To think MIL is rubbish/favouritising

[Happygoclucky]

Husband has a sister who has a son and daughter. We have 2 sons and a daughter. MIL frequently favours her daughters children and spends lots of time with them. My children often feel like an afterthought. Most recent issue was halfterm. My MIL does not work, she chose to spend 3 out of the 5 days in the week of halfterm with her daughter and daughters DC. She didn’t ask me to come along on their days out and didn’t call or text once to arrange something with my children. Previous halfterm I asked her to spend time with myself and my DC but she had plans. She also spent time with her daughter and daughters DC that week too.
When she is around my children (when we take them to visit their gran) she is great with them and seems to care about them. Other than that she doesn’t make any effort. It is the noticeable favouring of the other grandchildren that hurts my feelings. For example she recently took her other grandkids out to the cinema, when I made it clear that my sons would have enjoyed going to the cinema too she gave me £10 to take them to see a film. The point I was making was that I wanted her to spend time with them, it seems to go over her head though.
I don’t think that she is completely oblivious to the fact that she spends more time with sister in laws DC though because if I ask her what she’s been up to (when I know she’s been out with sis in law and children) she will change the subject and will miss out the parts where she’s taken the kids out.

we have butted heads over the years over similar issues and it always ends in tears, she doesn’t take criticism well and I’m afraid of the arguments if I do speak my mind.

If all these posters maintaining that it is normal to be closer to their mothers and to have their children favoured over children of brothers, you can see why some adult men turn their backs on caring for their parents in old age.
I do wonder if these parents cannot see how unhealthy it is for families favouring one sex over the other growing up. I know it was common when I was growing up for parents to physically chastise sons but they would never smack daughters. I so want to hope that boys and girls are loved and valued equally in families but it is clear from the overwhelming number of posts on here that a lot of female posters believe it is right and normal for a mother to favour daughters.

It’s normal for people to spend more time with their daughter than daughter in law. Don’t take it personally and maybe try to spend more time with your own family ?

Favouritising?

You are expecting from your MIL the relationship you are supposed to have with your own mum. As equalitarian as we want to be, most times it doesn’t work like that.

No amount of talking is going to help, in fact it would make it worse. What you need to do is get along with your MIL so well, become a friend to her so she enjoys spending as much time with you as with her DD. The stronger the friendship you have with her, the more time she will have to get to know your children better and enjoy having more time with all of you.

Alternatively, you can foster such a relationship with your own mum so your children do not miss out.

Agree this says more about that poster. It's such a dated old fashioned attitude. My MIL is the same. She has barely any relationship with most of her son's kids except one.That's her choice as she has made it blatantly clear that her son's kids don't matter as much as her daughters. As a result DH and some of her grandkids are now making it blatantly clear she isn't important to them. No doubt she wonders why.

@MonkeyMindAllOverAround . You castigate the OP for not having 'the relationship you are supposed to have with your own mother'. Are there rules about such things? It is such a reactionary and old fashioned viewpoint. Are men not supposed to do equal parenting? Are sons not allowed an equal relationship with their own mothers. Because some old fashioned attitudes survive, does that make them right? Sons have long been favoured in some parts of the world to the huge detriment of daughters. Is that right because it is traditional?
The kind of viewpoint from some posters claiming that it is normal and right for a mother to favour her daughters is just as bad as the countries/ cultures where boys are favoured over girls resulting in a huge imbalance in the number of boys born compared to the number of girls. The kind of viewpoint peddled on MN about women naturally favouring daughters over sons is dangerous and unhealthy for both sexes.

Don't worry, there are also a HUGE amount of mothers who don't expect their sons to lift a finger and treat them like the golden child, whilst expecting their daughters to be on hand to help them. There's a lot of evidence that people expect more of girls growing up than boys. The world isn't overwhelmingly full of mothers favouring their daughters.

And of all the mothers that are closer to their
adult daughter and her kids than their adult son and his, a great many are that way because the daughters put more active effort into spending time with her and mums in general are more active with their kids, meaning they'd need to go through their DIL to get close to their son's kids and feel like they are overstepping doing so.

There are many unhealthy dynamics out there. The one you're worried about is by no means the only or the dominant one.

I don't think this is 'normal' at all. Why is she spending such a massive amount of time with these children? Seems there is an issue somewhere. Golden child? Incapable child?

I am not “castigating” her, so don’t project your issues and agenda on me. Most married women have been through similar, daughters tend to be closer to their mums than daughters in law are close to their mothers in law. Children tend to have more contact with relatives that are closer to their parents.

I am closer to my MIL than my mum, my sister is closer to my mum than to her MIL, it is no surprising to see my mother spending more time with my niece and therefore being closer to her, in the same way that my son is closer to my MIL just because we interact more regularly with her.

I think this very much comes also from the fact that, with time, MIL and I have became friends: we can talk hours over a coffee while the rest of the family is asleep or entertaining themselves in other things, and it is in these conversations that she has also get to know and understand her grandchild better through what we talk about. That has made them closer, and this is a situation that is replicated between my mum and my sister, and therefore my niece.

So the moral of this story is, you cannot get any person to be more interested in your kids by talking or demanding equal rights, what you need to do is become closer to them so that their relationship can develop, whether you are a mum or a dad. But, you also need to accept and move on if your interest is not reciprocated.

I agree that there are many unhealthy family dynamics out there and mothers favouring their daughters over their sons is only one of them but acknowledging and normalising these dynamics isn't healthy. Both sexes need to grow up in loving families with parents who value their children regardless of their sex. It seems to me that a lot of posters on here are trying to normalise favouring daughters over sons.

How does your kids feel about it? Do they notice. My grandparents treated their grandkids different and it used to break my heart watching them drive right passed my house to go to a cousins house and not their daughters kids. Their oldest daughters kids got everything about 10 x as much even, at Xmas when we were all in the same house. It really hurt!!

I think you need to tell her what your kids have said tp you about noticing the difference and the itnis her choice but I'd she continues to test them differently yours will pull away eventually and stop caring

What you experienced does not matter. @Happygoclucky has stated that her children have noticed more than once that their grandmother treats them differently when they are with their cousins. How many posts on here are there where posters ask for advice or are retelling their childhood where they are treated differently to other siblings, cousins etc, Of course children notice.

There is a lot of projection and excuses on here as to why their grandmother acts as she does. However that is not the OP's and her children's lived experience. Her children are starting to notice the difference and she must protect them. Otherwise they will be the next generation posting on here and elsewhere asking why their grandmother treated them so differently to her other grandchildren.

My MIL always favoured my SILs children over mine. It will not change so I’m afraid it will be something you have to accept.