Grandparents treating dc and step dc differently

[Gottoshare]

And my ‘rebalancing’ of things has been discovered 😬

We have 2 dc and dh has 2 dc from a previous relationship. Everyone gets on well, I adore his dc they are lovely kids.

Every Christmas my parents give money for my 2 dc, bags of sweets and chocolate selection boxes and a big Christmas Eve box. 2 of everything- plus big bags of sweets . There have been a few heated conversations (not when dc are there) and I’ve made it clear ALL dc are there 23/24 dec each year and it’s unfair to treat them differently. It’s been going on for 5 years. Dh dc are teenagers now and last year my parents were saying ‘well they are older why are you still going on about this they don’t believe etc etc’ . SC are so lovely to their little brothers and really keep up the magic of Xmas and they really make it amazing for them. My parents are so off about it.

Anyway what I’ve been doing is splitting the money between 4 not 2 and adding to the Xmas eve box so that it’s for 4 children not 2. So it’s been fine and the label says from granny and grandpa and it’s just for everyone . Well we saw them last weekend and one of SC was exclaiming how much they love the Xmas eve box and talking about all the nice things in it each year and I could see my parents faces. They were furious. They called me afterwards and said never to do it again or they will stop so I said ‘fine then - stop. You wouldn’t treat them fairly so I did’ I think they honestly expected them to sit and watch and miss out on the box ???

Today they’ve said they want my dc dropped to them Xmas eve morning they’ll do the Xmas eve box / activities / film / hot choc with them . They have GrAndpaRents RigHts now dont you know 🤬🤬🤬🤬

AIBU if I just tell them to get lost. It’s really annoyed me

YWBU to redistribute the gifts.
YANBU to want to see your sc treated kindly.
YANBU to tell them to stick their gifts.
YANBU to refuse to send your children to see their grandparents on command.

Your parents are BU in every way.

I had an 11 year old son when I got together with my husband. My son's father is very present in his life so my son didn't need another dad
. My husband was something else, another adult to talk to when he didn't want to tell mum or dad ( even though my husband would tell me) .
My husband never told him off, that wasn't his job, but on one occasion my son was playing his music drum and base quite loud and my husband had a bad headache. He politely asked my son if he wouldn't mind turning down the volume. My son laughed as he actually switched it off saying, my dad would have yanked the plug out by now.
When we got married, my son was 14. He was happy to be included in the ceremony and my in laws were absolutely brilliant from the time they met my son. My fil gave a speech saying how lucky they were to get another grandson. My in laws actually had 4 biological grandchildren and 3 step grandchildren and they boasted to everyone about how lucky they were having 7 grandchildren. To me this is how grandparents should be. My in laws set the bar beautifully high.

I just want to add that you sound like a wonderful person OP and I would have done the same. My mum would prob do the same as your parents buty in-laws are incredibly generous and would never leave anyone out. Have an amazing Christmas and I hope all the children enjoy their Christmas eve box this year!

It's a nice idea but it's more complex than that. My kids have had 3 sets of 'step cousins' introduced to them courtesy of my brother. The first lot lasted 2 years, the second just over a year and we are currently on set 3 and nobody is making the mistake of getting invested. They are close to their actual cousins who are permanently in their lives.

Their generation? They aren't 120 years old, probably 60 more like it. Age is no excuse for their nastiness.

Er, they’re not their grandchildren.

They are absolutely nothing to do with them.

YABU

so suppose yiu were successful in forcing a relationship between your parents and your dh's kids.What happens if and when you and dh split? The GPs will probably never see them again.If by some chance they did maintain a relationship, woul you still be happy to share half of your dc's odh Would you ill you still be happy to share 50% of you kids christmas present with them? Do you expect your GPs just to switch on and off feelings for these unrelated kids?

This!!! I can't believe people are telling gher to cut the grandparents off. That is only punishing the children out of spite.

Absolutely agree with all of this.

OP has made this into a situation when it didn’t need to be.

I think if it was just birthday and Christmas gifts, that's one thing, but this is a very specific situation where they're providing a Christmas eve tradition to make sure their grandkids have a nice evening, where everyone gathers round to open them... But as far as they're concerned the older 2 can whistle, and go watch telly in the other room.

I mean ultimately they don't approve of your family, do they, and it's so shitty to take it out on some nice kids. They are your children's half siblings as well so will all be at family events until they die.

I can't imagine myself or my family leaving out a child like they do but some adults are like that, they just look out for what they consider their own. I'd offer your parents the money for them to buy all the children the same. I.e you pay half of the cost of the 4 Xmas eve boxes and they do or once you get the stuff from your parents buy similar for your SC and say you went halves with your parents.

Some posters seem to be missing why the OP is upset. The problem with the GPs present not being for all children is because the Christmas Eve box is a combination of all of the following

• it’s a joint present rather than 2 individual presents
• it’s to be used at a specific time when your SC are also there
• the type of present is something the SC would also enjoy despite being very different ages
• the present is to be opened the day before Christmas Day when none of the children have the distraction of other presents
• the SC like doing things with their younger siblings

It’s completely different to individually wrapped personal presents.

You’d have to have a heart of stone to hear a teen talk about how much they love the Christmas Eve box every year and be angry that their daughter had added similar items for the SC and let the SC think the box was from the GPs for all the children to enjoy.

I’d have been mortified that I hadn’t thought about the teens, grateful my daughter had, and delighted that my grandchildren had such lovely older siblings that they would spend Christmas eve doing activities with the little ones.

Yep.

And it's interesting that when everyone way baying for the grandparents blood the OP was posting regularly and agreeing how awful they were but when people started pointing out she had no right to redistribute their gifts and money she disappeared.

Does the DSC's mum do anything for your kids?

I can see why your parents are a bit miffed.
It's their money to spend as they please.
If you feel it's unfair, then do an identikit yourself for the SC.

How have they not realised you were doing this, did the kids never send thank you cards?

Also, not sure I'd be happy as the SC to know it was all a lie.
They're old enough to understand the different family dynamics.
They have a mum, a dad and a lovely step mum, they don't need fake Christmas box presents.

You should teach them the true meaning of that saying!!

I wouldn’t necessarily expect the grand parents to give money to the SC as well but that’s a very easy thing to discretely manage

Is everyone missing that these children are their grandchildren's biological siblings? Their own grandchildren adore their siblings
Absolutely disgusting, selfish, cruel people all of you that agree with the grandparents
I don't think I've ever been so shocked by a post

Yikes. I'm normally in the "you can't force a step - relationship" camp, but this is just mean. The grandparents are deliberately excluding the step grand kids.

Punishing the children my arse! If anything, she's protecting ALL of them by preventing her sorry excuses for parents from splitting them apart. Those children all have the same father in case you didn't notice. As for your accusation about OP disappearing... she has her opinion on how she sees the gift situation, you have yours. What use does it serve for her to keep coming back and arguing with you? Read OPs posts again regarding her parents and then read between the lines. This incident is not in isolation. Her parents are not nice people.

Cunts of the highest order. I was talking to my step mum about this recently. She treats everyone the same and we don't understand people who don't. If I was going to be at Xmas and a child who I didn't even know was going to be there I'd be buying them a present too. This kind of behaviour upsets children.

They are absolutely nothing to do with them.

They're the siblings of their grandchildren, and their own daughter loves them and is in a family with them.

I mean sure they can, and are, drawing a line in the sand as you describe but how the fuck is that going to be anything but divisive, hurtful and destructive?

it wasn't given for a family outing!
OP's ACTUAL words "They give £100 each year to get the dc something / go out somewhere"
OP very clearly knew this money was given to JUST the 2 'blood' DC.

Is that nice or fair of them? No! But what OP did was dishonest, regardless of her intentions.

Everyone is polishing their haloes by saying how lovely the OP is to 'redistribute' the money but real integrity would be saying "I consider ALL of them my children, either you give all of them money or none of them"

Or the real 'kind' thing to do would be to say "Thank you for the money, we spent it on taking A&B to Winter Wonderland. Did C&D come? Yes of course, we wouldn't leave them behind, but DH and I paid for them."

Not "thanks for the money yes the tickets cost £50 each" (when they actually cost £25). Which is essentially what OP did. It's easy to be kind and generous when you're spending other people's money!

I don't see what all the children having the same father has to do with it when the grandparents are the mothers parents.

I don't care if she argues with me or not. I'm far from the only one disagreeing with her, clearly it doesn't serve her for many people to disagree with her which is why she hasn't been back.

Withholding money and gifts from her children from their grandparents, and all the people telling her to go no contact and cut them off is only hurting her children because she doesn't like her parents behaviour. That most certainly is spite because it's the children that suffer from her making a point, not her.

Exactly!! Polishing their halos indeed.

Very manageable to open gifts at different times when SC are not there.
Or ask for GPs to deposit into kids accounts.

Even better to be honest to the kids and explain the family dynamics.

What happens with other relations, uncles and aunties?
The kids can't all have the same amount of presents all the time.

Its a good lesson to learn early on instead of OP trying to control her parent's giving. They'd find out soon enough anyway and OP would be seen as having lied to them.

No one can tell someone how to spend their money. It would be lovely if they bought extra, but they don't want to, as it's their money, they make the choice.

What happens if OP was to be divorced again, or if OP's siblings each have x number of step children. If Grandparents feel this is what they can afford, then let them be.

OP has known what they're like and should have handled it better instead of lying.

Would OP take half the inheritance from her kids to give if in the situation arose, don't think so.