Bit of background first;
I have five children, my eldest two a son and daughter are not my OH's, although we have been together since they were five and two, my daughter calls my OH 'Dad' and he treats them both exactly as if they were his own.
MIL alludes to the fact that she has five grandchildren but never makes much of an effort with my two eldest so it's very much lip service, which all things considered is fair enough. I can't honestly attest to the fact that I'd feel any differently in her position, although I would perhaps hope to hide my preference for my biological DGC a little more.
MIL has a niece who is the same age as my eldest daughter, they went to school together although the niece has recently left primary school.
My DD has told me on numerous occasions that this girl is nasty to her in school. She apparently remarks to her friends 'Ew,I can't believe that I'm related to that' when she passes my DD.
I have told my DD to ignore her, that she must have a lot of sadness inside of her to want to be so nasty to DD etc.
DD has mentioned to her younger siblings that this girl is frequently nasty to her, despite me telling her to not involve them as they are only four and five. They don't understand the situation very well.
So today I'm at MILs with my three youngest DC and MILs niece calls around with her father. MIL, my DC and MILs niece are sat in the living room when my youngest daughter pipes up 'Sadie (my DD) says that Nina (MILs niece) is nasty to her in school'.
I stayed silent, the niece looked visibly uncomfortable and MIL says to DD2 ' Well that's because Sadie and all of her little mean girl friends ignore Nina in the playground, so Nina ignores Sadie and her mean girls. Then Sadie thinks that Nina is being nasty to her'
AIBU to think that my MIL needs to get a grip of herself and grow up?
Firstly to refer to eight year olds as 'mean girls'
Secondly to offer an explanation to my four year old other than 'what goes on between older girls at school isn't really your business so please don't say that, now let's finish our colouring shall we?'
Thirdly to expect me to sit complacently on her sofa whilst she paints a completely erroneous image of my DD in my very presence.
My DD is by no means a saint, I'm aware of her faults but she is not mean, calculated or vindictive. She's quite sensitive and only of average intelligence, she probably lacks all of the necessary cerebral requirements to qualify as a 'mean girl' ridiculous term which a middle aged woman should feel ashamed to use quite frankly
I didn't say anything as I didn't want to make MILs niece feel any more embarrassed than she obviously was but I'm actually feeling quite aggrieved right now.
So great and good of AIBU I know that I can fully depend on you to fight my MIL's corner and tell me that I'm being unreasonable for thinking she's an immature twat in the wrong to have behaved in this way.
Over to you.....