to think grandparents do not have to treat their step grandchildren exactly the same way as their blood grandchildren?

[betnet]

Firstly, I am not advocating for step children to be treated badly in anyway.

But I think it is fine if grandparents do not give gifts or gifts to the same value to the stepchildren as to their grandchildren. If there was a divorce the stepchildren would generally not be seen anymore anyway.

People generally would not expect grandparents to give their non related stepchildren an inheritance. Those who advocate for stepchildren to be treated exactly equally, do you think they should inherit from non related grandparents?

I am talking about stepchildren in this instance where ones DD or DS has married a partner who has children from an ex partner.

Same for family holidays. Often grandparents will pay for a family holiday and want their grandchildren to join them. They should not have to pay for the step grandchildren also.

Stepchildren can end up with four sets of grandparents.

I think it depends on the step parents. If they are seen as mum or dad, and would be expected to continue to do so after the breakdown of a relationship, it's quite shit to not treat them as you would any other grandchild. They've effectively been adopted.

But otherwise, I agree. I hate that MN pretends blended families and inlaws are exactly the same as your actual family and everyone else should just fall in line. You move someone in after a year and your whole family is supposed to pretend this is their family now? They have to pretend, but when you leave that person, they never hear from the again. What's the point.

I feel the same about in laws. They're not your family, and you should be polite, but don't expect to be treated the same as your pils actual daughters. And PILs shouldn't be expected to be treated exactly as you would treat your mother. It's all so dishonest. Polite and courteous would make everyone feel more comfortable and cause fewer issues long run.

*that said, if I'm at someone's house Christmas day with gifts, no child gets missed. That's family/friends/random neighbors. But I'm not adding anyone to my imaginary will

My step GS is treated exactly the same as my biological GC. I spend the same on him. I’d hate for him to feel different.

Your children's stepchildren, or
Your stepchildren's children.

I think it's the relationship of the GP to the child that could be different. A GP could have a step-child who has their own children who are that GP's step-grandchildren or a GP could have their own child and that person has a step-child.

A step-grandchild could be your child's step-child or your step-child's child!

I'm a child of a step-child. So is DH. For both of us our grandmothers on one side were our biological grandfathers' second wives. We were both treated totally equally with all the grandchildren.

SIL now has step-children and met them when they were about 7 and 10. PIL treat them same as our DC and quite rightly. They get the same kinds of Christmas presents, are being brought on holiday this summer etc.

If the step-grandchildren still have two sets of grandparents who buy them presents and take them on holiday, there is much less obligation on the step-grandparents. If they are together at Christmas, they should still buy them presents, but it would be OK to spend less.

However, there have been numerous threads on here where the step-grandchildren have no contact with one of their biological parents and thus no contact with grandparents on that side. In some cases, they have been part of the step-grandparents' family since they were toddlers. There have been some examples of the step-grandparents deliberately excluding their step-grandchildren from family events and holidays and refusing to buy them even token cheap gifts when all the other children are receiving extravagant presents.

At the least, step-grandparents should try and ensure that their behaviour doesn't upset their step-grandchildren who had no say in the family set up.

There’s still no obligation though.

I'm afraid there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to complicated situations like blended families. I know lots of mumsnetters seem to struggle with this as they like a clear right or wrong/black and white situation.

My parents have had 3 stepchildren come into their lives through my siblings and all with very different set ups, ages and situations. They all naturally developed different relationships with my parents.

My DH has been in DD life since she was 2, no grandparents on birth dads side . DH has no bio children so she’s the only ‘grandchild’ he’s given them. His DS lives in Australia so all support to his parents comes from him e.g., diy jobs, emotional support etc. his DM decided to pass down some inheritance so his niece could put down a deposit on a house in Aus, she gave double to each of his sisters children to what she gave DD. Obviously it’s entirely up to her what she does with her money and DD was very pleased to get anything (doesn’t know what the other two got) but I felt really sad for DH as it just rubbed it in that he’d never given her a biological grandchild (which she has hinted at many times!) we’re not talking huge amounts of money but basically his sisters kids got around £25k between them and his step child got a quarter of that. Personally I’d have just made them all the same.

I think as previous posters have said it makes a huge difference whether you've been in their lives since they were young or you only came on the scene when they were 16 or 17. In which case, they're probably not that keen for you to be assuming they're your grandchildren.

One of our children has two step children and a biological child - all quite young. As far as we are concerned, we have three beautiful grandchildren, and that's that.

When it comes to inheritance, we will be leaving the money to our own child, and they will decide how to write their own will. When it comes to our day-to-day relationship with all three children, I see them exactly the same, love them the same, and treat them the same.

It probably helps that I have a fair degree of confidence that if my son and his wife ever broke up, our lovely daughter-in-law would allow us to see all the children as much as we wanted to.

Do people who think that children should be treated exactly the same also feel that biological parents then still need to give access to children after the breakdown of a relationship? Because if you're pushing the extended family to see your child as family, would you then treat them as you would the biological father's parents after you divorce? I would hope so, it would be cruel if not.

Completely fine to only want one's own GC to inherit.

During life, I think the main thing is not to be a dick about it, especially if the DSGC are younger. As others have said, depends on context.

I just feel really sorry for any step children, who are treated differently. Those kids have done nothing wrong, they could already be struggling with their parents splitting up and a new family set up. The very least any grandparent can do is to love them and treat them equally.

Inheritance is a different issue. The step children should inherit from their side of the family, in theory.

This a thousand times.

It depends on the circumstances. Very young children would not understand why grandma has bought them a tiny gift, but spent loads on their step siblings. Step children who join the family in late childhood/teens are different. For the purpose of children etc, gifts etc should be the same. As for inheritance, I personally think you use it how you see fit. Step children have their own set of parents and grandparents to inherit from, at the end of the day. I don't think it's wrong to only give inheritance to biological family.

People won't admit it, but the vast majority favour their own family. I care about all my family, but realistically I am more attached to my biological nieces/nephews, because if me and my spouse broke up, you don't typically continue to see in laws. I wouldn't expect a mother in law to treat me the exact same as a daughter. That's not to say you treat them any different!!

I don't have step children, but if I did, my priority would always be biological child ultimately. Don't get me wrong, I'd treat everyone equally as a household member dependent on different needs, they'd all have the same rules, etc, but if it came to it I'd look out for the interests of my biological child who I have more moral and legal responsibility for. No child should feel ostracised, but equally I think it's fine for older children to know that a step parent relationship is different to a relationship with their own mum.

As much as people like to pretend there is no difference, genetics and biological relations matter. There's a reason we try and find biological relatives to care for children who have been removed from their parents first. There's a reason most people go looking for parents they never got a chance to meet, etc. I think there's a deep innate need to know and bond with biological family. Growing up and seeing people who look like us and share the same history is a core part of our identity.

I had a step grandmother from when I was 9 and she died when I was 47. In my eyes she was my grandmother. I adored her, I saw her every week even as an adult and I miss her far more than I miss my biological grandparents. She treated me exactly as she treated her biological grandchildren. When she died she left each grandchild, including me, £10k. She was one of the greatest gifts I was ever given and I’ll be forever grateful she treated me as her own.

It's not so black and white imo there are so many factors. Where possible i feel they should be treated broadly equally but it depends on distance, time spent, financial means etc. It can be incredibly damaging for children to be made to feel different and they will pick up on these things, but if they aren't around as often then they will miss out on things but won't be there to know that. It's a complex area but my starting point is to protect all the kids from any obvious favouritism or exclusion

My own parents may find themselves in this situation soon, with biological grandkids, and step-grandkids. I imagine for 'smaller' things like gifts, holidays etc., that the kids would all be treated fairly equally.

However, I can see that for ongoing, larger expenses, e.g. school fees, kids savings accounts, paying for extracurriculars, possible tertiary education fees etc. they might not treat the step kids the same way. The reasoning being that the step kids already have their own grandparents, who are not my parents.

Regarding inheritance, I agree with a PP who said that it should just be split equally amongst the children, who can then decide what each grandchild/step-grandchild should get.

I think there are so many factors in this though, like whether the parents are married or not, how long they have been together, how old the step-kids are, whether the step-kids live with them full-time/EOW/50/50, if there are other grandparents in the picture and their financial means etc.

I saw my step mum’s family - her mum, siblings, their kids - a few times a year but it never occurred to me they’d give me cards or presents and they didn’t. I had my own grandparents and didn’t expect anyone else to treat me as their grandchild when I wasn’t.

There are no blanket rules. My own family have made a big effort with my step kids but as they’ve got older they’re less interested in coming to things with my side and the relationships aren’t as close as they used to be.

When these threads crop up, as they do regularly, it’s usually a woman’s disappointment with her ex and his family being projected onto her new partner’s family. People forget that they can choose to “blend” but their new inlaws may not want step grandparenthood forced on them least of all when that comes with high expectations of gifts, holidays, days out and inheritances. That’s just completely unreasonable.

It’s extremely rare for anyone to love someone else’s kids as much as they love their own, people acknowledge that, so it’s daft to expect people to feel towards non related “grandkids” as they do their own.

I’ve said before that I am looking forward to becoming a step granny. It’s a way off yet but I plan on treating this little girl as if she were my biological dgd. My dgc are tweens and teens and I’m sure will welcome her too because they will see all the family will.
If a new sgc joined the family at 19+ say then it would be different, more like token presents I think but a younger teenager often feels as odds with the world so another set of people who are caring towards them is a good thing. Even if they are surly and ungrateful due to circumstances

That's gonna be an expensive holiday!

I think seeing them and buying and just being nice should be obvious. When it comes to inheritance that’s different it would be blood line only. If DS ended up in a blended family I would change my will to reflect money left to my grandchildren.

I agree as long as The Grandparents aren't arseholes about it.
They should be reasonable, nice and not exclusionary but they don't have to treat them the same as their actual Grandchildren,especially when it comes to inheritance.

I agree with all the "it dependsers" IMO Older children and young and older adult are more capable of understanding the nuances of extended families, especially if they have links with both of their biological parents. Good manners decrees that they shouldn't be left out of gift giving occasions. I think its more difficult though when the gifts are large and monetary eg support for uni or property buying. When the children are small, especially if they don't have a good (or any) relationship with the other biological parent, I think it would be really nasty to treat birth or steps differently. So far as wills go, keep the contents private.

My grandmother had 2 step grandchildren and she treated them exactly the same as she treated us, it would never have occurred to her to do anything different. One of the step grandchildren later became estranged from their own parents but stayed in touch with my grandmother because she was such a kind and loving influence in their younger days.

I actually had a step grandfather and he in turn treated me exactly like his granddaughter despite me already being an adult when we met. I think it’s just common decency, the step children have no choice in the matter when their parents decide to remarry but as adults we can choose to make that transition easier for them so why wouldn’t we?