Inequality shown towards kids from in laws

[Dollyparton3]

Does anyone have experience of this?

Child 1: 16th birthday - big fuss, presents, considerable cash donation from grandparents towards a new phone

Child 2: 16th birthday - given a £20 food outlet voucher for somewhere that he's never shown an interest in.

Child 1 gets regular treats such as clothes/makeup offers to pay for hair appts etc from grandparents. Recently got grandparents to pay a parking fine of £50 that child 1 acquired

Child 2 will occasionally be bought the fizzy pop he likes by grandparents

Child 1 is paid for doing jobs when GP's are on holiday such as watering plants, stacking post away from the door etc. Child 2 isn't given the opportunity.

Child 2 is now commenting that he's not the "favourite" grandchild after the 16th birthday gift that wasn't very well thought through. We don't know how to broach the subject without seeming ungrateful.

Both are equally polite, kind, responsible etc so it just seems a bit unfair.

I have heard of a golden child dynamic but unsure it it happens with inlaws, possibly

I assume one isn’t a step child? Are they both the same sex?

Are thy both your DC?

Or does the favoured child belong to a different set of parents?

Did they have a daughter of their own?

Although they’ve known my older child for several years, now I’ve had a biologically related child ILs completely ignore older child, so much that he never feels welcome around them and is excluded from family events - and smother younger one so much it is like they want to be his mum instead of me!

Some families are totally horrible tbh!

aww that's mean. Don't know how adults can be so blatant like that

That's very cruel

Hmm I bet one is a boy and the other a girl..... anyway either way I would be speaking to them. It’s pretty poor of the in-laws to obviously treat your DC differently. Same thing happened with my DH and his DB, my DH was the golden child and it ended up with his DB despising his grandparents

You're right. It's very unfair.

Dc 1 is sil's dc and dc 2 is yours...

Have you mentioned to them how unfair it seems?

I would tell them what child 2 said. It's not ungrateful. Why should it be ungrateful to point out unfairness?

I think it needs more context.

For example, my ILs know we can afford childcare or for one parent to be a SAHP so their main aims when it comes to supporting us is to make sure we don't need OOH childcare. So when my 2 sons were with the CM, if we were running late, someone from hubby's family could be called and relied upon in an emergency to ensure we arent late for the CM. They also make sure we leave the kids with them and have adult time. Even if that is just doing errands. GPs buy my kids presents for Xmas but along the lines of £20 voucher in price but probably better thought out. Even if they do go with a voucher in the end.

For other GC, they buy their main Xmas present. They make sure their parent(s) don't need any professional childcare. They have their kids EW. That's because that family needs that level of support for whatever reason.

To other fanimy

I would wonder why the parents of child 2 are inflicting these people on them.

Hmm I bet one is a boy and the other a girl..... anyway either way I would be speaking to them. It’s pretty poor of the in-laws to obviously treat your DC differently. Same thing happened with my DH and his DB, my DH was the golden child and it ended up with his DB despising his grandparents

OP says child one gets makeup, so assume a girl and said 'he' when mentioning child 2, so I think this is correct (although I suspect you meant the opposite).

Are they siblings? Was child 1 the first grandchild and has therefore been doted on since birth?

I think it's ok to mention it, but you can do it as coming from child 2, as in 'he's mentioned he feels you treat child 1 differently and it's upsetting them, could you please reassure them it's not true?' (and hopefully this will encourage them to actually look at their behaviour).

Are they both your kids or are they cousins.
Is one their daughters child and the other their son and wife’s
Grandparents usually do give more to their daughters kids.

Why are they treated differently? There could be any one of lots of reasons, so I think you need to give more context.

Yes both are siblings, child 1 is a girl and child 2 is a boy. The in laws had a boy and a girl in their first marriage and no weird history or fallouts there during childhood or adulthood, these are their only grandchildren.

We do feel a bit awkward for child 2 and feel as though we should make it up to him somehow but we know it will keep posing a problem if we don't mention it. Child 1 also feels rotten for her younger bro as well as she thinks he's missing out

I assume Child 1 is now an adult. It would good if she could raise it with them, since it's more likely to highlight how unfair it is

Just something like 'I feel bad for Child 2, they didn't get the same fuss on their 16th and they were upset'

I'd pull them up on it. Tell them it's not fair and it needs to stop.

It seems unfair if it's just a case of all other things being equal.

But as ChilledBee says, more context is needed as it could be two children from different families with different pressures and needs.

So both children are siblings and belong to you and your partner? No half/step sibling etc.

I think it’s pretty rubbish of PILs if I’m honest here. I feel for you DS.

Why hasn’t DH said anything to his parents?

I think you have to say something. It’s very tricky.

I have two DDs and my own DM used to favour my eldest DD. The girls have completely different personalities but both were loving, sweet children. I had to pull her up on it eventually. I wasn't surprised at her behaviour as she favoured my DB growing up (he was the eldest).

There are LOADS of threads about this sort of thing.

It does happen in a lot of families if MN is anything to go by