Grandparents treating grandchildren differently already!!

[Diamondsandhandbags]

I have a 6 month old baby and SIL (DH’s sister) is expecting a baby very soon.

PIL gave us a couple of hundred pounds towards nursery furniture which was very generous of them & bought my baby an outfit when she was born… however we were over at SIL’s house this weekend and I found out that PIL have not only bought their baby a huge amount of clothes but also bought them a whole travel system which cost over £2k!

Ive tried really hard to make sure IL’s don’t feel like the ‘other’ grandparents - arranging for them to see the baby at least once a week and sending them updates & photos as DH works long hours and wouldn’t think to do it. But now I’m feeling like they are already favouring SIL’s baby before they’ve even been born! AIBU to be annoyed that they are already treating the grandchildren differently ?!

So has your dh given his time over the years to his parents to the same extent his sister has @PennyPugwash ?

I'm not saying it's right to favour any grandchild over any other by the way, it isn't their fault.

But if one of their adult children has been a listening ear on a phone call consistently, taken them out etc and the other adult child has gone about their own life and not bothered with them; you can see how they become closer to one adult child over the other.

What is your husband's take on it?

To be fair to DH, he has a very stressful job and Mon-Fri works very long hours so just doesn’t have the time. Because of this, I make sure that I’m the one keeping ILs updated so they aren’t missing out

Babies are different genders - I did offer to give her the gender neutral stuff but she didn’t want her baby wearing 2nd hand stuff

Spot on. It's not about how much gets spent but about how much time is spent together and how much effort is put in.

Yeah let this go you will drive yourself mad...this is a long road. Just see how it goes.

Maybe the in-laws are on Mumsnet and are shit scared of buying presents for a DIL and a DGC?

Might get torn apart for this one but..

I think the relationship between baby and grandparents is different if it’s your daughter's child.

If it’s your DD’s baby you tend to be more involved with the birth, can offer advice without feeling like you’re stepping on toes etc.

@Diamondsandhandbags She might not think you would want her to choose your first baby’s pram. Whereas she might know that her daughter would like it or feel comfortable enough to send something hideous back.

It tends to balance out when the baby grows into a person independent from you 😊

I think that’s fair. First baby, I think a lot of people want new and it sounds like she can afford it.

I would assume they think your parents (as the parents of the mother) will give a similarly large gift to you.

I think sometimes it’s more of a traditional mindset that the maternal grandparents will buy the pram. Thinking of most of my friends and myself (there’s about 6 of us all had babies in 12 months), most of us all had the prams bought by the mum’s side of the family.

If the treatment of the kids is different then that’s a different thing all together, but I honestly wouldn’t worry too much about this.

this 100%

"accept what they offer with grace, and do as much in return as you want to without expectation; or start to lessen contact so this doesn't bother you as much."

Lovely advice (first option)

My Grandma used to give me and my sisters shitty 'gifts' from the jumble sale but my cousins, also girls, always got brand new. My Mum made excuses but by the time we were teenagers we had her measure and had nothing to do with her.
Can't say I was a bit sorry when she died.* After 7 years of misery in a nursing home after a stroke. We didn't visit.

I disagree with a lot of ppl on here. I think it was a shitty thing to do. Treating kids differently, even adult ones, is the root of so much family tension. My parents policy is what you do for one you have to do for the others.

It doesn't seem strange to me at all for a mother to share pictures with her child's grandparents.. or am i missing something?

How sure are you they paid the lot not just a similar contribution to?

Been a couple of situations in my family like that - lots of ill will when there was no money or only small amount for a good reasons and someone else kicked off as assumed everything was paid.

If there is a disparity - you can try bringing it up but it may just be denied - at which point it's protecting kids when they get old enough to notice - which may mean less effort and seeing them.

From my own experience of similar, it doesn't matter what you do or say, nothing will change. You may well be right in that this is a long term pattern, so the thing to do is to continue to be polite and vaguely friendly, but lower your expectations.

Maybe the felt they had to contribute more to SIL to be equal to her in-laws? You say she didn’t want her DC wearing second hand clothes which is bizarre as they’re from her own niece/nephew so not as if it’s a strangers child. Maybe they get the impression from her that everything has to be new and expensive and didn’t want to disappoint/annoy her if they didn’t spend a lot. It might be more about having to please SIL rather than a difference in how grandchildren are treated.

because SIL told us that ILs had bought it for them. And then she was showing me some of the baby’s outfits and said that her mum had bought almost all of the baby’s wardrobe for her.

We are in a similar position albeit for different reasons.

DH and I both have siblings with children. When they were born they were given everything by GP and continued to receive financial and logistical support for many years. At times the GC virtually lived with GP.

We received nothing when DC was born and nothing since. If we were to suggest a bit of help with childcare would be nice it just falls on deaf ears despite neither of our siblings ever having to pay for childcare whereas we’ve spent £50k so far on nursery.

The reason we get given is that GP feel
they've done their bit now. I assume this is because our DC probably wasn’t expected by them and their other DGC are all 18+ now.

It is a bit galling that they will still do things like buy other GC cars yet wouldn’t dream of giving us even a token item for our DS.

They maintain that as we had DC when we were older we were more financially stable than our siblings were when they had their kids so shouldn’t need support.

I guess it’s old news for us now and we see it as water under the bridge but the inconsistency did mean our relationships with wider family faded away quite significantly and that includes our siblings. Our DS isn’t at all close with virtually any members of the extended family. He doesn’t even know that DH has a brother!

I hadn’t thought of it like that but SIL is very vocal about what her friends etc have and how unfair it is when she doesn’t have the same so maybe ILs have felt pressured into it.

I just find the difference hard to get my head round as my family have always been so fair between the siblings

Well if you are sure it was all paid for - then you either say something to IL and see how they react or you don't and monitor situation going forward and if pattern continues do less with them.

It sucks but not uncommon - both sets of DGP i had favoured other GC - both children of sons but favoured children - which upset my parents - and yet they did the same between me and my DSis kids though they were better with non favoritism with their own kids then their parents had been.

I spoke to my parents they denied it - DH tried they denied it - nothing was going to change was quietly pleased we moved away as kids got older and was less obvious to them till older.

No, Please don t keep a balance sheet of cost of gifts and ration affection and time accordingly😳

OP, I do know how you feel. When my now adult children were young, my brother’s children were always bought so much more than mine by my mother. However, there is nothing you can do about it. Just make sure that, going forward, you treat your children and grandchildren exactly the same. This is what my husband and I try to do.