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?

she got her daughter to drive her down there but made her son sign all the paperwork because that's who she wanted to be responsible for everything and call if something did happen.

That is sickening. But it sounds like your problems are much bigger than this really. I'm sorry.

"That is sickening. "

I agree.

Shame her daughter didn't tell her to FO!

Wonder how great being the goldenchild is if the other siblings leave you to do all the running around after the parent?

Your dh is behaving in a very dangerous way towards your dd. As he was the favoured child being a boy by his mum, he is now perpetuating that behaviour towards your kids. It seems like he is favouring your son over dd, learned from his mother. This will mean your dd might grow up expecting to be treated like that by men, as her own father does. I agree, there might be some resentment from his sisters, towards him due to it. Your dh does not want to change or stand up to dd, yet get annoyed when your parents do something wrong, double standards. I can see that affecting your relationship with him. I could not stay with a man like this.

If I were dh sisters, I would not want anything to do with my mum at all.

I guess as someone who has benefited from her favouritism throughout his life, he's not going to want to change the status quo now!

If your DD ever notices it, you could just frame it as 'silly granny really likes boys and doesn't understand girls; she's funny with your aunties too'.

silly granny really likes boys

That doesn't work where the DF is behaving the same way, which he is by excusing and perpetuating the behaviour

Your DH is a dick, Hes promoting this favoritism .Treat them both the same .Is she not capable of doing that? Your poor daughter.

If your husband is enabling it - than does he have a view that males are superior? An

It's human nature to have a favourite. They're just people, like any other people. We like some more than others. What we have to do is try our hardest not to let it show, and treat them equally.

Which is not happening here Single, and can cause lasting damage to the child. Both MIL and the father are making it quite obvious who the favourite is, and the father is enabling it.

You do not put your issues onto an innocent child!

Oops, hit post by mistake before checking that so there's a few bits that make no sense! Hopefully you get the idea though!

Oh FFS now that's weird I really thought I'd posted.

What I had written out in a very long and detailed post but has now vanished was that I have a very similar situation but am thankfully on the same page as DH. That's the bit that makes all the difference.

We have limited contact with said grandparent and never leave them alone with the kids ever. They hate this but tough, they have brought it upon themselves.

Can you write out all the instances of favouritism so that your DH can see it all together in one place. Call it out when you see it. Tell him every time. He may be used to closing off and not examining anything his mother says or does because that's easiest. Very common when someone has had a lifetime of managing a difficult parent and you can't challenge everything - just ignore it all.

I have experience of this, both as the non-favourite grandchild and now with DS being the fave.

I only remember one or two occasions of feeling like my grandmother (paternal) really favoured my sister, one was when she bought her a present when they came to visit (not a birthday or anything) and nothing for me. It was a really lovely present and I remember being so gutted that I didn’t have one too. I remember my DM being really cross but to my knowledge didn’t say anything, my DF wasn’t the type to raise things like that with his parents - their relationship was quite formal, I think. Although I don’t blame my parents, I wouldn’t let my own ILs get away with that type of behaviour.

My DS is clearly MIL’s favourite. She actually said he would be her “main grandchild”. BIL and SIL have dnephew, but they live a short plane ride away so he isn’t v close to MIL (whereas DS is). I’m currently pregnant with no2 and if there’s any continued favouritism of my DS, both DH and I will nip it in the bud straight away. It already annoys me that she favours DS over dnephew, purely because dnephew hasn’t taken to her (bearing in mind the boys are both 2!). She’s an odd lady.