To wish my mum would stop going on about my niece?

[twinkledag]

Every time I say something about my son, 'oh niece does that too'. Example, my 3.3 year old DS spelt his name out at nursery and the nursery worker told us and said she was surprised he could spell it.

Obviously I'm proud about that, tell my mum 'oh niece does that too'. Niece is 22 months. She can spell her name if you tell her the letters one by one and she repeats it.

FFS. Can't I just say one thing about DS and have her be proud of him?

Back story - niece is daughter of DB who is the golden child.

ARGH!!

they can do no wrong and everything is always someone else's fault.

Rings bells.

There's all these reason excuses DN isn't doing well currently socially or academically when mine were struggling with school and work it was their own fault. Though now they are doing well it's because I'm so bloody pushy with them .

I don't know the answer OP - I still get hurt by it though DH is all well you know what they are like. I also find it odd it's great when DN goes off and does things while mine are supposed to stay home all the time - which obvioulsy they don't.

My MiL is a devil for this. It's become a family joke now that no matter what amazing achievement we tell her about our DC's, cousin X has always done it earlier, bigger and better. It's as if she's so keen to treat every conversation she has as a competition she forgets she's competing her own grandchildren against each other. She has 8 GC's but it was always one in particular we'd always hear about. We used to joke that X had come out of the womb doing Olympic standard gymnastics and reciting Shakespeare backwards. It's interesting because her favourite child is my DH so you'd think our kids would have trumped all, but not so.

However, the GC's are all teens/early 20's now and all sat together at a recent family wedding and were rubbing each other about who was Nanny's favourite. It turns out that, although to us she was constantly comparing my children to the wondrous X, in conversation with the others it was my eldest she was always bragging about and they all thought she was the favourite. Quite interesting. Sadly my younger 2, the youngest of the GC's, don't get a look in, they are id twins and in 15 years she has made no effort to and thinks it's funny that she can't tell them apart. Consequently they have no relationship with her other than one of obligation.

I hear you OP. It seems that everything my DD does her cousin (who is six months older) did it at a younger age. He's also managed to hit the 'terrible twos' at a mere 18 months.

I think those women - and invariably they are women - do this because it gives them a power trip. It’s pretty unpleasant to behave like that.

In pride of place on my mum's dressing table is a picture of her and husband with my niece aged 15 mths... pic was taken in my house during my Dd's 1st birthday.

Yup. I’m a bit of a photographer and have given MIL countless pictures of my two. The big one up in pride of place in a frame? One of my SIL’s kids at my DD1’s first birthday....

My dm does this with my db and my dh! Dh does the same job as my db used to do but stopped doing years ago. So she asks how dh is, how's the job going and I literally have 8 seconds to tell her (it's an exciting job, not boring anecdotes of what paperwork he completed or something) before she starts on about 'Oh well, your brother did such and such when he was a....'. I exploded last time she did this and asked why she always starts on about my db who hasn't done the job for years. She was nonplussed and tried to brush it off. I had to tell her she does this all the time, my db hasn't done that job for years. So weird, although db is golden child!

Same here, I stopped contacting and visiting my parents because I was sick and tired of constantly hearing how my sister and her boys were doing (this was more from Mum than Dad) really got me down and made me feel inferior.
Thing is I could never talk to them about how I felt about it.

As kids get older they pick up on this. My fil would go on about his dn’s ds who was a year older than ds1 and apparently a wonder boy at everything. Ds got really pissed off eventually and now dislikes the boy as well as not having warm feelings for his dgf. I expect my dd to soon notice how her dgps favour her younger cousins. Whatever the reason for doing this, it can affect your relationship with your dgcs not just your dcs.

@Viviennemary - there's a huge backstory of my mum favouring my brother and my older sister, and she favours their children! And the worse thing is my grandmother was like that with my mums siblings! So my mum is just carrying it on another generation. Sad really.

I will mention something next time to her I think. In a nice way. That or only tell her about my sons achievements via text so she won't go into conversation and only say well done!

@Ellybellyboo - that is shocking!!

We have this with MIL.

She came to visit this Summer, following her husbands death, and kept on about her other grandkids. She has visited them three times this year so far and is off again in November and then again at Xmas. She would ask my kids about their music or sport and then proceed to tell us about my nieces (her other grandkids). We paid for her trip (over £1000) as she tells us he has no money (except to fly to her other grand kids of course 😂).

She is nasty, self centred and unkind. I am glad she does not visit often as I have tried to bend to her will but she is so blind to my children, I have given up now.

It won't change. I literally told my mum an hour ago something ds aged 16 had achieved this week for her to say nephew has done that!

My DM is like this, though in her case I really don’t think it’s because she loves my DDs less than their cousins. (DDs are adopted so it’s easy to worry that it might be because they’re not blood relatives.)

Basically, DM constantly makes comparisons between DD1 and DNiece. They’re both 8 years old but DNiece is so bright, has the reading age of a 12 year old. What with my DSis raving about her constantly on FB, it becomes very galling, as DD1 has Attachment Disorder and finds a lot of things difficult.

But it’s not favouritism, I know that. Maybe your DM doesn’t mean any harm, doesn’t realise she’s doing it? Although there’s obviously history with her favouring your DB, so I understand why you would think that.

Been there, done that, got that particular t-shirt. All I can say to those of you with little/smaller ones struggling with it - the grandparents reap what they sow in terms of the relationship when the kids grow up.

After 20 years of favouritism my PIL cant understand why my DDs are so 'busy' all the time; while the DDs are never rude enough to actually say anything, when you've spent 20 years being compared unfavourably to your cousins it doesnt make you feel loved. I've never forced them into loving their GPs and interestingly in the last 5 years or so even DH has admitted that his DPs fucked up in their approach.

IMO, my PIL lost more than they ever gained.

My Grandma has always done this to me, my DB and cousins. I think she hates us all equal but always compares us to everyone else’s grandchildren. Whatever we have achieved in life she wishes we had done it like “Betty’s grandson” or “we ought to do what Hilda’s granddaughter does.” Now she’s started on our children. Needless to say none of us have much to do with her.