Mil and step-grandchild

[SpanishFork]

My eldest daughter is nine and does not see her father or any members of his family. This is their choice.

I do not expect my in-laws in any way to make up for this but to treat her kindly and respectfully and the same as any other children when they are all present.

She has a condition which is not life threatening but is on occasion painful. Around 80% of children do not go on to suffer with this as adults. We have to go to hospital every three to six months so I have to take time off and an appointment with travel and waiting around takes most of the day.

I was absolutely delighted when an appointment came through on a Saturday. My husband was going to a game so rather than drag my five year old along she was left with my mother-in-law.

Well on Saturday everything went our way and we were in and out of the hospital in just under an hour.

We arrived at in-laws who were completely shocked that we were so early. They were having a full on party lunch with all of their actual grandchildren including a 20 year old who had come down from Durham for the occasion. They had had a photo session the lot.

I was eventually offered a tea and my eldest daughter stood by my youngest at the table. She was offered nothing. I took both of them home. They begged me to leave youngest so she could spend time with her cousins. Youngest started crying.

DH who was with his brother, cousin and friend was going to collect daughter after the match but I thought as I was so unexpectedly early I would do it and he could go for a drink.

God that’s long. Sorry!

The in-laws did this deliberately thinking my eldest would be out of the picture. I am absolutely upset. DH can’t see what my problem is.

It makes me laugh how some people say ‘they are a package can’t handle it move on.’ Almost no step families I know really consider the children part of a ‘package deal.’ You marry your spouse because of the relationship you have and hope to grow with the spouse. If a spouse has children going into a marriage it is their job (as in their legal responsibility) to decide whether this is a safe and appropriate environment for a child to be raised in. It is not the job of the stepparent and certainly not the extended stepfamily’s job to change their ways to meet the expectations of bio parent about how the child
is treated. Of course they cannot be cruel to the child - but apart from that what constitutes ‘acceptable’ is a matter of judgement. There’s not any obligation to fall in line with what a bio parent expects, legally or morally. Bio parent needs to go into a new marriage with fully open eyes and understanding the consequences to their child. If bio parents decide after marriage that this family is unacceptable for their kids because their values do not align it is their (again legal) responsibility to leave the environment. People can argue all day about what step relatives should or shouldn’t do, the only ppl who have a legal duty and any real
ability to alter the situation are the parents. Who I agree should act in the best interests of the child - but often don’t. And when they don’t, instead of leaving, they blame the stepfamily!

I think it’s more likely to bite the op in the arse if she tries to refuse the little girl contact with her grandparents since the dh is ok with it and ok with it being her alone.

Also end up with a resentful child once older if she did manage to destroy her family relationship, hell the youngest could decide to hold op or the eldest dd as the reason she grew up in a broken home if it came to it. Just look at the thread one in particular by a women who’s youngest children hate her because she always made everything about the older DD who dad was shit and stopped the youngest one’s family being involved. The marriage survived but the husband is firmly on his daughters sides in agreement that his wife fucked up and favoured her oldest.

The youngest child doesn’t deserve to lose her family because they won’t play doting granny and grandad to someone else’s grandchild.

So it’s okay if the younger one is happy and secure but the older one doesn’t matter?

They arranged a gathering for their own grandchildren when as far as they knew stepchild would never know about it, because gc’s dad was to pick her up. They were shocked and embarrassed when OP arrived with Stepgc. They have done nothing wrong.

The youngest daughter would have course of told her mother and sister all about her day, so the OP would have slowly realised what they'd done rather than walking into it. Unless you're suggesting that they would have told the youngest to keep it a secret from her parents?

Spiteful? What do you mean?

Spiteful like your previous post about withholding the granddaughter from her grandparents unless they treat the step-granddaughter equally? Like that?

These circumstances don't align with my family so no triggering for me, but funnily enough I did think that when reading your "be kind" post. I wondered if you saw yourself in the eldest daughter. I'm sorry for you if so. It's a terrible thing for a young girl to have to deal with. I would never put my children in such a position.

It’s not their job to replace her grandparents.

Its ops job in an age appropriate way to lower her child’s expectations of her husbands family.

Responsibility for that situation is the OP's, and OP's alone.

It sounds like this poor 9 year old is triggered by her parentage regardless of what OPs in laws do.

But it is still bloody rude to ignore a young child in their house who is a half sibling to their gc and not even offer her food. Just normal manners.

A relative did offer the child food. While both op and mil were apparently stood in shock at this sudden change in plans and unexpectedness.

This old chestnut again. Same old, same old.

Your eldest is not their grandchild. She has her own grandparents, and if they are useless/dead/live far away, that's how it would have been whether her sibling came along and got paternal grandparents or not.

I am the child of a father who married a lovely lady, she already had two daughters. She was nice to me, as were her relatives, but I never expected them to treat me the same as my stepsisters.

I’m not sure why there is just no straight communication going on so at least everyone knows where they stand.

does your DD view them as her grandparents? I must say I don’t stand for any of my family othering my step children which they never have but it may be worth a clear conversation with your DH relatives.

Sometimes people are in their own little bubbles and may not realise how they make your DD feel, at the end of the day I wouldn’t treat a child like that related or not, if they turned up unexpectedly, I’d be lovely and make sure they were fed and ask them about their day etc. it’s really sad as at the end of the day she’s just a child.

In your opinion only

Funny but no my parents were married for over 50 years and yes I am the child of that marriage!

does your DD view them as her grandparents?

@LEWWW - the inlaws said (when asked by OP) that her eldest can call them by their first names. They are not and have never positioned themselves as grandparents from what the OP has said.

If the 9 year old does view them as her grandparents, that would be down to how OP frames it and probably is a disservice to the child under the circumstances.

I suspect the OP is feeling particularly protective of her child given the health issues adn the little girl being upset by questions about her father at the hospital appointment. That's very understandable.

But it's not really got anything to do with her inlaws and their granddaughter, OP's youngest.

OP admits she is contradicting herself, and it’s is understandable because she’s found herself in a situation where she’s facing upsetting consequences of the choices she made without considering the obvious potential of difficulties.

She says it’s fine for the grandparents to have alone time with their grandchildren but that it’s up to the DH to facilitate it. The DH is getting criticism for not seeing OPs POV, but he’s literally done exactly what she said would be ok.

He was facilitating contact between his child and his parents when he dropped her off and had the plan to collect her later, but OP chose to take that time away from them for no good reason and that’s the only thing that created a problem here. If OP had found out later by being told by the five year old that she’d seen some cousins and taken some photos then she might have felt a bit miffed, but there would have been no hurt experienced by anyone.

OP says she knew the grandparents would always have appreciated having time with their grandchildren grandchild, but she still chose to turn up early and cut that time short. I think that was more to do with spite than wanting her husband to enjoy the pub.

I don’t see a suggestion they haven’t behaved decently! OP has posted saying they are usually pleasant so it’s not rocket science to assume that this weekend was a bit of a drama, that would have been easily avoided if sticking to the original plan/assumption and/or sending a quick text.

Instead were surprised and awkward and sat down with their food with OP and eldest arrived. So they didn’t directly hand a nine year old a plate of food when her mother was present and presumably familiar enough with family to help herself/take the lead in light of the fact it was clearly awkward. Instead OP seems to have stood there shocked and appalled waiting for a cup of tea before leaving and upsetting youngest in the process.

I can’t see that the issue here is the ILs but of course feel desperately sorry for eldest that her father’s side are so awful. People seem to be glossing over that.

Like I said in previous post….. What would the narrative be if eldest had an amazing and loving and generous family on her father’s side? I wager the expectation on step grandparents would be a whole lot less. It is not for them to make up for what she is missing. It sounds like they are generally pleasant and this was an avoidable and uncomfortable situation for them too.

100% agree with this.
All those posters saying the IL were horrible to a little girl are wildly exaggerating, they were shocked and surprised - OP did not behave any better so why blame them.

And with all due respect, as there are always special circumstances.... this is also the consequences of the choices made by the OP, to have a child with a man who was clearly unsuitable, if she has had to cut contact with not only the man but even his family. The new IL are not responsible for the other family being rubbish, or the OP potentially making bad choices about who to have a child with. The OP needs to manage this....

And I think you were really mean to drag the little one away. Why not just let her stay, if it's a big party her cousins have given themselves the trouble to come down for. That is turning what could be framed as quite innocent into a drama, and that is what will create resentment, on from the IL and DD2, towards you / her sister. That side of the family is hardly going to view you in a positive light from doing that.

All that is fine, why couldn’t OP pick a plate and give the elder one something?

Why make a big deal about the party? Are grandparents not allowed parties !?? OP should have left the younger child to enjoy, why should she miss out? OP could have done something fun with the older child ? Instead, she spoilt it for everyone!

That is how it looks. Especially with the awkwardness when op arrived early.

Yep .

why couldn’t OP pick a plate and give the elder one something?
Because she was in someone else's home, unwittingly gatecrashing a meal that she and her eldest weren't invited to?

Shiiiiit

think how much nicer the world would be if our first instinct was to treat kids with kindness and compassion rather than this “not blood kin” bullshit. Serious yuck.

I feel for you, my mil has been incredibly rude to my children from a previous relationship on the few times she’s been around them. They first met her at 12 and 14 so a little older and she just ignored them the whole time. My children then decided they never wanted to see her again and I’ve followed suit because she is just a nasty lady. You need to make sure this doesn’t come between you and your partner and you need to make sure he sees why it’s a problem. Use the analogy of how would he feel if you separated and your new mil did that to his bio child. That kinda worked for me.

I am confused by people’s comments. The eldest is only 9 and the youngest 5 which means the older was at the most 3 years old when they met her. I can’t imagine not including her. I can understand wanting a photo without her as well as with her.

They deliberately organised it when she wouldn’t be there. I think it’s really cruel.