I Left My 6-Year-Old Son With My Mother-In-Law for a Week — Then He Called Me in Tears Midway Through
Our long-overdue honeymoon fell apart when our 6-year-old son, Mason, called us crying, saying he was alone in the dark — and his grandma had left him.
Gloria had insisted she could watch him for the week. The first few days were fine… until Wednesday night. Mason called at 9 p.m., terrified. We stayed on the line while calling 911. Police found no intruder — just a loose shutter — but Gloria was gone and unreachable.
We flew home the next morning. Mason ran into my arms shaking. When Gloria finally showed up, she acted like nothing happened. Later, Mason told us she’d left because he said he missed us — and she “punished” him by abandoning him.
When confronted, she claimed he needed to “learn not to manipulate people with tears.” That was the end. We cut contact unless supervised.
Mason struggled with nightmares but slowly healed. Gloria kept guilt-tripping us, even showing up at his school, until we set strict boundaries.
A year later, Mason said he stayed brave because he remembered my promise: “I’ll always come for you.”
And that’s when I knew — protecting my son comes before everything, even family.
