aibu or is my mother?

[wfrances]

ds 1 birthday on thursday,my mum has arranged to take him for a meal saturday,invited my nan,sister and brother in law....thats it ,not me his dad or brothers and sisters??when i told her i thought she was unreasonable for making arrangements regarding my son and not including his immediate family she accused me of over acting ,started crying and hung up on me.
so whos being unreasonable?she thinks i am and i think shes gone mad.

fri/sat night is when we were going to celebrate en mass as usual at my house,
thats what hard to understand why is she assuming i will be too ill to go,and his father and siblings dont want to go.
she cant answer that.

Wfrances, even when younger it wouldnt have been an issue. It happened then quite often. Grandparents would take one of the kids out for a meal, a cousin may have gone along too, or another family member. Nobody ever thought it odd. Nobody would have been upset at all. .

If it was maybe just one child being singled out for this then I could understand it a bit better though.

squeakytoy -favouritism is being shown and noticed by my other dc

In that case I would mention it to your mother that you hope she does a similar thing for each of the childrens' birthday as they crop up.

fair point.i did ,thats when she started crying and hung up.

Please don't take this the wrong way but I get the impression the real issue here stems from your mum having a different relationship with your eldest son. probably simply because you lived with her until he was 8 months old. understandably your mum WILL have a different relationship and dare I say it bond with him because of this. you made a comment about her overstepping the boundreys in particular with regard to DS1, she probably feels she has the right as she would of had some kind of input into his early life and upbringing while you lived there. However, I get the impression you seem to resent your mum feeling like this. Maybe the only real reason you are so upset over this birthday meal is because she apears to be assuming the role of his mum almost by excluding his actual mum and other close family?
When you say oversteps the mark, in what way?

That took me so long to write, so I missed loads of your comments.
I'm only suggesting this because i have a similar issue with my eldest daughter and my Mum, We lived with my parents until she was 3, my parents have a totally different relationship with her, than they do with my younger two children. My parents were devestated when we finally moved out. My Mum does tend to overstep the mark with my DD1. In the end we had to sit down and have a chat about it. she felt like my DD1 was as important to her as any of her children were, and she needed to remind herself that DD1 is my daughter not hers. that said I can understand why she would feel his way, she watched and helped me bring up DD1, she was there through the sleepless nights, those first teeth, the first steps, all the things a normal grandparent tends to not see. So she feels a bigger bond with my eldest and I can completely understand that, and its okay because I don't feel threatened by there relationship.

bubblebabeuk - i know she feels like this.and yes the exclusion is the problem.
as for overstepping the boundaries wher shall we start
more money for birthday and christmas
everytime she phones she always asks how he is ,not the others
my other dc refer to her as ds1 nan!!
on a rare occasion he has been naughty and its always his age leave him alone.(stealing debit card and using it on his mobile phone.putting illegal porn on the ps3 with his younger brothers in the room}
he really cant do any wrong , i dont think its healthy for all involved

Wfrances, I completely sympathise with you. My mother favours my eldest, so much over my youngest that it is embarrassing and makes me extremely uncomfortable and sad for the little one, who hasn't noticed yet, but she will. One year she bought my eldest a dress that cost the equivalent of about £75 for her birthday (which was ridiculous in itself - she would never have spent that kind of money on me, but that's another story...) The same year she bought the youngest a plastic doll that cost less than £10 (and it was her first birthday and therefore a little bit special I would have thought...). DD2's present for when she was born was a buggy to be used at my mum's house (we lived away at the time). No teddies, nothing personal, unlike with the first where they all went completely bananas. My parents are not poor, by any means. When I mention DD2 she cuts over me 'and how's DD1?' or 'oh yes, DD1 used to that, anyway let's talk about DD1 now...'). She has always regarded DD2 as a bit of an alien and pointed out 'unusual' features when she was a newborn that I hadn't even noticed (including showing me how to massage her snub nose into shape FFS). I think my mum thinks that I favour DD2 which I don't, but rather fancies herself in the role of DD1s 'special person'

Anyway enough about me...
I would insist that you have one family celebration to which everyone is invited, or else that all your other children get taken out for their birthdays too. If you can get your mum to see it from the point of view of the other grandchildren and the hurt that she is causing them (although I relalise that of course you are hurt too) it might help distract it from being about you and your mum. The self-centredness of some grandparents never ceases to me amaze me.
Good luck.

It isn't healthy for all involved at all, have you tried sitting her down with a written list of the numerous ways she is overstepping boundaries? maybe she needs it in black and white, it sounds like she needs to acknowledge how harmful this kind of behaviour is to her other grandchildren and accept that it simply cannot continue. maybe you need to state its stick to the rules or don't see any of the DC? although with your DS1 age, it would be difficult to inforce I would imagine.

overal given the circumstances, I don't think your being unreasonable or over reacting regarding the birthday meal thats been set up by your mum.

I wish I had an answer for you, but sadly unless she is prepared to accept her bahaviour is unhelpful if not down right harmful, there is little you can really do, unless you cut contact altogether.

I agree with you, all a bit odd.

Could you not put in writing how you feel and explain it gently perhaps? Also mention how the others feel.

That way she can't get emotionally charged with you and not listen. I know you can't make her read it or even try to understand but at least you have done your bit.

Well, if you´re planning something for the same night, then he can´t go, can he?

Can you tell her that he just wants to do what you usually do & that she he wants, she can take him out another time?

TBH, for my son´s 16th he´ll be more than likely celebrating with friends.

We´re abroad so a family meal would just be us four, and tbh even if we weren´t abroad it probably still would be.

that should be "if he wants", "not she he wants"

I'm with Diddl - I'm afriad I would just say - "we will celebrate his birthday that Saturday with everyone we cannot exclude some of this closest family from that so we will be sticking to my original plan of takeaway at my house to which you and sister and nan are very welcome".

It isn't her choice its ultimately his but if he doesn;t much care then I think its perfectly reasonable for you to insist on a family celebration if that was your existing plan - her plans don't trump yours in the absence of him having a preference.