Refuse holiday for youngest as eldest half-sister excluded even though has impact on childcare

[MarieBaronelovechild]

My parents in law told my husband that they were taking all the kids for a week’s holiday last week of August. This would be amazing, the kids would see their cousins and we would not have to juggle time off and save money on the music camps when we haven’t been able to take time off.

Last Tuesday BiL met husband, it turns out all the kids doesn’t include my daughter from my previous marriage.

BiL says that MiL is prepared to take her as she doesn’t want to upset us but BiL asked if we can have a bit of a rethink next year as MiL and his kids and presumably SiL’s kids, don’t get to see youngest without eldest so disrupting relationships. .

DH still wants to send her with them as MiL is prepared to take her. I don’t and don’t want my youngest going either.

This is Mumsnet, eldest has a father, sees him and he pays for her, more than he has to but can’t take time off in the summer.

My AIBU

Upset with in-laws’ attitude
Not prepared to send eldest on holiday with them.

Well, if they choose to excluse any child for any reason, they're putting a hand grenade into the Christmas arrangement and the long-term family building by pissing of that child's mum. Stupid behaviour.

Pissing her off because they won’t do what she wants? Incredibly…. The child’s dad has a say in what happens to! There was a long running thread with a op in a similar stance to her dh “your family has to follow my demands or else I’ll stop them seeing youngest”… I think that relationship has now ended in divorce?

Same.

No, pissingnher off not because they won't do what she wants.

But because they are drawing a fault line n the family that puts them on one side, and her and her child on the other.

No one is begrudging this child love and care.

And twice as many holidays, twice as many birthday cards, twice as much birthday presents, twice as many people to lean on for help or lifts or beds to sleep in. Twice the help at university. Twice the support to buy a house. Twice the inheritance. Etc. Etc.

@Nominty

My family is made up of step children and grandchildren and we laugh about the fact that we all forget who isn't actually related by blood because…

No you don’t. Why are you lying?

This, the “why would eldest paternal grandparents have any interest in youngest?!! She’s nothing to them!!” While “of course youngests paternal grandparents MUST include my eldest! She’s their faaaammily!!”

Yes that one has I believe.

Also the my younger daughter hates me and my older child and dh is on her side poster. Because she stopped the younger one having a relationship with her paternal family to protect the older (favourite) child.

been a few of the my child is pissed off she missed out on her family posters tbh.

Also the jealous step mums when hubby has existing children who won’t have their family time muscled in on with their paternal side and don’t want to be considered step siblings at all.

Do you know, I thought I'd come on Mumsnet tonight and i'd just blatantly lie for shits and giggles 🙄😂.

You can accept your child’s spouse as a son or daughter in law, but you don’t have to regard them as your own son or daughter.

Just because some people do, doesn’t mean everyone has to.

I certainly don’t consider my BiL and SiL in the same way as my actual brother and sister. And if either of them had brought DC into the family, frankly, I would not regard them as the same as my nephews and nieces. I might - but it’s my choice.

Yes my dh’s sibling is not my sibling. His nieces and nephews are not mine either.

If I planned a day trip with my nieces and nephews they wouldn’t be invited. If I planned a sibling trip dh’s sibling wouldn’t be invited.

They are not my family. They are my in-laws.

I accept my siblings spouses as family members because my siblings love them. That's good enough for me. I don't need to love them as a sibling but for the person they are and the joy they bring to my siblings.
I'll extend the same to whoever my child chooses.

If you and your family genuinely forget which of your children and grandchildren are actually related to you then you need to check your home for a carbon monoxide leak. I’d also recommend seeing a doctor just to be on the safe side.

I’m not suggesting you love your step children and grandchildren less.

But the idea that you don’t remember the moment your own child became a parent, the anticipation of that moment, the second you first saw that baby or even which of the children in your life you squeezed out of your own body(!) is for the birds. And it’s insulting.

Those memories are so few and so precious that we never forget them. We certainly don’t get them mixed up.

That would be like looking at your son and daughter in law and forgetting which one you actually gave birth to. Nobody does that, and it’s fucking nuts to suggest they do.

I have a niece and nephew from my brother and a niece with dh. they are all my nieces and nephews. I don’t take them out together as they don’t know each other but I do take them out separately we spend the same on them at Xmas etc. I don’t see any difference.

So the fact he has chosen a woman and child, and not just a single woman, makes the child as much a part of the extended in-laws family as the op.

You see - I don’t disagree with this. He has chosen the OP - so she is the DIL. And she is invited as a courtesy to her husband. And because she has a child, the child is also invited as a courtesy to the OP’s DH. But that doesn’t mean that the in-laws see the OP as their daughter. Or that the OP sees her in-laws as her own parents. So why does that mean that they should see the OP’s older child as their grandchild? Or that the girl herself should view them as her own grandparents?

All true but where do you draw the line? What if it was fil, mil, and the biological dc and dgc? So no in-laws, adopted children or step children. ? Would that be acceptable?

There is more than one definition of decent.

I don't agree the grandparents are unreasonable in only wanting to take their biological grandchild on holiday nor would I think they were unreasonable it they did want to take her. Both are valid choices.

This is a parenting fail, not a grandparent fail. You have had years to manage expectations that there will be times when she is included and other times when the youngest will go on her own, and to explain why that is different from being deliberately excluded.

Really? You can’t remember the parentage of the children in your family?

Every child deserves to have their history remembered and respected.

So if your daughter married a man who already had two children, after a few years you would be so confused that you would honestly believe your daughter was that child’s biological/adoptive mother? You would completely therefore ignore the child’s real mother? Pretend to this child her mother doesn’t exist, her grandparents don’t exist?

how awful. Poor kids.

if you saw your grandchild out with their other parent or their grandparents would you think they were with strangers?

It sounds like nobody has ever said anything to the OP’s DH about this before, so I’m not sure how it’s a parenting fail.

But you’re right, we can disagree on what’s decent.

That feels a bit unfair. Her dd was 2 when she met them so obviously there’s time to build relationships and whilst there was no sibling op might not have known or considered it if Pil were seeing other dgc separately . Then they had their dc together and it’s unlikely dgp would take baby away when young. This could literally be the first time it’s happened. It’s entirely plausible they included ops dd and she never realised it was begrudgingly.

It sounded from the Op like this is the first time, and the MIL said “kids” so they thought all the kids were invited. I don’t see how it’s the OP’s fault either.

I think a lot of people have their own axe to grind around these issues, so it’s colouring their view, tbh.

Expectations were not managed that is a parenting fail.

Not invited does not always mean deliberately excluded.

This is what I mean though - why can’t you invite someone you don’t see as being as “fully family”? Why does it have to be “I have different feelings for you therefore I don’t want you around”? I think it’s so bizarre.

So now we should all expect our in-laws to suddenly exclude someone they’ve never excluded before and not doing so is a parenting fail? Ok then.

I don't have a an axe to grind, I have just seen the results of it done well and done badly.

It’s not the axe I find interesting, it’s all the people who don’t seem able to see any further than their halos when it comes to blended families...