Invitation for one child

[ThatRubyMoose]

When I first met my in-laws I bought Christmas presents. My elder sister-in-law who has always been friendly as have they all, thanked me profusely said that she gave up buying presents and writing cards. Fair enough. Her choice. The following year I asked her if she minded me buying for her children. She didn’t but reiterated that she didn’t. Totally transparent not an issue.

What she did do though was take MiL and SiL and the kids to The Palladium every year and a meal in a chain like Spaghetti House, Pizza etc. Fair enough again.

A few weeks ago she asked DH if our daughter who has just gone 4 is now old enough to join them. He said she was.

But I have a daughter who is 9 who lives with us all the time and only sees her father around her birthday and if she’s lucky at Christmas for a ‘tea’ with the rest of his family.

I said no to pantomime, I texted SiL saying it would be unfair to eldest, a child the same age as two of the kids going. Her reply was ‘that was a shame.’

MiL said to DH that it was none of her business how he raised his child but she thought that not being allowed to go on this t
outing with them was a slippery slope.

DH would have let her go but won’t challenge me. What would you do?

I don’t view dhs nephew’s as my nephew’s.

I buy them the gifts we give. I’m polite and interact with them. I make sure dh remembers their birthdays. But ultimately again if we divorced I’d never see them again and that wouldn’t bother me at all. They are my husbands nephew’s, my children’s cousins but they are not my relatives/family. They are linked by my marriage to my husband and that there share a small bit of dna with my children but they are not my family.

I wouldn’t offer to baby sit either of them or invite them just the children round to play or such. I talk to them when I see them but honestly they do not cross my mind apart from oh shit it’s June it’s his birthday, oh Christmas is coming up better make sure Sam and Simon have a couple of gifts.

Yanbu. Wee one never known any different from that's her big sister.i think it Is actual cruel to exclude her from family event. Any potential for "thoughtless" dried up at "that's a shame".
I suppose you or Dh could suggest you go along with both kids. . As compromise wee one miss out?
Still not nice though.regardless of what situation with ex/dad is.

Imagine when the youngest child is older, wondering why she has no family connections in her father's side. Her mother says, oh they wanted to be active in your life but I cut them in off as they didn't treat your sister exactly the same as you. What, my half sister that's no relation of theirs?

And mother imagunes that she's the kind inclusive one that did everything right?

Maybe we should teach them then to be very careful about their decisions in terms of selecting a partner to have a child with - and what happens should that relationship fail in terms of looking around for another partner? That would be invaluable, surely?

Relationships fail, it happens, but as PP way up the thread said - children don't need step-fathers and step-mothers - it's the wants of the adults that causes all of the issues. It's the adult parent(s) who needs to be less selfish, put the needs of her child(ren) above themselves.

This thread is so peppered with 'OMG the husbands family is AWFUL'. What's the point of that? It isn't true (from what OP has posted) so why say it? It's just disruptive for the sake of it.

The advice of 'standing by your child, OP' is pathetic. If OP follows that then she's on her way to a standoff with her husband, perhaps a breakdown of her relationship with him - but certainly a block/failure of the relationship with the wider family on her husband's side, with their actual grandchild. Slow handclap for the mumsnut aunties who won't be bearing a brunt of their ill-considered 'advice'. I'm sure they're enjoying themselves hugely though, always fun to froth when it's not your own family at risk.

if I was the SIL I would have included the oldest DD and been taking her since she was old enough to go to the pantomime. I think it is shitty to exclude a child and the bag story upset me as I can imagine how the little girl felt. But you can’t make them treat her well, I would have let the youngest go so she has a relationship with her family and done something lovely me and oldest DD.

Blended families can be difficult but would be made so much easier if people were just kind and decent.

Including the older child's own grandparents and father, Poppins21.

I don't disagree with your post but neither you or I are the sister in law. Sister in law wants blood family event. It's poignant because it's a pantomime and it's Christmas, but there was absolutely nothing stopping OP and husband from taking the elder daughter to the pantomime. Nothing at all.

OP is determined that her husband's family are to accept eldest daughter in the same way as their actual grandchild or else. Well they clearly won't. They aren't cruel but they are definite - and it's up to OP to look at ways to make this painless for her eldest daughter. Or, she can - as planned - blight and veto the relationship with her youngest daughter and her grandparents/wider family. That is the choice. As soon as she decided to marry this man and have a child with him, that was the only choice. OP made it.

You're 100% right here, it's nasty and pathetic to exclude a child

You don't mean that. If you did, you'd bring every child you know to everything you bring your own to. .and you don't. Are you nasty and pathetic?

...words fail me.

Blended families can be difficult but would be made so much easier if people were just kind and decent.

These in laws are being kind and decent. OP has said that when the family is all together, her daughter will be included and given a present. That’s still not good enough for OP though, because her daughter won’t get as expensive a present as the grandchildren get.

Because it's true and you know it. You "exclude" children all.the time, because obviously your children matter more to you than anyone else's.
Weirdly, ones own grandchildren matter more to you than children who are not grandchildren.

We all know this is true, so why are so many people pretending there's not difference, and you should treat your not grandkids the same as your grandkids?
If you honestly believe that, go out there and treat all kids you know the same. Or shut up.

If you said that you can only ever take all of the kids together or none, yes, you'd be toxic. If they took three 8 year olds and left the 4 year old, fine.

Yes but neither of those is the situation is it?

BTW, Theres really no need to call me “toxic”. We are having a debate- I disagree with you , that’s all.

Jesus Christ! Lunatic. Excluding the child of a friend's cousin's sister in law is slightly different to treating siblings differently

The siblings are different, and are already treated differently when the eldest goes without her sister to spend time with her own father’s family. They may be sisters, but the reality is that they have completely different paternal families.

same.

But it’s just the usual line on mumsnet :

apparently it’s just fine to treat any step child in your family with the indifference you would a perfect stranger ( and regardless of any pain it inflicts on said child ) , because biology.

I think it is shitty to exclude a child and the bag story upset me as I can imagine how the little girl felt.

It is upsetting to think about how that situation would have made a child feel, but it was unfair of the OP to bring it up as an example of how child is treated differently. A young couple went on holiday and thought they’d do a nice thing for the man’s nieces and nephews by bringing them back a gift. It probably genuinely didn’t occur to them to buy one for the brothers wife’s child too. They weren’t being deliberately mean, they just don’t think of a child they barely know and aren’t related to as a niece, which is understandable.

I wonder what OP has done to help facilitate a relationship between her daughter and her step cousins? Are she and her husband making effort to help them spend time together, babysitting when needs be? Or are they expecting all the effort and expense to come from other people?

Odd as sin. And Christ alone knows what their views are on adoption. Bit sickening.

Agreed. The thing is, the in laws never signed up to have a step grand child. They didn't have a say in it when their son married a woman with a child. They weren't consulted and their opinions weren't sought. Therefore, OP cannot expect them to love her eldest. They are civilised towards her but in their hearts she is not their grandchild. That's fair enough. The sooner OP accepts this, the better it will be for all. If I were OP, I would have taken eldest for a special mum/daughter day out rather than expecting others to manufacture love for her child, love that they don't feel.

Agreed that they do seem to have.

So many posts on this thread are just full of soundbites and little nonsense memes just 'for the feels'. Do you think it's helping the OP any?

It's all well and good to look through the lens of our own situations and think we'd do different but that's pointless and really irrelevant because it's not what the OP is having to navigate.

Adoption is a legal mechanism, step-parenting is not. Look it up for yourselves if you can be bothered.

It's ridiculous that this is still being trotted out.

Well, in a way, the grandparents are also being forced into a situation not of their own making. They didn't ask for a step grandchild.

I know of someone who wanted to adopt a child but didn't. She knew that her husband's family wouldn't treat the adoptee as their own grandchild and she didn't want that. So she didn't adopt. I wonder how many single parents like op consider this before they commit to a man who is not their child's father? Adults need to consider the children's needs before getting themselves entangled.

Ahahahaha.

Yes but they are adults not children. They are not in a relationship of dependency to those people, the power differential is reversed so it is completely different. obviously.

The step grandchild is not a dependent of the step grandparents. Of course, I get what you are saying about the adult / child differential. This is why parents with kids need to consider extended family relationships before they make commitments to a partner who is not the father.

It’s irrelevant. They’re not in any way obliged to treat OP’s child to same as they treat their granddaughter/niece. Stepparent isn’t a legal relationship, let alone step-grandparent or step-aunt, and any moral obligation is in the eye of the beholder. They clearly don’t consider her in the way you think they should, and they’ve made it apparent that they’re not going to start doing so.

The one responsible for the eldest daughter is OP and her actual father. If OP wanted her daughter to have a stepfamily that accepted her as one of her own then she picked the wrong man 🤷🏻‍♀️