To accept that MIL doesn't particularly like my DC's?

[iwantbrie]

Don't get me wrong, she loves them dearly, treats them equally with regards to christmas and birthdays and takes them out when she's well enough, but she's not particularly interested in them and always manages to find fault with something everytime she sees them.

She has 5 DG's, 3 of them are ours. (11, 6 and 3 months). She's great when they're babies - in fact she goes totally overboard when they're tiny & unable to talk or move but when they get older things change. Her other GC's are very academic, go to schools she approves of (private or church) and do after school activities that she likes to go to. Our DC's go to the local school, DS will be starting a school that she doesn't like in September, they're not quite as academic but very hard working and do activities that she will never take an interest in.

Everytime one of the children try to tell her what they've been up to she manages to turn the conversation round to the other DC's. It's happened enough times that my DS won't bother telling her anything now which is quite sad. She has criticised DS to his face more than once to his face to the extent that DH has had to have a word with her and we stopped taking them to see her for a while.

DD has now started to get the same treatment on the (few) occasions we've seen her recently, and I know that the baby will get the same when she is older.
Btw, me & DH both do intervene when she starts and reassure the DC's that they have done nothing wrong. Cutting her off isn't what I want to do, we just limit the amount of time we spend with her.
So, do I/we just accept the fact that our DC's have obviously fallen below her expectations and will never be favoured or should we keep trying? The DC's love their Grandma but never go to visit voluntarily. It feels like a shame that she's making a rod for her own back for the future, both of our eldest have noticed and commented that she isn't the same with them as she is with her other DG's, they'll remember what she's like with them and not want to visit her at all when they're older if this carries on..

Sorry for the essay

How do you know what she's like when she's with her other DG's?

I wonder if she's the same way and any time they mention something, she might mention your kids in relation to the subject too?

I'm good friends with my SIL's Worra, they complain that she goes ott with their DC's and gets far too involved in their lives! Apparently she rarely mentions mine though.

grandmas favourites in are families always tended to fail badly in life, so if thats anything to go by count yourself lucky your dc aren't grans favourite grandchildren

It happens, my ex's mum blatantly prefers her other GC to my two.

This is sad, and I worry that my MIL may be the same when we have kids as other parts of the family are more affluent than us so will make "choices" she approves of eg private school.

However... There is a fair chance she does the same with her other DGs I think. Have you spoken to your brothers siblings about it? Do you know for sure she treats them differently? Perhaps it's just her way?

I think you are doing everything right, except perhaps for explaining how the way she talks to the kids upsets them more explicitly. Please don't try to compete for her favour, it will upset everyone.

Sorry x post w Worra. Hmm.

My gps were like this. Always talking about my cousins to me and my brother, saying how great they were. It always upset me. As I for older we all realised they did this to all the cousins. I never heard them say they were proud of me, but turns out my cousins were sick of hearing it and vice versa. They were like this with my mum and her sisters. Don't know why but they seemed unable to show/ tell us what they thought/felt but we heard it from others. May be they do this?

I know exactly how your children feel, my granny was exactly the same and treated me and my brothers in the way you describe your children being treated.

Looking back, I wish my parents had stood up for us, just a little bit. Even if they had said to us that we shouldn't have been treated like that it would have been something, but they didn't. And we didn't really care to visit as we grew older, which made her angry and resentful. She was always giving out about us not popping in. But my parents felt that she was old and shouldn't be confronted with her behaviour in the past.

In the end, I was sad when she died and I felt guilty for being neglectful and not loving her the way her preferred grandchildren did.

Don't cut the granny off, but if you hear her doing the things you talk about, tell her that it's not on and let your children hear it. At least then they'll have someone standing up for them and know that it's really not OK.

sorry cross post. Clearly not.

One of my grabs is still alive and still does this with me !

Her and my mother don't really get on (her mil too)

It doesn't bother me, im big headed confident and I know I am doing better than most of my cousins ( this is true btw, apart from two they have a very chequered past!)

My mother did somewhat limit my contact with her as a child.

apocalypseThen your experience is what we want to avoid but that's exactly what's going to happen I think.
We'll just have to keep making sure that we jump on anything she says , although if DH gets anymore explicit when telling her not to have a go at the DC's he'll be bordering on rude!

My own MIL prefers female GC to her male ones. She's always offering to have DD2 over, never DS2, and with my SIL she's had her DDs over to sleep several times but never offers to have SILs DS's.

Well the thing is, iwantbrie, you and your husband are clearly not standing back and tacitly endorsing it, and I think that's the main thing. I know my mother regrets not doing something because we've all told her many times how we needed her to, and I know my father still can't accept it. He just grimaced sadly when we complained at the time, and he still does the same today.

She was responsible for her relationship with us when we were kids, and she didn't make one. Your mother in law is in danger of doing the same, but that's her choice. If you're doing the best you can to support your kids, that's as much as you can reasonably be expected to do, I think.

As a grandmother of 7 with 2 on the way I find this really sad. I love all my DGC even the DGS2 who we are not allowed to see. I try to give individual time, not to be judgmental and not to undermine my DC and their partners. My relationships with the DGC are not identiacal because they are individuals and we have different shared experiences. I would never though belittle their achievements or compare them to siblings or cousins. DGD3 telling me about her painting at nursery is as important as DGD1 telling me about her hockey match. I think DGP should value all their DGC as not being part of their lives is hugely painful.

They won't be children forever, annielouisa, and they'll choose who they want to see for themselves. With your attitude, I don't think your separation/estrangement will be permanent.

Thanks AT I really hope so the family keep a memory box putting things like photos and cards in and are opening a savings account for him. I get too sad when I think about it.

Annielouisa your attitude is precisley how my parents are with the GC's. Individual but equal, thats what I would like MIL to be like but sadly I don't think it will happen and we have to accept that.
So sorry that you're not allowed to see some of yours, I can't imagine how painful it must be.
Thanks for all your replies, it's sad that it's more common than I thought. i don't think she will change her ways anytime soon so we will just have to deal with it & keep amclose eye on what happens when we're all together. x

I really hope it all gets resolved as soon as possible.

My grandma clearly had a favourite when we were growing up. She always criticised us and spoke about my cousin with such pride. Spent lots of time with cousin yet I can count on one hand the number of times she came to our house. Always spoke about how she was putting money away for cousins 21st so she would have X amount but not doing it for the rest of us. It did my head in and at 18 when she criticised my relationship with now DH I cut her off.

I don't know if there is anything you can do. Just keep reassuring your children that they are as special as their cousins.

it's really unpleasant when this happens. My nan on dad's side was like this. Only really liked boys and doted on my 2 male cousins. She only found fault with my sister and myself.

My aunt lived in a very suburban middle class area and 'the boys' went to good schools. Nan frowned on Mum working and not cleaning the house obsessively like my aunt (as that was real work apparently).

Nan made a horrible rift between all of us, and caused dad's half of my family not to come to my wedding. I had no love for her in the end - after years of listening to how much better my cousins were. She disputed that i'd even gone to uni and would laugh at the suggestion, as that would mean i was as clever as the boys, and that couldn't possibly be true.

It was very bizarre at her funeral. My cousins spoke of her and i honestly didn't recognise who they were talking about. We had such different experiences. Very sad. I grew up feeling acutely aware that i was no ones favourite.

If you want to salvage the relationship she has with your DC you or your DH need to say something to your MIL. Something along the lines of 'please stop doing that mum, they were telling you about X, please don't go on about your other GC. They are finding it very hurtful'.

If you have to be rude, so be it. Your MIL is being rude and mean, don't let her be.

My aunt was like this. I loved her, but she was a snob, and disfunctional. She had two sets of grandkids, but you would never have known it to listen to her. The 'invisible' grandkids just didn't conform to the fantasies she had about her own life and identity (very much a 'Mrs Bucket' type).

The thing about babies is that they don't have inconvenient opinions of their own...

Anyway, I don't think there's much I can add to the advice you've already been given- but please don't take her attitude to heart. It has nothing to do with your family, and everything to do with her- and she's the one who's missing out.

My nan was like that. I eventually stopped going to see her. She died knowing that her eldest granddaughter wanted nothing to do with her.