AITA for Refusing to Let My Son Stay at My Mothers After Incident at the Pool?

AITA for refusing to let my son stay at my mother's after a concerning incident at the pool? Opinions are divided.

Damjan

Published in Interesting
19 Jan 2026

AITA for Refusing to Let My Son Stay at My Mothers After Incident at the Pool?

He trusted his mom with his 3-year-old, and for a while it sounded like it was going to be smooth. Then the daycare sicknesses piled up, the help got slower, and suddenly one pool day turned into the kind of family incident that makes everyone pick a side.

This is a dad (30 M) and his wife, trying to juggle daycare illnesses, exhausted leave, and zero backup care. His mother (52 F) promised she would be there, but only showed up “a handful of times” a year, refused to watch him when he was sick, and later agreed to take him more often, just not consistently. The last straw came when her nephew (12 M) was around at the local pool, and she left the kid in the water while her nephew watched from the side, then got in trouble with the lifeguard.

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Now he’s refusing to let his son stay there again, and he wants to know if he’s the bad guy for it.

Original Post

forgive me for my appalling spelling and grammer. for some backstory, my ( 30 M) self and my wife had our son three years ago.

At this time, my mother (52 F) said she was excited to be a part of his life and that if we ever needed anything, she would be there. From that point on, we only saw her a handful of times each year.

When our boy got sick for the fifth time in six months after starting daycare, I asked multiple times for her to help as I had exhausted all my leave and my wife had none after returning to work. She informed us that she would be unable to look after him as she had other commitments.

Early last year, she asked me if she could take him more, which I agreed to as we were not stopping her from seeing him. We didn't hear back from her until the very end of the year when he stayed over at her house.

Come to this year she once again asked if she could take him more. maybe once a mouth?

Which once again i agreed to. But over the last weeked my nephew (12 M) was staying with my mother and she also had my son.

She had both the boys. They went swimming at the local pools.

When she came home, my nephew told me that she got in trouble from the lifeguard. Turns out my nephew went and got changed while she stayed in the pool with my son.

Then once he was changed, she left my son in the pool by himself with my nephew on the side of the pool watching. I spoke to her about it, but she saw nothing wrong with it.

She then asked later on that night when would be the next time she could have my son and i told her i would not let her have him becouse she left him in pool by himself and she cant see anything wrong with it so am i the ass hole for no longer allowing my son to stay at my mothers?