Comparing my mother to my mother in law re grandkids - where do you stand ?

[lemonylemonade]

My MIL adores her grandkids. My mother also adores her grandkids. My mum has 4 grandkids- 2 are my kids and my brother has 2 as well.

My MIL only had my 2, they're the first grandkids. In my family my kids are the younger grandkids.

Anyway, I don't love my MIL, we've had a lot of issues over the years, but we tolerate each other for the sake of the family.

My mom also occasionally has less obvious issues with my SIL ( mother of the older grandkids ). It's not as obvious ' beef ' as I have with my MIL. My MIL and I are both hot heads and end up having fights. My SIL is not like that, if my mum has done something wrong, she just won't invite her over or says they're busy when my mum wants to come over. She gives her the cold shoulder. I give my MIL the cold shoulder a lot as well, in the sense that I don't overly engage with her ever, as I know we will annoy each other. I'm polite, but I don't seek her out.

In any case, my Mum really backs off seeing the grandkids when she senses that my SIL is being a bit cold and doesn't want her around. My mum gets offended and thinks she doesn't need to stoop and beg my SIL to see the grandkids. So she backs off too. Sometimes she'll go quite a while without seeing them, until whatever has blown over.

My MIL would NEVER do that. She doesn't care. Her relationship with her grandkids is really important to her and she feels she has a right to see them. She would never feel like she was begging me, when I give her the cold shoulder. It's not about me, or her stooping down to beg me to see the grandkids. She feels entitled to see them and doesn't have the same shame around it. She would never let a long time pass, she would just keep pushing until she gets to see them.

I sometimes advise my mum to go above her own pride, when she wants to see her grandkids. I don't think she should be pushy, but if she really loves her grandkids and wants to see them, she should put her pride to one side and ask if everything is ok with SIL and try to sort out any issue. But she has too much pride to do that.

What does everyone think ?

The more you say, the more your mum sounds like a pain. The advice you should give her is to keep her opinions to herself on SILs parenting and then maybe she wouldn't get frozen out. Good for your brother that he has his wife's back. Your mum should spend the "we're too busy" weeks/months reflecting on her behaviour.

Leave your mum to it. She’s a grown woman who can decide how she chooses to interact with her DIL/grandchildren.

I think we’d get a very different story if your SIL posted on here, I imagine.

Yes this is what I do and I also agree my bro does the right things. It annoys him personally as well.

Why ? I have not misrepresented my SIL's side whatsoever. You're just making assumptions.

My SIL would not have a different story at all.

I know my SIL and I'm on HER side ! I'm trying to help my mum do better, but she's incapable of seeing things differently.

Mum also criticises my brother's parenting by the way.

She'll say stuff like ' don't talk to your child like that ' etc etc. brother gets SO angry.

Please don’t take this the wrong way but your posts are very confusing so it’s no wonder people are struggling to understand what you mean.

But on that extra info that your SIL is in the right, why do you care that your mum is messing things up for herself? Let her get on with it.
It’s not your job to make her see things differently. All you can do is say your piece and then leave her to think about it. She will either realise she’s being silly and snap out of it, or she’ll continue on with her normal behaviour.

I wouldn’t spend any more energy thinking about this. It’s not your issue to deal with.

Good grief as a mother, grandmother, mother-in-law and having a mother-in-law none of these female relationships ever result in falling outs or the cessation of grandchildren visits, regular childcare you all sound very strange

Why are you and your mum arguing with people sp much!

@Jifmicroliquid because she's my mum and I'm trying to help her.

Regarding my posts being confusing. I think a lot of posters have also kind of read it in the way they wanted to read it, just to give me a good bashing.

People have read stuff into it. I never once made this about whether my SIL is doing the wrong thing by freezing my Mum out.

The long and short of it is that both me and SIL struggle a bit with out MIL's, but we deal with it differently and also our MIL's deal with it differently.

Even if I tried to freeze out my MIL, she would never allow it and just keep pushing on. Whereas my mum gets offended and will go months without seeing her grandkids sometimes.

Also, I love how SIL is totally justified in freezing out mum, but I'm the antichrist for saying that I don't have a good relationship with my own MIL and that I keep a distance from her because we just don't get on. I don't stop her EVER from seeing her grand kids though and SIL does stop my mum from seeing the grandkids. Make it make sense ? Only on AIBU of course the OP is the bad guy.

Why should your mother have to 'push on'? Your SIL sounds rather childish - sulking, not letting her kids see their grandmother. That's cruel and childish, and your mother shouldn't have to deal with thatcshit to get to see her grandchildren.
Similarly, nor should your MIL have to power through to see your kids when you are having a strop and giving her the cold shoulder.
Basically, you want both your mother and MIL to fight for the right to see yptheir grandkids.
Sorry, but you and your sister sound as if you enjoy toying with people and using your kids in somexweird power struggle.

I am a GM and I don't think people should use grandchildren as pawns between grown adults. Similarly I wouldn't throw a sulk if I felt my DIL (if I had one as I have two DDs) went a bit cold so I suppose on balance I agree with you. However ultimately if our grown up children don't want us to see our grandkids we don't really have any option other than to accept it. Why isn't your mum talking to her son about it?

Life is too short for this drama so I am glad that on balance our family doesn't have this constant bickering.

The relationships on both sides sound toxic. I would focus on yourself - work on good communication, how to have healthy relationships and how to set boundaries. Think about what you want for your children.

It sounds like you've grown up in a family where you mum's behaviour was poor but you all just put up with it. Perhaps because of this, you're therefore calling out bad behaviour from your MIL. If she is a narc then you have a husband who also grew up in a toxic family. Is this a model you want to give your own children? And yes, even if your mum behaves "well" towards them, they will become aware at some point if you're all that close as to how their cousins are treated differently. Children are not as oblivious as we might like to think.

I would stop trying to micromanage your mum. If you want to help, speak to your brother about talking to his own mum for a change and not doing everything through his wife.

I can’t imagine my mum and husband making all the child visiting arrangements. My mum just speaks directly to me. She’s never once criticised my husband’s parenting.

My husband and MIL make all the visiting arrangements together, I don’t get involved at all. I really like my MIL so have no qualms about seeing her.

To answer your question, your DM should look at what has caused the situation and try not to do it again. She needs to learn to bite her tongue and what appropriate boundaries are for a grandparent- otherwise this nonsense will keep happening. I saw my grandparents every week growing up and we had none of this- I’m sure they annoyed each other but they just tried not to do the annoying stuff and/ or be reasonably tolerant. If you’ve tried that and it’s not worked, maybe you all see a bit too much of each other and could do with cutting visits down a bit?

If there already been a row I don’t actually think your DM’s approach is wrong, maybe it’s a good idea to give her DIL some space or they might have an even worse row. I also think you getting involved won’t help and she might need to work this out herself- maybe if you leave her to it she might start to change her underlying behaviour a bit.

Genuine question: what does “grey rock” mean?

There's never been a row between my mum and SIL. It's always the silent treatment.

My brother does blow up at her occasionally though when she openly disapproves of how he speaks to his own children. I've been there and seen it first hand.

I have been trying to help my mum understand appropriate boundaries for years, it does not work.

You all need to grow up. Plenty of families see lots of each other without all this drama.

Your mum wont change at this age and you can't fix their relationship.
I'd just give it a wide birth.

Honestly, it sounds like your mum is making drama where there isn’t any which then will subsequently piss off the SIL. Maybe she really IS just busy. Maybe she doesn’t want to have to have to always be the one to say, ‘Do you want to come over today and see the kids?’. This would piss me off so much if my MIL did this. Either get her to communicate with her son or if that won’t work as SIL is sorting everything in the house including the family’s calendar then tell her to text the SIL with, ‘Is there any time over the next couple of weeks when the kids are free and I could pick them up and take them to…’ Don’t let her assume that SiL has to host her and make her acknowledge that SIL may well be run off her feet and having MIL round isn’t top of her list of priorities! Or back off and let your mum’s relationship with her grandchildren suffer.

Why don't you talk to your SIL or your brother and tell them to stop freezing your mum out or try to mediate if they are being unfair. They aren't being fair on their children either by letting petty differences interfere with their kids relationship with their granny. I see your mum's point of view but it does sound silly & childish.

"stuff" really doesn't need to happen, between adults!

What sort of thing is he saying to his children?

It all sounds very tiring. Just back off and leave your mum to it unless the kids are being hurt. My BIL and SIL have had occasional fall-outs with one or another family member, we just sympathise broadly with everyone until they are all back on track again, no need to insert ourselves into it.

To answer your question, your DM should look at what has caused the situation and try not to do it again. She needs to learn to bite her tongue and what appropriate boundaries are for a grandparent- otherwise this nonsense will keep happening

Learn to bite her tongue, really?! I think they should all look at their behaviours and build better relationships. OP, I wouldn't interfere with SIL as this could come back and bite you on the bum - if your brother can't/won't sort it out with his own mother then you have no hope. As to your relationship with your mother, yes it's sad that you don't always see eye to eye and I don't blame you for being hurt and backing off but your children will benefit from having a grandmother in their lives (as long as she's not a total monster!) so perhaps offer the odd olive branch with some carefully-phrased boundaries and light-hearted comments? I'm a granny with teenagers and love them to bits but I would never have let either of my children disrespect me. Good luck.

Silent treatment or going low contact? If the grandmother is constantly undermining and criticising both parents is a relationship with her in the children's best interests? If the sil was presenting her side I suspect she would be recommended to go low or no contact.

I would not do that ever. That is really interfering in the whole thing.

If it comes up and bro and sis in law tell me what mum has done, I just kind of agree and say that she also does the same to me and I've tried talking to her and she just can't stop doing it.

The worst is, my brother's kids are a bit older now and have caught on and also talk badly about my mum, which my brother and SIL allow. I'm worried they'll project that onto my kids eventually. I have not addressed this either, but I may have to, once my kids get a bit older.

Because I think no matter what, these things should not be discussed in front of the kids and they should not be allowed to partake in slagging off grand parents. I certainly won't allow mine to slag off either set of grand parents.