Is it to be expected/accepted that parents will favour their daughters and daughters children?

[Weekendvibes]

I get on perfectly well with my in laws. They are nice enough people and could be far worse going by some of the horror stories I read on here.

But one thing that's becoming more obvious is how much they favour their dd (and other grandchildren (sil) and her children.

We have boys and sil has girls and the warm welcome that sil and her dds get compared to us is so blatantly obvious. Mil and fil faces light up when they see them and they are greeted with such a warm tone of voice and hugs and kisses. We get a simple hello.

They help sil out a lot financially and also with childcare, they are always talking about how hard up their dd is and how she is struggling. This is despite sil and her dh having a bigger income than us and less outgoings. I know all this because my in laws tell us a lot about their finances. I'm not sure where they've got the idea that we are well off compared to sil.

Whenever we go to mils, she has bought her granddaughters little gifts such as clothes, comics, costume jewellery, packs of socks and pants, not for birthdays or Christmas just random gifts that she's seen, but doesn't buy any of this for our children.

When we see in laws mil spends most of the time telling us about her dd and granddaughters down to every bowel movement her granddaughters have had. Nieces are lovely but mil in particular doesn't show any interest in our sons and changes the subject of I try to tell her anything they've been doing.

Our dc are a few years older than sils dc and when ours were small, we were always expected to attend lots of activities which they wanted to do that weren't child friendly or were at inconvenient times even though it was a huge pain. Now that sil has children everything revolves around her dc and sil is never to be expected to put herself out. Even down to what food the granddaughter will eat. We weren't ever afforded any of this consideration.

Fil openly criticises dh and I and he can be really cutting to dh even laughing at his appearance, of course it's all supposed to be 'a joke' but he would never do this to sil.

Dh is expected to be the doting older brother and drop everything at a moments notice but it would never be reciprocated.

I find it all quite hurtful. I don't think dh has ever noticed but he is always trying to impress his parents and win their approval and I've realised that he started to become irritated by in laws always making out that sil is hard up.

I've heard people say that grandparents are always closer to their daughters children is it just one of those things you have to accept.

My parents definitely weren't closer to my children than to my brother's nor did they favour them. It's only an issue if your parents are the sort of people who do that kind of stuff.

My mum is definitely not like this we me and my sister. I’ve got one son and my sister has got two daughters. She loves all the kids equally and for different reasons. I’ve never felt like a second class citizen for having a son 😂

I think it’s just general favouritism. My parents have 2 daughters and it’s like this with my sister.

I would stop subjecting your kids to this and encourage your dh to get some therapy. If he’s feeling he needs to prove himself to his parents still, it’s obvious this behaviour has gone on all throughout his childhood. And him speaking to them won’t change anything. I’d be willing to bet they’d gaslight him into thinking it’s all in his head/only a bit of a joke/whatever other emotionally abusive excuse they come up with.
Fwiw my parents don’t see my children, they dote on all the other grandchildren and mine are ignored.
My husbands parents are incredible. They go out of their way to spend time with our kids, think of activities, to show them how loved and cherished they are. Ours are the youngest of 10 grandkids and they are the same with all of them. They are generally wonderful loving people and I will be eternally grateful for the love they surround our children with. When they see them they exclaim their greetings as though the kids being their is the highlight of their week. Everything is put down to concentrate on chatting to them and showing such interest. It’s so lovely and on my more emotional days has brought me to tears. It’s a stark difference to the complete lack of interest from my own parents.

My PiL have never made any secret of the fact that DH’s DS is their favourite. DH and his DB are way down the line . By extension of this, DSiL’s husband is the chosen one and their DC are the fave grandchildren.
Poor DH just accepts this and explains it away by saying his DSiS was the youngest and the only girl

I meant DH’s DSiS is their favourite

My DH has a sister and brother. Both sister and brother have a boy and a girl each.

Their mother (DH’s mother) is always posting about how wonderful her daughter’s children are, how beautiful, how clever. Photos of them up in the house.
The son’s children don’t get a look in - it’s very noticeable to me!

Tbh my mum has a very easy relationship with one of my siblings, they are just so compatible really. Even through the teenage years. By contrast I just wanted away from my mum at that age!
She has always worked hard at being fair though and this has extended to the grandchildren
So it can be done!

I'm hoping for such diplomacy skills!

I think it just sounds like golden child syndrome, and it doesn't sound very pleasant. I also hate the thing you've described between men where they just tear each other down.

The one thing I do always think when I read these threads though is I wonder what the respective kids behaviour is like... that never seems to be touched upon, so might be something to consider.

But it does sound like there is preexisting favouritism for SIL over DH.

I don't see why. I suppose some do but then some parents favour one child over another, regardless of their sex. Another factor could be where you live in proximity to the grandparents; if one child lives around the corner with their family and sees their parents regularly they are obviously going to have a closer relationship than with another who lives far away. That doesn't mean they don't love them as much!

I have only boys.
When my D's and his gf were expecting I did my best to help them out.
They lived with me at the time.

They moved out and I was the only one who visited.
Her DM didn't even turn up for DG birthday.

Now they live beside her DM I have basically been cut back.

She spends most of her time with her DM,only time they ring us is when they want a lift.

I blame my D's as well.
We life 20 minutes away and haven't seen them in weeks.
It hurts.

@aSofaNearYou I know what you mean there are always two sides to every story.

But I can only say that my pov dh has been nothing but a good person. Without saying too much incase mil or sil are on here. Dh has done a lot for all of them over the years. He has helped them so much.

I've always been kind and respectful to them and we have never had a crossed word but it is getting more and more noticeable that they favour sil and her children and that they don't treat dh or the dc the same.

It's not my place to pull them up on any of this. I stick up for dh when fil criticises him but I do it gently so as not to cause a ruck.

Not really sure what the solution is I'd like to think that they don't realise what they're doing.

My Mil a definitely favours SIL. SIL only has boys and one of them hurt one of children (physical act of violence) DH was expected to sweep it under the carpet and not upset SIL by taking a stand against it (SIL and MIL refuses to even apologies that our dc was hurt) DH had it out with MIL and she said thy she would chose SIL and her children over DH and our children. She also made it clear that she would have chosen SIL over BIL and his children too.

Anecdotally I know several situations where the Dd is difficult and the mil gets on far better with their dils.

It does sound like it's child favouritism rather than a boy/girl thing.

One thing that really hurt was at the start of the pandemic, fil rang dh and gave him a real telling off. He told dh that sil was very upset and scared and dh hadn't bothered to ring her to offer her any support. He went on and on about how dreadful her situation was going to be.

The thing was we were just as upset and scared, our situation wasn't any different to theirs, in fact it was much much worse. No one offered us any support or phoned us. It was no different.

It was absurd the way he told dh off.

It certainly wasn't the first time he'd behaved like that towards us/dh but it was the day the scales really fell from my eyes.

Not in my experience. And my DM certainly doesn't favour me. My DB is her obvious favourite child and the golden boy.

I suspect some parents have 'A favourite' - but whether that is a son or a daughter is fairly random. And some parents don't treat their children or grandchildren equally. But it isn't 'to be expected' in my opinion.

SIL got a £10k house deposit and all her wedding paid for whilst DH got nothing. It was no surprise her DC then got bigger and better Xmas and birthday presents etc over the years, and prioritised for babysitting. My nephews have given away loads of 'secret' info. FIL once even called her DC 'ours.'
Very hurtful. We don't see a lot of them tbh whilst SIL is now so beholden.

I think the relationship between MIL and DIL and that DIL relationship with own mother is a factor here.

If a daughter is very close to own mother and the grandparent/grandchild relationship is strong, MIL can sometimes feel less included.

Family dynamics are complex beasts though

We have the exact same situation. DH's parents are like this. FIL is actually awful at times - making it so blatantly obvious. I just ignore it for a quiet life and funnily enough, it makes us closer as a family and the 3 DC stick up for each other whenever there is clearly favouritism with the other GC. The sad thing is that only DH keeps trying to prove himself to his DF as if it would make any difference - they favour DD and that's it but DH would never admit it.

@NumberTheory

I think, in general, people have very gendered expectations about their children and their parents, even more so than they might for friends, and this often leads to quite different treatment sons and daughters. I don’t think it always results in daughters being treated better. But with the way caring generally falls on women in society and the way women tend to be much more active in maintaining social networks, it is common that a mother will have a closer bond with their daughters.

That bond between a mum and her daughter is often strengthened when grand children come along in a way that relationships with sons (or in-laws) aren’t. There’s a lot of intimate support and sharing that can be provided by a mother to her daughter who’s pregnant or recently given birth that would not be as welcome from a MiL (nor as comfortable being shared with/provided to a DiL) and that isn’t need by a son who’s about/just become a father. Then the help that can be provided when children are younger is often asked for by daughters - because son’s tend to take on less of the caring for babies work and provided by the women’s mothers because it’s easier to ask your mother than your MiL and probably grandmothers are more likely to respond positively to requests from their daughters than their daughters-in-law because they are already closer.

If women didn’t do the bulk of child rearing and there wasn’t a biological burden that only women shoulder then I think the skew towards daughters being closer would be less true. But in the society we live in, I think it’s to be expected, really.

But as I say above, closer doesn’t necessarily mean more favourably, though in your case, OP, it does seem that way.

I agree with this. In some cases, there is favouritism but in many cases women still do the bulk of the caring work for children. They are likely to involve their own parents to a far greater degree than their PILs. If men don't step up and get involved, organise stuff or take the DC to visit their parents, they can't then complain about the lack of a bond between their DC and paternal grandparents. It is not for the mother to organise this. Now actually I like my PILs and do organise stuff with them sometimes but I'm clear with my DH that I expect him to organise most things with PIL. That does mean my DS sees my parents more often and is probably closer to them as a result.

Growing up my dB was the golden child in my family but once we both had children, I became a lot closer to my mother and spent a lot more time with my parents and consequently so did my children. I got on with my PILs but didn't see them as often. That was down to my ex DH to arrange, not me. It was the same with my DB, his vhildren saw her parents more than my parents and even though all the children are adults now, each set of Dg have a much closer relationship with their maternal grandparents. .
I have a grandchild now and my Dd , SIL and grand Hill live with me so o am extremely lucky and have a fantastic relationship with all 3 of them. I often say that my SIL should take my grandchild to see his parents, but he doesn't and his parents never visit despite frequent invitations but they are all over her cousins who are the children of her daughter.
It's just the way it seems to be.

My MIL openly admitted she felt closer to her daughter's Dsons than our Ddaughters even though her son sees her more often than her daughter does and we gave her the first grandchild. She saw all the grandchildren
equally when they were younger so no excuses to treat then differently or feel differently. All kids are grownups now but I haven't ever forgotten it tbh and thought it was a nasty insult to her very helpful kind son. Nasty to say it let alone think it.

I agree with a pp that if there is a close mother/daughter bond before you are pregnant that does give an increased sense of intimacy from the get go - I love my mil but she wasn't the one I sobbed down the bone to during my miscarriages or who tried to help me get my boobs in the right position for bf. My mum was my back up birth partner (dh hospital phobic so I needed a back up) but hell would have frozen over before that was mil.

My MIL says that you're always closer to your daughter's children so even if that wasn't true she's made it so! SIL has the youngest children, before she had children MIL would need her 'permission' before she'd spend any time with us. Now that we all have children MIL sees SIL's children almost every day and hasn't seen ours since Christmas. It's like she wants that stupid idea to be true and uses it as an excuse. SIL's behaviour has been very poor which has made it difficult for MIL to fit in the time to spend time with us. Now it has got to the point where I don't even try,

DH and his brother are older than SIL, they were pretty much brainwashed into believing that life revolved around SIL and so put up with it. It's caused a lot of conflict, DH even brought up the issue with MIL who admitted it but refused to see an issue. At that point I gave up, I feel like she doesn't even see me and the DC as family.

I can't make her care. When she and DH maintain that this isn't about caring I remind DH that my family is huge and I never once felt left out by my Grandparents, and neither did my cousins. My grandparents had a mix of sons and daughters. I think my DH knows he can't change things and so chooses to ignore it for the sake of keeping the peace.