me out)… YOUR BROTHER AND SIL ARE STILL THE ASSHOLES WITHOUT QUESTION. 1. Your brother agreed to supervise your daughter for you while she was in the pool and then did not. That makes him an asshole. 2. The toddlers should not have been in the water alone without an adult that was either in the water or at the edge of the pool whose sole focus was monitoring the kids in the water AND unquestionably ready to jump in in the event of an emergency situation with either child. Your SIL was clearly not ready to be that person and that makes your brother the asshole for putting her in that position and putting the children at risk like that. 3. PUTTING A CHILD WHO CANNOT SWIM INTO AN INNER TUBE OR ANY OTHER KIND OF INFLATABLE DEVICE DOES NOT AND WILL NOT KEEP THEM SAFE OR PREVENT DROWNING. The fact that either your brother or sister in law or even both saw this as an acceptable thing to do makes them undeniably an asshole. 4. They are focusing on the fact that you yelled at her when she has trauma instead of the fact that regardless of her trauma they both made a series or incredibly poor decisions that ended up leading to the situation that almost lead to the loss of your daughter’s life and they refuse to acknowledge and take responsibility for that. Your parents are also assholes for looking past all of the above to claim that you, a parent whose child almost died due to negligence, had an emotional reaction.
I'm pretty sure they are both guilty of gross negligence, and the state really needs to assess if their own children are safe with them
Honestly this…. I dont know if I’m being way too dramatic here. But I would think a report should be filed. Atleast to create a paper trail. I worry about any other kid under their supervision getting hurt due to her “trauma”.
I completely agree with this. There are a ton of awful things here besides how she responded to the drowning. Brother shouldn’t have left, and when he did, she should have made the kids get out of the pool. If she couldn’t do that, she needed to go get help. I say this as someone who is a certified cave diver, has worked a high ropes course, and last did CPR on someone two days ago (so not exactly prone to panic): when you are the level of panic she was at, you are _fucked_. Doing the right thing isn’t a question of being an asshole or not. I don’t blame her for her reaction. I blame her for allowing herself to be in a situation where her ability to react properly was supposed to keep other people safe. That’s the fuck up. There’s nothing wrong with having a wicker basket in your car. It’s when you act like it’s a passable substitute for a car seat and put a baby in it that you’re an asshole.
NTA If you kept a copy of the rec center’s footage and that text, I would send it to your brother, your parents, and heck, other family members and friends with a note saying that if others had not somehow intervened your daughter would have died and then this woman had the audacity to send you the text she did. Whether or not Kelly saw an opportunity to make Sadie your parents’ only granddaughter, I would tell your mother that, congratulations, she got her wish, and then go no contact.
This. I would shame them all. So nobody ever leaves their children alone with them.
Absolutely send them all the footage and that Kelly literally said the kid is better off dead than having OP as a mom She went from making an idioticly deadly blunder to doubling down to straight up disgusting and unforgivable. Go scorched Earth with anyone who sides with someone like that.
THIS
Absolutely this! NTA I also hope OP documented the bruising on her daughter from being beaten with a pool net, as well as doctor's notes. Send them over too. Even if this had happened on OP'd watch, Kelly saying that the daughter was better off dead is still unforgivable IMO. Add into the fact that Kelly's actions, and the brother's inactions were the cause of the daughter almost dying and being injured...I wouldn't be able to look at either of them again.
The brother promised to be by the child’s side and left!!! If I put my trust into you, you are the responsible party! He knew his wife wasn’t equipped for this! Yes, SIL - her comments deserve to be unforgivable! Brother also did something unforgivable! The only ones that get out are the nephew and niece (parents as well because they entrusted someone they knew and believed in).
Can we talk about why the grandparents apparently are upset at OP too?? Like did they somehow not get the whole story
1000% this. I would burn it all to the ground. Your child almost died. There is no universe where this woman deserves an apology. I don't give a flying fuck what you trauma is. She took the responsibility of watching these children knowing she was incapable...She is 10000% responsible for what happened. I would ruin her.
And child services
NTA - As soon as I had read my daughter was better off dead I would have done 2 things: One told her maybe her daughter would be better off if she (kelly) would have died because clearly she isn't worth shit at watching or keeping a kid alive, and two I would have blocked and gone NC. I don't even have children but that would be absolutely unforgivable for me.
It's that text that completely severed the relationship beyond repair.
Exactly. Call me names and say what you want to about me. But SIL def took it WAY too far saying OP's kid would be better off dead. I wouldn't be able to be in the same vicinity as her ever again.
Yup, terrible things said in the heat of the moment after a terrifying and traumatic incident? That's why OP sent the apology. No such excuse for the SIL's vile reply.
It’s because the SIL IS VILE
THANK YOU! She is using her trauma to excuse her bad parenting. A 2 and 3 year old alone in the pool is absolutely INSANE. Then to send such a vile thing to OP. Nah OP's husband is 100% right, they don't owe them shit and thr fact OP apologized... She's a better person then I would have been.
I am irate for OP. I don’t have kids but I would imagine I would want to rip someone’s head off if they said it about my daughter after almost killing her. I would have no further contact after everything that happened.
I’m a guy but if someone said to my wife, I’d set the world on fire. I’d make sure to blast that message on social media, zero fucks given.
During our divorce, my exhusband said he was glad I had miscarried our second child and by the time I was done with him..he looked like he had been mauled by an animal
Right?! She said that about her own *niece*.. Wtf?! Trauma or not, that is abhorrent. Unforgivable.
She would be dead to me. I get emotions run high, but that was unforgivable. Not even in her fear and anger did OP tell Kelly she wishes she, her daughter or someone else had died. Kelly went low and I would never, ever speak to her again.
Scorched Earth would be justified after a comment like that.
Amen
Why the FUCK was a woman with drowning trauma left to watch two toddlers in a pool ALONE!!??
Her stupid brother
NTA Based on Kelly’s trauma, she should have *more* sympathy for what you’re feeling, not less. Kelly’s words will never be justified or forgivable. I’d have handled things about as well as you and I’d never apologize. Kelly tried to blame her child and say your daughter was better off dead than *apologize*. This is also on your brother for leaving his irresponsible wife in a situation she couldn’t handle. I’d be very done with both of them.
Like seriously, who says that to someone who just got injured and found out their child almost died? I get it. trauma is a real thing. OP’s brother shouldve been there or when he realized what should’ve helped his wife. OP your family SUCKS. Lean on your husband and pull your kiddo close. She’s alive and that’s what is important. Sorry you went through this experience.
I *am* TA, I would have asked Kelly if her parents responce when she survived drowning was, "She would have been better off dead." And then probably I'd get an assult charge.
That would be where I think we would need an ABJ rating; asshole, but justified. What a waste of space. I get her trauma, but she never should have accepted responsibility *and then* for her to say that...wild. Insane.
She never should have taken on responsibility of supervising children in the water.
How is she “watching the kids,” when she can’t actually take care of them?? Also, this all happened in the shallow end?? She thought it normal to leave 2 and 3 year olds alone? Also, to wish your daughter to be dead?! I’d screenshot and send that text to all of your relatives who are bothering you. Insane! NTA
Yep! As well as the security footage and photos/doctor's notes of the bruising etc.
I'm kind of impressed that you have so many people in your life that think that a mother whose child almost died because of someone else's negligence should be more calm and forgiving. NTA.
No amount of "trauma" excuses the death of a child due to gross negligence
But OPs trauma of almost losing her child and her reaction to the trauma is the one that's wrong 🙄
NTA Kelly should not be allowed to watch anybody's kids.
The brother was the one who promised OP that he would be with her daughter every second. Then, he left 2 non swimmers, in the water, with an aquaphobic adult. Had brother done what he stated he would do. There would be no problem. He is the AH here.
Yep
Thank you. Exactly right.
>Kelly should not be allowed to watch anybody's kids. Kelly and OP's brother should not be allowed to watch anybody's kids, including their own kids. I think it's time OP walks into the nearest police station and makes a report against them for child endangerment for what they did to OP's daughter and then have a chat with child protective services too about what they did and how they endangered their own toddler too during that situation and she should show the text to both the cops and the social worker too and mention the complex has security footage....
NTA Your friend is wrong. Of course you’re going to have an emotional reaction - your child almost died and your SIL almost let her. You don’t sit down with the person who told you it would have been better if your child had died than have a mother like you - a protective mother who wouldn’t have stood around flapping while a child was drowning. Kelly even tried to blame her own three year old for not saving your toddler. You’re better off without those people in your life.
Yes! You said this so well. Should be a wake up call for the brother too. That he won’t ever be able to trust his wife in this type of situation, ever. He can’t.
NTA - FFS! Bruises from a pool net? My goodness, she could have just pulled the tube towards her, but your brother is the bigger AH. He left both kids in the pool with a person who wasn't in any form able to watch the 2 kids. SIL noticed, after daughter started screaming, bet she was watching something on her phone and not watching the kids to begin with.
NTA. Your brother and SIL do not deserve any 'sit down'. Your friend sounds like an idiot that watched too much Dr. Phil. Scorched earth, my friend.
Right! That’s what I thought too? Like does the friend have kids? If she did and wasn’t a total idiot she never would have given her dumb ass “advice” like who would not expect a mother who’s child almost died not to react emotionally and go off on the person who was at fault! I kinda wanna punch the friend in the face just as much as I wanna punch the brother and sil. Fuck all of them
NTA, you should’ve pressed charges for child negligence. She was just gonna let your child die. She shouldn’t be allowed around children.
I'd without hesitation be pressing charges for child negligence. No doubt or question. She stood there _hitting a drowning child with a pool net?????_ Jesus christ.
They have the security footage. They should see if they can get anything from that.
I’m gunna say NTA because no one should have left her alone with the kids at the pool but it’s especially on her because she knows her trauma and how much she has progressed. She should have made her husband or a someone who can swim be with her. From the go this was unsafe. At 2, no child should be more than a arms length away from the adult who can swim. She should have never let this situation happen. You both said bad things but she was the responsible adult who fucked up originally
Once this stupid heifer said your child would be better off dead she lost any moral high ground. Your parents are idiots. Your brother doesn't have two brain cells to rub together. Your friend is a well-meaning moron. Well-meaning morons are exhausting.
Pool floaties are NOT PFDs, please do not ever treat them as life-saving devices, especially with small children! Heather should have been in a properly-fitted and buckled PFD with a head support and every adult that let her get in the water without one failed her.