- My husband and I traveled to celebrate our anniversary each year.
- My parents went out of their way to follow the rules when we left our kids with them.
If you're a parent, you know that feeling when you temporarily lose sight of your kids. It begins with concern that escalates to alarm, then a pounding of the heart and a frantic search. It's one of the worst feelings in the world.
I had that feeling from 1,000 miles away when my in-laws disappeared with my kids — at a time when cellphones were yet to become commonplace.
My in-laws didn't follow our rules
Each year, on our anniversary, my husband and I traveled. The two sets of grandparents took turns keeping our kids, each with very different styles. My mom and dad went out of their way to follow our parenting rules and show respect for our family dynamic.
My husband's mom and dad? Not so much. They were of the mindset that their kids turned out just fine, so they would do exactly what they felt best.
Most of their actions were ridiculous but harmless — dressing our 5-year-old outdoorsy daughter in outrageous, frilly dresses and feeding our 3-year-old son sugar so he would grow tall. But some bordered on downright disrespectful, enough to give me pause.
If you're getting the sense that my mother- and father-in-law did whatever they wanted, you're correct. And while I didn't want to leave my kids with them, they weren't just my kids. They were my husband's, too, and he trusted his parents to, at the very least, keep the kids safe.
We went to Mexico and couldn't get ahold of them
That was until our vacation to Cancún, Mexico, a week of sunshine and snorkeling, uninhibited by adulting. The first day was glorious, exactly what we'd hoped for. The next day, sun-kissed and happy, we found a phone booth, loaded coins into the slot, and dialed our house, excited to have our promised conversation with our kids. When no one picked up, we assumed everyone was outside playing. Later that day, we tried again. No answer. "Strange," we thought.
Our in-laws had our number at the hotel but never called back that day. We went to bed concerned, not yet alarmed. But that changed quickly. The next day, we called again, leaving a message that we were worried and repeating the hotel phone number. Silence. We called repeatedly that day, all thoughts of beach time and romantic dinners long gone.
By day three, we were ready to get on a plane. Then, my husband had the idea to call his parents' home phone in Pittsburgh. "Pittsburgh?" I asked. "Why would we call there when everyone is back in our home in Roanoke, Virginia?" He reminded me that we could leave a message on their answering machine and, hopefully, they would check their messages.
As I stood outside the phone booth, watching my husband make the call and imagining the worst, I heard someone pick up. It was his father, alive and well back home in Pittsburgh, our two kids in tow.
They had driven 6 hours with our kids
My in-laws had driven 340 miles and six hours to their own home just a day after arriving at ours.
My mother-in-law had started having minor eye problems, they said, and rather than see a local optometrist she insisted upon visiting her own doctor. Our kids' stability in their own home with their own things — not to mention our consoling promises to our kids that they wouldn't miss preschool or soccer practice — didn't even cross their minds. Nor did calling to share their plan with us.
My mother- and father-in-law's decision to skip town with our kids was indeed the last straw. We may have continued to visit them with the kids, but we never trusted them to keep our kids again.