To think maybe grandparents are closer to their daughter's children?

[CedricSydneySneer]

I probably am.

I feel as though my parents are closer to my dc than my brothers dc. They don't treat them differently or anything so it's hard to explain.

I like my in laws but I don't feel close to them, when my own parents are with my dc it just seems more natural, hard to explain. I try not to let this get in the way. It might be because with my own family we can say what we think but it's all faux politeness with in laws.

I've noticed this with a few people, the daughters are the main carers and seem to go to their own mum for advice or for babysitting. I've even seen situations where the dads parents have been banned from seeing grandchildren when relationships break down.

Is this just me? I've got boys and although it's a long way off I wonder if my future dil will feel the way I do.

My dads mum was the wallpaper of my life . Can't talk about her without welling up.

My mums mum - still alive - meh.

But then again - my dad is way more of an attachment for me than my mum.

I am closer to mum than my dbro is. However the reason for that is dbros and sils attitude to mum. They tend to think she should drop everything (including work) to do them favours, but never visit her or spend time with her without wanting a favour. They never visit, only drop and pick the kids up.

They also make clear that sils mum is their priority when it comes to visiting Christmas, birthdays etc.

However mum makes a huge effort with their kids so that she isn't seen to favour my kids. While she spends more time with my kids (because we visited) she never treats them differently. My kids are definitely not favoured.

There's weight in the theory that the primary carers of the primary carer would have a closer bond (i.e. the mums) and there's the likelihood that it was daughter's mum who did all the period and sex education so there's a more open relationship.

But then other factors are thrown in: distance, personalities, relationship with ILs, illnesses, age, etc..

My PILs have disowned my DH and DS because we gave DS my surname. So DS will grow up closer to his maternal grandparents for no other reason than because his paternal grandparents are dickheads.

True IME. YANBU

Bare bones of my experience: XH was rubbish at keeping in touch with his family and they in turn were never bothered about our kids. Happy to literally let us drift away. I was pretty young with 3 under 5 and did all the day to day child care. I saw my mum 2 or 3 times a week with kids in tow. Outcome = my 3 eldest are close to my mum but barely know their paternal grand parents. Once i split from their son they stopped even sending the kids birthday cards Their loss.

My 'new' (been together 10 years) DH's parents are lovely people and love our child very much AND are great with their step grand daughters from my first marriage. However, they do spend about 10 times more time and effort on SILs kids. Mind you SIL uses them as unpaid childminders every spare minute even though MIL is frail and needs a break now enjoys all the free time she gets while they have her kids and is the apple of their eye, so nothing is going to change anytime soon.

It doesn't bother me at all (i'm a very independent person and learned not to expect too much of ILs through my experience with the out-laws.) I do get the spidey senses that MIL sees the disparity clearly and worries about it though. Things she says, lobs us money, ect.

Don't worry too much, milk. It's dependent on a range of factors. My parents have both died so ILs will get to be the 'one and only' grandparents. That's fairly unusual (am only in early 30s) but I know of families where the woman isn't close to her mum or the mum has died. It's not something that will happen, just on balance is probably more likely to happen?

YANBU. DS is much closer to my parents than he is to DH's. But my parents have always made an effort to get involved and to try and help us out. I'm an only child so maybe that makes a difference. PILs spend all of their time helping SIL out, even though she also has a lot of help from her own PILs.

We have tried everything to get PILs to spend time with our DS, but as SILs children always come first, we've given up trying. They have babysat once in 5 years. The last time we asked them was over a year ago and they said no. DS has had 6.5 weeks off school this summer and I've been home with him for 4 of them. PILs have spend the grand total of 1 hour with him, but SILs children were also there. My parents have seen him nearly every day.

I used to do all I could to facilitate a relationship between DS and PILs but to be honest, we have been rejected so many times in favour of SILs children that I can't be arsed any more. If they want a relationship with him, they'll have to put in some work. DH feels the same. He's very forthright and has told his parents this but it hasn't made the slightest difference. It doesn't help that his sister has always been the favoured child and his parents have made that blindingly obvious.

Our DC2 is due at the end of this week. It will be interesting to see whether they can make time to visit once the baby is born, or whether they will have to bring SILs children with them too.

It makes me sad that DS has no real relationship with PILs but ultimately that has been their decision. We spent 4 years bending over backwards to try to accommodate them so that DS would see them. Last year we realised that they will not compromise on anything, so decided to take the same approach. As a result, I think they've seen him 3 times this year, despite only living 15 mins away. DS saw more of them when they lived abroad as we used to spend our holidays visiting them.

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant but it really winds me up that they just don't seem to care about DS.

In our case dc are v close to both sets of grandparents. PIL only have sons so make an extra effort with their dils, I would say, than they may do if they had a daughter. However when I was pg & dd was first born there were some things they did/said which were quite hurtful at the time (treating us v differently from how they had treated first BIL & SIL when they had children). In retrospect I think a lot of it was probably down to a misguided belief on their part that they should step back so my parents could do more as they thought that would be what we wanted (SIL doesn't have a mum so MIL fulfills that role for her). In actual fact we wanted both sets of grandparents around & involved!

Now though PIL provide childcare once a week and my parents provide ad hoc emergency childcare & weekend care too to give us a break sometimes - we're incredibly lucky. And dd and ds are just as close to both sets.

But I can see things being quite different for my parents when my bro & his girlfriend have children - I'm sure she will defer to her parents more and that will be v sad for my parents who will want to be involved in the same way they are with my 2.

It's certainly the way in our family. Mil is much closer to sil dc than mind. But it's because they live 10mins from eachother and mil & sil did alot together before dc anyway.
Whereas we live 3hrs away and although they're lovely pil I would never have chosen to spend any time with them before dc arrived.

I have 'surrogate' daughter her mum my best friend died and I am closest to her dc mainly I think because her need for me is greater than my DiL who not only doesn't need me but doesn't really want me involved. My ds and I both pretend it's not happening but my wonderful funny close relationship with him and now his dc is fraught with tension. My DiL doesn't have the same close family ties find ours stifling and generally avoids family stuff. Subsequently the relationship with my dgc is not as close. My 'surrogate' dd adores us and makes that very clear. Our relationship is natural, relaxed and very close despite not seeing much of her and her dc in their early years/months. As a grandparent you have to take the lead from the mother so you get the relationship the mother allows you I would do anything to be closer to my ds's dc but have to accept its not acceptable to my DiL.

I think this is true but I think it could be because daughter's are better at staying in touch/possibly stay closer to their parents. Men do not tend to see as much value in keeping in close contact with their mothers. I also think this adds to the mother-in-law/daughter in-law tensions. This is my experience although I appreciate it is a massive generalisation.

Sadly think you're right- my mil favours her dd's Dc far more than ours it's so obvious. I've tried to engage her in her gc's lives but she is not interested in them at all really.
I have a dd and do and if I'm blessed with gc in the life they will always be treated equally.
This obvious favouritism hurts me I hope when my Dc are old enough to notice it doesn't hurt them as much

such a depressing thread when you only have boys

I think it massively depends. I can see the logic in your argument, but I can honestly say my dc are equally close to both sets of grandparents. Probably helps that both are hands on grandparents without interfering in all the ways you read on mumsnet.
I know I'm lucky, and as a mother of boys I hope that I can also have a good relationship with any future grandchildren.

For my dc it's definitely true. Mil is too busy looking after her daughter's dc to spend any amount of time with mine so my dc by default see more of my parents.
For me though I have always spent more time with my dad's parents than my mum's. My dc probably spend more time with my gp than any of their gp because they always want to see us and always have.

Well this is a cheering thread. So glad I clicked.

In addition to my post about my own parents. My pil chose to move a three hour drive away to a house that has no room to stay over.

So we see them for about 3 hours every school holiday. They don't come over to us at all.

I don't mind that they moved. They have always wanted to live where they do now. But the natural consequence is that they aren't as close to dh or the kids.

Dh doesn't mind that they moved, but he does mind that they never visit. Even when they are nearby to visit friends. That has damaged his relationship with them somewhat. Dh and I always made the effort to involve pils. We took on a huge amount of the care of their parents to help them etc. We invited them over the night I had Ds, before they moved. I had him early morning and was out by 3pm but they didn't really want to. Dh basically told them to get off their arses and meet their grandson.

I don't think all sons don't bother with their own parents.

So I can see both sides. Sometimes it's the kids, sometimes it's the parents sometimes it geography or circumstances.

Wow. This thread is incredibly depressing if you're a mother of a boy confusedsad

Isn't it one (extra, hopefully!) incentive to raise boys who realise that they should be pulling their weight equally in the household and who don't expect a woman to arrange everything for them? An awful lot of these are because both keeping up family relationships (buying cards, phoning to update on the children) and making childcare arrangements have ended up falling entirely on the woman and she's likely to naturally turn more often to her own family with who she feels more comfortable. If the man was doing an equal share of this stuff it's unlikely the same dynamic would be there.

My DM and StepF treat mine and my DB DCs the same. DM still works so is not readily available to babysit but will of an evening. MIL definitely favours her DDs DCs. She is retired and always has them and will.do anything for her DDs. Very different attitude towards our DCs and DHs DBs DCs. We do go to her for emergency day time babysitting though which she will usually do but dare I say it - my kids openly favour my parents over my inlaws.

It is depressing sorry

I know it isn't always the case, I guess there are many different reasons why it happens when it does.

To be honest in our case my in laws are ok, sil doesn't have any dc yet I actually think she's waiting for pil to retire, but she's happy to hang around at her parents house every day, all weekend, go on holiday with them several times a year. I look forward to seeing them but I just don't feel the need for that level of contact. Dh is close to his parents but in a typical man way in that he just about remembers to get them a birthday present.

It's a long way off but having two boys I do think about how things might work out.

I think I'll be ok as I wont expect too much when my boys have kids, as I've read countless threads like this throughout the years on MN

mind you I dont expect to live through my children and grandchildren, I hope I have a full and interesting life by then and they do too and dont need the constant input from grandparents a lot of posters here seem to need

I do think this is an area some men find difficult. I know DB2 wanted to see more of our parents (all his family) but exSIL did not and also did not want to be separated from DCs or him. She could do all her visiting during the day whilst DB2 was at work. There is also an element that a man has to put his partner wishes above his DM or he is unsupportive. I do think there are a few women who act as gate-keepers to their children. I have the partner who needs to be reminded to phone, visit and buy gifts. I know on MN that can be looked down upon but is has really helped with the relationship with MIL.

"Apparently there's a theory that grandparents feel a closer bond to their daughters' children than their sons' because they know without a doubt that those children are definitely their daughters', while with their sons' children they will always (usually subconsciously) be thinking that there's a possibility their sons might not be the biological fathers of the children."

Yes, I've heard that theory but I think there's a much simpler explanation. It's often the mothers who are the primary carers of the children so grandparents feel more able to be involved with things when the primary carer is their child whereas the paternal grandparents might feel they were interfering. I imagine the perception of the mother as primary carer holds even when the father is a stay at home father.

I wonder how it generally works when the father has residence and the mother only visitation rights? I bet that in most of those cases the paternal grandparents would be more involved.

Of course it also depends on how close the families are both emotionally and geographically. In farming families, the women usually go to live on the man's family farm with grandparents living very close by so I imagine that paternal grandparents are more important there.

I do agree this is very common, I'm probably in the minority in that we see MIL loads more than my mum.
My mum loves 200 miles away and MIL is round the corner so we see her around twice a week. I ring my mum everyday to update her on the DDs and ask for advice and I always ask MILs opinion as well.
It probably helps I have a fantastic relationship with MIL, she was in the room with me and DP when DD2 was born.

Fwiw, as a child (and as adult, until they passed away) we were much closer to our paternal than maternal grandparents. This was partially because my mum had a difficult relationship with her own mother, but also because my dad was capable of contacting, communicating with and arranging things with his own parents.

true, SIL children are the golden children and we can't say anything to MIL about our children without her interrupting that Niece1 did that and Nephew2 did the other... for fuck's sake they are 10 years older, of course they will be doing interesting stuff, let us tell you about what our pre-schoolers are doing even if it's not as interesting...