Woman says her mother-in-law wanted her 6-year-old to spend the honeymoon week states away with grandparents he barely knows — and got angry when they said no

One woman went to Reddit after what should have been a happy milestone for her and her husband got hit with a guilt trip from his mother instead. In the post, she explained that she and her husband got married while she was pregnant during COVID, which meant they never really got a honeymoon. Now, six years later, they had finally saved enough to book an eight-day trip for the summer — their first real kid-free trip in years. The original Reddit post is here.

The childcare plan, at least at first, sounded simple. Their 6-year-old son was going to stay with the woman’s mother, who lives five minutes away and sees him regularly. But her mother-in-law did not take that well. According to the post, the in-laws moved a few states away when the boy was still a baby, so they do not see him nearly as often, and the mother-in-law has apparently always been sensitive about the maternal grandma spending more time with him.

Things escalated the next day. The woman said her mother-in-law called and asked if the little boy could stay with her instead for the week. She pitched it as a chance for her, the father-in-law, and even the husband’s grandparents to bond with him over the summer. But once the logistics came out, the request stopped sounding like a sweet offer and started sounding like a full reroute of the couple’s entire trip. The mother-in-law reportedly suggested they drive five hours to drop the child off, change their flights to leave from a different airport near the in-laws, leave their car there, and let her handle airport transportation.

The couple says they thought it over and decided it was just too much. Not only would it add roughly two extra days of travel and complication to a honeymoon they had already waited six years to take, but their son also flat-out said he did not want to go. In the post, the woman said he told them he would rather stay with her mom because he does not know his paternal grandparents very well. That was really the key detail for a lot of readers, because once a 6-year-old says he feels more comfortable with the caregiver he actually knows, the emotional argument starts getting pretty thin.

So they declined. The woman said they thanked her mother-in-law for the offer and told her they were sticking with the original plan because it would be less hectic. According to the post, the mother-in-law did not just sound disappointed. She accused them of preventing her from bonding with her grandson, said they always favored the woman’s mom, and then hung up. After that, the woman said they had not heard from her.

The edit made the whole thing feel even less reasonable. A bunch of commenters apparently asked why the mother-in-law could not just come stay at their house and watch the child there, but the woman explained that was not really workable either. Her father-in-law cannot manage the stairs in their house, the husband’s grandparents are too elderly to travel, and from past experience, she does not think her mother-in-law would be okay coming alone. She also noted that the in-laws have not come back to visit since they moved away.

That last part is what seemed to get under Reddit’s skin the most. A lot of commenters pointed out that if the grandparents really wanted a closer bond, the way to build one would be through steady visits and normal time together — not by trying to turn an already-planned honeymoon into a weeklong trial run with a child who barely knows them. One reply said bluntly that a week with “virtual strangers” is not how you start bonding with a 6-year-old. Another said the bigger issue was that the child’s comfort seemed almost completely missing from the mother-in-law’s thinking.

Other commenters focused on the timing. Several pointed out that this was not just any random week where the parents could easily pivot if something went wrong. It was their honeymoon, after six years of waiting, and the entire point was to finally have a stretch of time that did not revolve around child logistics. One commenter said if the mother-in-law truly wanted to help, she could have offered something that actually reduced stress instead of adding more of it. Another said the son’s answer should have ended the whole discussion the second he said he did not want to go.

The woman also added one more small detail in the comments that made the contrast even sharper. She said her mom babysits often, knows the child’s friends and their parents, and was even planning to set up playdates during the week. At the in-laws’ place, he would have been the only kid there and probably bored out of his mind on top of being away from the adults he knows best. That made the choice feel less like favoritism and more like the obvious call for a child who needs to feel secure while both parents are away.

What makes the story stick is that the mother-in-law framed this as a bonding issue, but the actual request seems to have centered her feelings more than anyone else’s. The parents would have had to redesign their honeymoon. The child would have had to spend a week with grandparents he barely knows. And somehow the couple was supposed to feel guilty for choosing the arrangement that was easiest on their son. That is why so many readers landed in the same place: if she wants a closer relationship, that starts with showing up more in ordinary life, not by trying to claim the honeymoon week.

Would you have stuck with the original childcare plan too, or would you have tried to make the in-laws’ idea work? And if a grandparent wants to bond with a child they barely know, does that start with a weeklong stay — or with actually making the effort long before that?