AIBU to not feel like my parents chosen grandchild is part of the family

[Happygoluckywifey]

I (32f) have two brothers, T(34m) and V(31). We come from a lower middle class family, but we’re all smart and V and I both graduated from university and live a stable live married with children.

V has had a drug problem in a very long time and has been living a very unstable life. Finally, he was arrested and is currently in prison.
Before he was arrested, he had a girlfriend Y(48f). Y has had a problem with alcohol and lost custody of her three children from three different dads to the respective grandparents.

Shortly after my brother T was arrested, Y realized she was pregnant and claimed T was the father. She thought about terminating the pregnancy but my parents J(62f) and E(63m) as deeply religious people talked her out of it. They supported her throughout the pregnancy, helped her find a small apartment, she got sober and gave birth to a baby girl S(8f). My parents who didn’t have any other grandchildren at that point, treated her like a grandchild and my brother V and I treated her as a niece, although we lived far away and din’t have much contact as she was still a baby.

When Y claimed child support, my brother questioned paternity and a DNA test was done through the court. The test came back negative, my brother T wasn’t the father.
When my parents learned about the test results , S was already 18 months old.
Y told us on Christmas Eve, although I later learned from my grandmother, that my parents had already known for months at that point and I felt manipulated by the timing of telling us. My brother V and me just nodded it off awkwardly back then.

My parents then just decided for themselves, they wanted to keep everything as it was and kept treating S as their grandchild.

My brother V and I have stopped calling us aunt or uncle but otherwise treat Y and S respectfully. They are friendly but don’t fit in very well with us, we have absolutely nothing in common. They are at every family gathering at my parents place, every family holiday. My parents have S stay with them for weeks on end during summer breaks.
Just when my grandmother, my brother or my husband and I are hosting, we don’t invite them, which causes tension with my parents.
Now my brother and I have both had kids who are started getting attached to S and I feel like I have to make a decision to embrace them or not and what to tell S and my children who they are to each other.

I don’t want to punish S since it’s not her fault she doesn’t have family but I also think it was wrong of my parents to push this on us.
So AIBU to feel like S and Y are not part of the family ?

The flip side of this is that if this woman was to get a new job or a new boyfriend in another place there's nothing stopping her from taking this 8 year old and disappearing. There aren't even any legal ties here.

Agree that it's anyone's guess as to how the brother will feel when he's out of prison.

I actually do empathise here. It sounds like when you were young, church came first and the kids were left to get on with it when you could have done with more attention. It might feel like now they might be giving this child more attention that your daughter, as she counts a charitable project.

Also I wouldn’t be thrilled about hanging out with child’s mother either. (She sounds manipulative. If I was really planning to terminate, I maybe wouldn’t tell the grandparents I didn’t know that well about the pregnancy.)

However this relationship sounds amazing for the child. It sounds like she has grandparents and family she wouldn’t have otherwise and it could chance the course of her life. So I’d keep involving the child. But I do get where you’re coming from

When my aunt divorced my uncle, she stayed my aunt because she actually had been acting as my aunt.
The bond was never established with the girl because I was living far away when she was born and only saw her briefly once as a baby before we found out. So I think thats the issue, I didn’t see it necessary to bond with her after that as they were just friends of the family to me at that point.

Yes, I’ve been wondering what would happen if she had a new partner. He propably would be welcomed by ma parents as well and then it would all just get messier.
Luckily, she seems to focus on herself and daughter up until now.

Did you love her when you thought she was your brother's child?

Blimey. How the lower middle class live..

Your parents sound great.

You sound like a snobby elitist witch but I wouldn't stick around to find out because my family and I have PhDs but you only have an undergraduate degree so we would find you uneducated and have nothing in common with you...

Read that back!

You're vile for punishing a five year old little girl and wanting to exclude her from the security and love she had known.

Shame on you.

It appears that you think this woman is beneath you. She has 3 kids by 3 blokes. She had an alcohol issue (your brother was no angel, in case you had forgotten)
You are seem jealous of the relationship this woman and her child have with your parents.
You don't love the child now (if you ever did)
She may have 'conned' your family, although equally, from your description of their lives, she could have genuinly thought your brother was the father
What is it you want going forward?

You must have been writing this as I was writing my post!

Wow! Just wow
If you were highly educated, been to university, then you would be expected to be able to communicate with a wide variety of people from varying cultural, social and educational backgrounds.
You sound horrid. The child's poor mother must feel so awkward when she is around you

If your parents were fostering her, would you consider her part of the family?

Does it not occur to you that the stability and support your parents offer mean she is less likely to just pick up a man because she isn't craving support that women in a difficult situations naively think they will find with a man?

Honestly, your parents might have helped her with her self esteem so she's less likely to continue to make stupid poor life choices like picking some dickhead boyfriend.

@Happygoluckywifey it seems you live at a distance so they see the child and her mum as part of their everyday life. That’s tricky, it really is.

I lived at a distance from my parents. As a result they weren’t all that important to my DC. We saw them regularly, and they loved them and had a good time, but they aren’t constantly present in life.

Now Mum has neighbours that are really good to her, that she sees in her day to day life and are very much part of it. When we visit, we always spend a little time with the neighbours- they have become like family to mum. They are important to her in their presence.

Your parents have an adopted grandchild who is ever present from day to day, and birth grandchildren who they see occasionally. The dynamic is inevitable, really. They love the little girl like family because that’s the place she holds in their lives, and they did cause her to be born.

So it's a you problem then.

This girl has bonded with your parents. Why are you so determined to break or harm that by rejecting her?

Honestly this is petty jealousy.

If you made the effort, the effort you are unwilling to make because you have pre-judged her as being substandard and below your acceptable level of intellect, you might create a bond.

Please take note of my use of the word 'pre-judged'. The word prejudice comes from it.

They love the little girl like family because that’s the place she holds in their lives, and they did cause her to be born.

Look at this sentence and feel proud your parents took responsibility and continued to do so in her best interests, despite the fact she turned out to be genetically not related (or in your eyes 'inferior').

Many would have dumped her like a dog which didn't meet pedigree standards.

🤣🤣🤣

Because it's not the brother posting, it's the OP who happens to be a woman.

Had the brother posted here I have no doubt that the wise folk of Mumsnet would have handed his arse to him too.

Regardless of gender, the behaviour is cruel.

Anyone who treats a child that way doesn't deserve their own kids IM0.

The whole positive impact thing is the reason we are entertaining this for such a long time already.
I am happy for her to have that and I know if she didn’t exist, my parents would find another place to invest their love just not myself or my kids.
I have accepted, although not happy about it, that they will not love me any more even if they weren’t around. My parents feel like they did enough for their bio kids and I can’t change that perspective.
I do not think the positive impact on the girls’ life is lost by not attending the odd event though.
Thanks for your input!

This is a really weird situation and you seem to be unfairly getting a hard time on this thread OP. I bet any of the posters criticising you wouldn't be happy if a random woman who had lied to their brother about a child's paternity was invited to every single family event. The child is old enough to come and spend time with your parents on her own now if they want to maintain a relationship with her.

I totally get why you are feeling the way you are OP, and I do wonder if there is more to the story than you have been told as it is a very unusual situation - especially as you say your parents have known all along that this is not your brother's child and your brother has not played any part in the child's life. I wonder if your parents blame themselves for the way your jailed brother turned out and this is their strange way of redeeming themselves in their own minds.

Do I owe my parents the effort to befriend all their friends ? I don’t think so.

Bollocks.

It's the woman who is on here whinging like a baby.

If the brother did the same on here, he'd probably get even more flack tbh!

@confuchsia if you read the thread you will see responses are mostly not about the OP having to be all things to all people but rather the OP being so viscous about a child and not liking the child having a secure family but rather wanting to cast the child and her mother aside because the OP believes they are beneath her.

So, yes, any man posting this would have his arse handed to him and probably even more so on here!

I don’t think you are being honest with your parents.

If they ask is X is invited, say no, if they mention the kids being cousins, say sorry mum that’s not true -

Stop being a door mat - and say no!