MIL favouritism, would this bother you?

[Celina21]

MIL has always favoured DS, and I know in her hearts of heart she loves him more than DD and has admitted it. Even her own grown up daughters were hurt by her favouritism towards their brother as they were growing up. So she has a thing for boys/men, I don’t get on with her at all but that’s another thread.

She has gotten better since we raised the issue about her favouring DS over DD, but this morning MIL is at hospital booked in for surgery, the kids are eating their breakfast. I can hear DH call DS to the bedroom, he’s on the phone to MIL and all I can hear is “ say hi to nanny”, “ say love you nanny”. DS comes back after 5-7 mins, and no mentioning of DD saying hi to nanny. I was just hurt that my little girl just sat there eating her breakfast, and her brother got all this attention.

Btw my children are 5 and 6.

Am I reading too much into this?

My grandmother did this but the other way around she favoured me but barely interacted with my brother.
In the end I didn't see her for about 5 years as my mum told her that if she couldn't treat us the same then she wouldn't see either of us.
She did change slightly and definitely publicly treat us the same but she would always give me money before she left and not my brother. My mum was wise to it though and made me share without my brother noticing.
My brother did notice she was different with him which did effect him.
Wait until she has recovered from the surgery then be strict with your hubby lay it on the line that is has potential to cause emotional issues for your daughter and if it doesn't change then your not happy with her seeing either.

It never ceases to amaze me how horrible some parents can be to their own children (or in this case grandchildren). My MIL is the absolute opposite to this and will make sure everything is fair between the grandchildren to the absolute nth degree which I find a bit excessive at times, but I would take that 100 times over than allow my dd and ds to be treated so utterly differently. It's just horrible. And the fact that your dh allows this to happen is unacceptable and defies belief. I would be very angry at both dh and mil about this and would have to issue some kind of ultimatum.

Sorry to be brutal, OP, but your MIL is a dick and your DH isn't much better. Having favourites is a messed-up way to behave at the best of times, being the favourite and allowing history to repeat itself with your own DC is another level of awful.

Your MIL doesn't need to be dealt with on this; your DH does. Your DC are as much yours as his, so you need to call him out every single time it happens. If it's in public and he's embarrassed, that's his embarrassment to overcome. If he shuts you down and attempts to gloss over it, repeat it til he begins to see that his behaviour is shitty, dysfunctional and bound to have an awful impact on his family. I can't believe he'd allow his DC to be treated that way; either he's brainwashed and believes it's normal or he's a little bit stupid.

I get this with my DM preferring my youngest DD to her sibling. She also had a favourite child (one of my brothers) and now we are adult he admits it was (and still is) obvious and that actually that isn't any easier than being the overlooked one (or in our case, overlooked 3).

When my Dc were younger it bothered me very much, and I did exactly as you are doing, working very hard to equalise things for them. Now my youngest is a teen she sees it clearly and thinks her Granny is a bit bonkers and DD is very protective of us all when Granny calls her to bemoan how ill treated Dd is and how I am a bad mum/care more about other child/husband than Dd etc etc.

I've become a bit inured to it all: low contact etc. It isn't right and it isn't fair but some people just can't help behaving badly. All I/you can do is protect your DC as much as possible for any serious fall-out.

Your dh is perfectly happy for this to continue as this is the way it has always been for him, he probably fully expects your ds to get the special treatment as that is how it has always been for him too.

He sees nothing wrong in this, and needs educating and quickly.

You are not wrong to feel sorry for your dd, you are right to be protecting her from this.

The whole dynamic is so unhealthy I would considering very low or no contact. This issue will come between your dd and ds eventually and will continue through the generations unabated unless your dh has a very stern word with MIL once she is better. HE has to make it clear that she needs to include dd in everything or she doesn't see either of them.

My brother was the favourite with my mother. I am the family scapegoat. My mother and brother tried to scapegoat my dd when she was about 7. I went ballistic at my mother and made it clear that contact with dd was dependant on her behaving appropriately with dd.

As for my brother and his vile wife, they have a son, dh and I have a daughter. They honestly think the sun shines out of their sons arse, we are now nc after they were horrid to dd once too often and then my brother was violent with me. I was forever taking dd to one side and talking to her about the situation and how they were tall children (ie not real grown ups), who don’t realise everyone should be treated the same and all children are just as important as one another.

Your dd is 5, is that correct? She’s going to normalise it unless you talk to her. Don’t over compensate. That will also breed entitlement. Make it clear to your dh that this behaviour won’t be tolerated. Withdraw contact between her and the children - or at least limit it. You also need to talk to your ds about as he will notice it too. Tell them what grandma thinks is silly and you think they are both very precious and special.

I understand he won’t listen. I agree with a pp, wait until she has the all clear. Then if you don’t think he will listen. I’d write to him. Writing takes the emotion out of things. My dh is very protective of his father. Whenever I brought up stuff about him he flat denied there was anything different for years and years. I’ve finally got him understand his dad is very very likely to be undisagnosed autistic. So for example I made it clear we would never be leaving dd with him as he wasn’t capable of looking after dd. This sort of thing caused rows as it was always a taboo subject. It isn’t anymore.

I was also a DD in this situation but in my case it was the maternal DGM. My parents both tried constantly to minimize the impact of her favouring one child but you still feel it. She lived with us which made it even more difficult.

If DH is encouraging it then from your DD PoV he is playing favourites too. Does that not bother him or just he just dismiss yours, DD's and his sisters feelings? If the latter, he is not a good DH or DF, he is a bigger problem than the DGM as he is in a position to protect DD and he is implicitly favouring DS.

My DM favoured my DB. At first because he was younger and then because he was a boy, but there was backstory with her having lost her firstborn baby, a boy, who was stillborn, and therefore my DB having to carry the expectations of two. He never really played up to it (he's very laid back) and our relationship was and is good. Unfortunately, she then went on to favour his DC. My own DC picked up on this, but we all shrugged it off, DB's children were geographically closer too, so saw more of her, so mine didn't have to suffer too much of the 'comparison competition'.
Besides, mine are cleverer and better looking, so...

If your DH wasn't treating his DD as a poor second choice it would be less relevant what your MIL is doing. With the phone call, if your husband considered them both, he would have called DD. He didn't. I would struggle to hide my revulsion at a "man" who could emotionally abuse his own child like that.

If your DH wasn't treating his DD as a poor second choice it would be less relevant what your MIL is doing. With the phone call, if your husband considered them both, he would have called DD. He didn't. I would struggle to hide my revulsion at a "man" who could emotionally abuse his own child like that.

It doesn't surprise me that he's effectively blind to it/sees no problem with it, because he was also the favourite child.

I wouldn't put up with it.

My grandmother has always played favourites, and, make no mistake of it, everyone is aware of it. It's not always great for the favourite grandchild either, as they bear the weight of all of her expectations and aspirations. But she is a narcissist and will never change.

You DH doesn’t want to see the problem because then he would have to look at his own golden position as favourite child and how damaging that has been for his sisters.

As the family scapegoat, as your dd now is, she will grow up feeling insecure, unloveable and soiled by the relationship with her grandmother. It can and will cause lots of problems for her, the only blessing being that she has a very astute and loving mother in you and hopefully you can shield her from this.

No contact might be the only way forward if you dh fails to realise what is happening (show him this thread) and unless he irons this out once and for all then this could compromise your marriage and future as well.

The golden child may not realise his status or he may wish for it to remain unchallenged and unchanged but it will seriously damage his own dd for sure, and your whole family in the end lets hope he does the right thing and unleashes himself from his mother's breast.

Mine does this. She adores my daughter but not my son, any birthdays or Christmas, my daughter gets more. She (MIL) had sons only and was desperate for a daughter but alas, didn’t have one. Bothers me but my son is too young to understand, when he gets older and realises it then I will have to tackle it head on with her, for now, I’m leaving it becasue she is highly strung.

midnightmisssuk leaving it until your children are old enough to realise is a mistake. You are enabling this behaviour, and it will be much harder to fix six/seven years down the line.
Who cares if she is highly strung, your dc can and will be damaged by this and it will cause endless arguments and bad feeling between your children. It will end in a huge row with your ds self esteem in tatters. I would reconsider leaving it...

they do notice and they do feel very hurt!!
my sister favors my daughter and my son was often overlooked or an after thought... i put my foot down when he said he wasn't bothered going to see her and her husband as "they don't like me" so i said equal or not at all, ( the reaction has me being NC with her now but that's a whole other story)
The kids do notice! and it does hurt! stand up for her now, don't let this go, he doesn't notice it because he was and still is golden... EQUAL OR NOT AT ALL, even on the bitches deathbed... EQUAL

I don't think it's acceptable at all.
But I'm not sure how you could get the this through to your dh.

There is a difference between how we feel and how we act. We can't help how we feel, but we can do something about how we act. Both your DH and MiL need to understand the difference.

My MIL definitely favours her grandsons over our DD. They receive the same level of gifts and attention when they’re together, but she is very defensive about the boys.

An example is our DD does lots of activities in and out of school and when MIL visits our home we update her on how DD is doing. For each comment we make she seems to try to find some comment on how the boys are doing. She’s not their Mother so why does she do this? It’s bizarre and embarrassing. An example is our DD swims for her local swimming team. She’s bloody good. MIL will retort back - DGS doesn’t go to swimming classes any more as he can swim now. It’s not swimming classes!! Ignore and smile.

I admit it’s a bit different when they’re both your children.

MIL clearly preferred her DSs over her DD too.

I would strongly suggest you don't fuck up your own relationship with your children because of your MiL. The effect of a parent's favouritism is far worse than a grandparent's.

My MIL was exactly the same, - she would openly buy an expensive thing for DS in a shop, entierly forget DD was there and when reminded would grab somethng like a pencil for her.

She was the same with all little boys in her family - with cousins she ignored the 2 girls and made a huge fuss of the boy, she said to me 'girls are fine but there is something so special about a little boy'.

It got to the point where DS (who was a kind soul and hated the favouritism even though he was the benificiary) would put things back and say 'you can;t get something for me and not DD' to his granny.
Ironically DS grew to dislike his granny for constantly putting him in an embarrassing position and he resisted going to visit her when he was older.

I don't know that there is much you can do - you can talk to her, tell her how upsetting it is, talk to your H, so he doesn't encourage it. It is hard because it puts you in the position of trying to compensate as you say, then there is a danger that your DS will think DD is your favourite.

Your Dh is probably oblivious because he was the favoured one. (I was the unfavoured one when I was growing up, so I was very sensitive to children being treated equally).

It is such damaging, mean behaviour and sadly however much you try to even things up, your DD will probably pick up on it. All you can do is call her out every time she does it - say 'that isn't fair to DD, it is unkind - how do you think it makes DD feel when you do that?' and try to shame her into changing her overt behaviour (you can't change the way she feels, but she can stop showing it so obviously)

I would let the children know that you are aware she does this and that it is her problem and a character flaw and that ot is nothing that they have done to cause this favouritism. We had this dysfunctional behaviour when i was growing up and its unpleasant and affects self esteem if it isnt called out.

I would be speaking to MIL myself. All this get DH to speak to her is bollocks. That's his mother, he won't spell it out like it needs to be.

Once she's out of hospital and on the mend pick your moment and tell her how hurtful it is and how worried you are for DD as she grows up noticing that she doesn't matter to her grandma.

All this get DH to speak to her is bollocks.

The DH is a part of the problem. From DD's PoV an adult enabling and excusing favouritism is also saying that one child is better and more important than the other.

Well exactly. That's why the OP needs to speak to MIL herself.