“Always.”
But things started changing slowly after my mother-in-law Carolyn began babysitting every Wednesday.
At first it seemed like a perfect solution. My husband Mark and I both worked full-time, and Carolyn had enthusiastically offered to help.
“You shouldn’t waste money on daycare when family is right here,” she told me one evening while pouring tea in our kitchen. “Besides, I love spending time with Emma.”
And for a while, everything seemed fine.
Emma would come home from school on Wednesdays, Carolyn would pick her up, and I would arrive home around six in the evening to find them sitting together in the living room or finishing dinner at the table.
But after a few months, something began to feel… different. Emma stopped running to greet me when I walked through the door. She stopped asking me to read bedtime stories. Instead, she started watching me carefully, almost cautiously, like she was trying to decide whether it was safe to get close to me again.
