AIBU to think paternal grandparents are treated as the spare option?

When I got married, I viewed both sets of parents as equally important. During the engagement period, we probably spent more time at the ILs house. When we got married and moved into a new home together, I called my mother and father regularly. We had a standing arrangement for regular visits. The invited us to visit.

With my MIL (because FIL just kept out of it and left it to his wife), what was going on in my house behind the scenes was that I was asking DH if he should call his parents because it had been a while, asking him if he shouldn't be inviting his parents to visit, because they weren't organising it and I thought they should be part of the family. DH's relationship with his family was entirely maintained by me.

Meanwhile MIL drove things to the point I one day said I was leaving his family to him and not doing the work anymore. It had nothing to do with either side taking priority. If they can't be bothered, why should I?

How often did your DHs parents look after your kids?

It’s got nothing to do with the females parens getting priority and 100% to do with the male parent not making an effort with their own parents.

It is not the females parents responsibility to arrange or take control of her male partner facilitating time with his parents.

Time and time again the female parent is seen as controlling or a bitch for spending more time with her own parents but it is not her responsibility to also be in charge of the relationship with her male partners family.

It depends on two things:
How active the son is with the children
How close the son is with his parents.

When the wife is doing most of the childcare and is much closer to her parents, it is natural they spend more time with those grandparents.

Hands off dad who isn't close to his parents = second class grandparents.

My in laws and my parents are treated exactly the same. We’re a close family - in fact, my family and DH’s family all get on really well as family get togethers and my parents invite my MIL (FIL died a few years ago) to have dinner with us at theirs now and then. I have two sisters…one of their PILs are awful and just hardly ever bother so my parents are the ‘default’ but that wouldn’t be the case if the PILs were more interested. The other sister has a similar situation although not quite as bad.

Not for me but I have never lived in the same city as my parents. Surely depends on many factors. Growing up I had a far closer relationship with paternal grandma as she took so much interest in my life.

Oh absolutely. I also refuse to facilitate anything between my children and MIL because of her behaviour and leave everything up to my husband. But he is equally disinterested. She will claim that she wants to spend time with them or that my husband doesn't call her very often so to somebody looking in from the outside it may appear that he is the one at fault but he really, really isn't.

I also don't take anything to do with buying presents for his family but that's another story 😂

100% bollocks.

Where I think it CAN be true, is that often the man in a relationship is a slacker and so makes no effort with his own family and certainly not to organise engagement between his family and his children. And so yes, in those situations, the maternal grandparents often become default grandparents. Which I think is perfectly reasonable - why should a woman be responsibile for creating a relationship between her childrne and her husband's parents.

I’m sorry that’s awful.

But the OP indicates that she wants more time with her DGC. That’s up to her DS to facilitate.

This isn't always true sorry. My children are much closer to and see my parents a lot more than my husband's mother because she blatantly favours her daughter and her children and treats mine (and my husband) like an after thought. Although I'm sure she would claim otherwise.

Usually if a woman's parents get priority it's because she actively fosters a relationship with them and sees them regularly, while many men do not.

My PIL love my DD and would happily look after her while we work if we lived closer - however we live an hour away and they very rarely come to us, so it has never even been an option as we can't get her to them and back again on a work day. We visit them regularly though so they have a good relationship with her.

Whatever answer you get here is a generalisation and doesn’t help change anything in your particular circumstances.

What do you have influence over in your particular circumstances that could change things for the better? If you look at things from your son and DIL perspective why might this be happening?

Disagree - growing up in the 50’s / 60’s we spent far more time with paternal grandparents- though more time with maternal auntie’s family than paternal uncles. My own DC have grown up with an extremely close relationship with their paternal GPs, rather than my parents - their paternal GM was wonderful - as was mine as a child - so I fully understand why they were closer to her than to my DM.

It depends on so many different factors: relationship before meeting partner, relationship with partner, location, effort/interest on both sides, working hours.

We don’t see in-laws but that is because DH and MIL have a very polite relationship (not much interest from either side but get on well when they see each other).

Loads of friends see in-laws regularly even when they aren’t keen on each other as they can both see the love the other has for the DC/DGC.

MIL is the only grandparent we see. I am NC with my mum. Our dads are dead.

That said, it is an obligatory sort of relationship rather than a warm one. Dh sees her when it’s necessary to be polite because he doesn’t really enjoy being around her and struggles to talk to her. He often invites her over and then suddenly remembers he absolutely must spend the next 5 hours trimming the hedges. It’s now a race for one of us to abandon ship first, so the other has to entertain her.

She’s his mum though. It’s his job to nurture that relationship and talk to her and make her feel welcome. Not mine. So I put that back on him every time. I don’t go out of my way, because he needs to be the one who is there for her, not outsource it to me.

It’s because your son is rubbish.

I’m sorry, that’s very harsh but it’s true.

If you aren’t seeing your Grandchildren it’s because your DS isn’t prioritising it.

My DC have always had a very close relationship with their parental grandparents even though they lived much further away from us than my parents did.

My DH made sure that we saw them very regularly and they were included in all our family events and celebrations, just as mine were.

He made sure he called them with updates and sent photos etc etc. He made sure that they felt equally involved.

Your issue is with your DS.

Honestly, I think a lot comes down to how they've raised their sons.

If their sons are taking an equal share of raising the children and organising how the family runs including how free time is spent, then all other things being equal in terms of relationships with their own parents you'd expect both sets of grandparents to get a fairly equal look-in.

Where the child-rearing and mental load fall more on the mother, I think it's natural (not necessarily desirable but natural) for it to default more to the maternal grandparents.

Not the case for us. Neither set of grandparents is local though so they aren't involved in doing regular childcare. We make a real effort to see both sets of grandparents the same amount and try to split/alternate holiday times equally.

Despite all that, MIL constantly asks me how often DC see my family and makes passive aggressive comments any time we say we are busy on a weekend that we must be seeing my family. It has literally no basis in reality and really winds me up tbh.

DD and I are very close - communicate every day and see each other 3-4 times a week, currently pregnant and hopefully this won’t change that
Her DH is also close to his DM but doesn’t meet up as often so assume that will stay the same - if she want to be super gran that’s fine - more love to go around - she’s also retired and lives closer to them so may see more of baby than me

Or build a relationship with the DIL of her own? I'd have loved it if my MIL wanted to come over, take the children to the park together, go to the zoo, just visit. She could have invited me and the children to her home too. Never did, so there was no real relationship and she was definitely less involved than my mother as a result.

You need to have a quiet word with your son about that. How very dare they?

That’s so so sad @Mydoglovescheese I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine treating my MIL like that.

I was far closer - emotionally and geographically - to my late paternal DGM growing up and in to adulthood than to my late maternal DGM.

I think this is right. It isn’t possible to have a close relationship with a child without investing time in the relationship - and typically, although not always, that time will take the form of childcare in a grandparent/grandchild relationship.

In my group of friends, the majority are significantly closer with the father’s parents.

However, I have a hunch that this might be because the father’s parents try much harder whereas maternal grandparents feel entitled to be involved by right.