‘THE’ children

[pancakesallday]

AIBU? This is really bothering. MIL calling SIL’s kids ‘the children’ when talking to me.

‘This weekend I’m having the children’. ‘The children had their Easter play’.

It makes me feel like mine are second class grandchildren.

Or am I just being grumpy?

She’s usually ok with me although she is the queen of backhanded remarks.

Mine called her DDs kids “our two”!

What does she call your children while talking to your SIL? My guess would be she calls them the children, as your SIL would know she wasn’t talking about her children.

I don't want to be that person who says "Haven't you got something more important to worry about?", but really this is scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of things to let concern you. I mean you must be on your hands and knees with a magnifying glass looking for something to be annoyed about with this one.

I would just keep saying “which children?”. Every single time she says it.

My Irish Granny called all her Grandkids “the Childer” ( that’s not a typo, childer must have been an Irish thing). Anyway whichever set of Grandkids they were all called that.

Literally. My MIL is dead, she was a lovely woman and probably not perfect just like NONE of us are. I wish she was here, she never got to meet my son.

How else is she supposed to refer to them. Each and every time by their names? They are ‘the children’. A fairly common phrase used by many to refer to multiple children.
It doesn’t mean she values your children less. When she has your children they will also be ‘the children’.
Crikey. Poor woman.

It would annoy me too - 'the' being the definite article makes it sound like they're the real children while yours are secondary.

I don’t really understand why you’re getting worked up about this? Do you want her to say full names every time? I say the children or the girls if I’m talking about my two

Exactly this.

I really don't understand why this is an issue or why it bothers you. You know who she is referring to so it seems pointless using their names. It's no different to saying I'm having Xs Kids or going to see the bairns play etc its just an easy shortening.

My mother called my brother’s children this!
My MIL was much nicer.

She will almost certainly use the same description for your children.

‘SIL’s children’ would work?

Sorry but no. How would anyone know she’s talking about mine?

Of course, they’re yours!

I think ‘SIL’s children’ would be nice?

There are loads of possible circumstances that would make this entirely reasonable of her, imo. The two that spring to mind are:

• Are SIL's kids older than your kids? Therefore she'd have been describing them in this way before there were any other kids to describe and now it's just habit.

• Does she look after SIL's kids more than she does your kids? Therefore it's a shortening of "I'm looking after the children I usually look after."

YABU and just being arsey

this is stemming from you as some sort of jealousy that you don’t want her to seem closer to her daughters kids than yours

It’s much nicer to call them ‘the children’ than ‘SILs children’ as it makes them less detached from her and related to her. Just as yours are. But you know that don’t you.

as others have pointed out you don’t know what she refers to yours when you are absent. Probably the same.

regardless you don’t have any right to police her speech or turn of phrase

The same way as when you know she’s talking about her daughters kids !!!

”I went to see Pancake today and the children were playing outside”

we all know that’s your kids

You know when she is talking about SIL’s DC when referring to them as ‘the children’

Does she treat your DC differently? Are SIL’s DC the golden grandchildren?

Yes and yes.

This is a different scenario! Of course it would be fine to just say ‘the children’ if she’s just said ‘I saw SIL today’. The problem is that she doesn’t. They’re just THE grandchildren that she doesn’t have to preface.

Mine are older. So option 1 is a no.

Yes she does look after THE children more often. Simply because she doesn’t offer to do the same with mine and she’s not my mum so I don’t feel I can ask easily. The last time she did she complained a lot so I haven’t asked since.

This is the most boring thread ever

Can't actually believe you've posted this

My MIL called her eldest granddaughter, my SIL’s eldest, “the favourite” to my face. I knew she was, they make it quite obvious, but to say it to my face?! Bloody hell.