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.

I’m not forcing my children on anyone 🤣
we are still the same family unit as we always have been.

but, on that note - years ago I was in a long term relationship with a father. His ex had gone on to have another child. On quite a few occassions I would look after her youngest child alongside the child she shared with my partner at the time.

It does happen. People can and do blend beautifully.

For goodness sake, both you & your DH are being so silly by not just having a chat with MIL about this.

Regardless though, your MIL is not doing anything wrong by taking her grandchildren, and you are just being oversensitive about your eldest. Just because your family blends perfectly within your own household, doesn't mean it blends perfectly with the wider family. You are unreasonable to expect the wider family to treat her as a blood relative.

And I'm not saying they should or shouldn't, I think it's great when families blend well, but I don't see anything wrong when they don't.

@MarieBaronelovechild you can’t have certain expectations of your in laws RE inclusion of your eldest that you wouldn’t place on your older child’s father or his family on inclusion of your youngest. I agree don’t send her but not because your in laws are in the wrong here, they aren’t.

I still don't understand why DD is not being consulted on this. She's old enough to work out whether she's there on sufferance and will have a better idea than you of how the other kids are likely to treat her.

Your daughter isn't their grandkid. They want grandkids holiday. They've been very polite about it and not mentioned that you've assumed they'd take your other daughter. And now you'll spitefully dey your younger daughter a family holiday because of it.

Plus the fact it sounds like a lot of kids and maybe one less makes it a lot easier for them. If you daughter got on well with neice then she wouldn't need telling to play with her. At 9 I wouldn't make my child play with one they didn't want to.

I wouldn’t send either of them.

Youre a family now and what they’re doing can cause friction between the sisters for years to come. If your first daughter were adopted, would that be different?

It’s so old fashioned and reductive to think of things so restrictively. I’m sorry they’re being like this.

In an ideal world the in-laws would love your oldest daughter and would want to include her. But they seem not to have that capacity. So you have to work with what you have!
When you blend a family, you need to accept that both of your children will have different relatives, who aren't obliged to love them both equally. You have to be fair to both - the youngest is entitled to form strong bonds with her own grandparents. The most that you are entitled to expect is that they are kind to your oldest when they see her, which appears to be the case. But you can't force feelings - they don't love her. With that in mind, you need to minimise her exposure to them, without denying your youngest her own right to the relationship.
You are lucky and it massively helps, that your oldest has an involved dad. Foster that relationship with him and the gos on his side, if you can. I think kids can be good at understanding the separate relationships, so long as you don't set them up to expect the in-laws to view her as a grandchild. She needs to be taught to just see them as nice people she knows, but not 'family'.

It's okay for siblings to have separate activities and interests. In your shoes, I'd let the youngest go and book the holiday club for the oldest. If you don't make a big thing of it, she won't see it as a big thing either.

I'll be honest, this would colour how I saw my in-laws and it would make me less inclined to go out of my way for them - they would just be dh's family and I'd feel no connection to them or obligation to help in the future. My memory would be long. It's a shame they can't expand their love to include a little girl but that's a failing on their part. But I'd have to accept that I'd made a choice to get into a blended family situation and I couldn't make them embrace it. I would just have to ensure my two kids were treated equally in my home.

On the one hand I see the logic that if eldests dad was to take her on holiday the youngest wouldn’t
go but I’d presume your ex doesn’t have a relationship with your youngest.
Whereas these people do have a relationship with your eldest and are choosing to exclude her which feels mean. It’s like they are saying to a 9 year old child we are all part of an exclusive club and you don’t get to be part of it.
Presumably they have been in your DDs life since she was a toddler and she will barely remember a time when they weren’t there, it’s horrible that at some point she will realise she is not loved by them . I’d also b disappointed that your dh hasn’t defended your eldest and is more bothered about offending his family than making sure your eldest is included.

I don’t think you should put your eldest in a situation where she isn’t 100% welcome for your own convenience. You were planning to manage that time yourselves and you can still manage it. Having one child away on holiday will make things easier and you can have 1-1 time with your eldest.

Fortunately the OP doesn't appear inclined to listen to this advice. Trying to make one child's involvement in their paternal family events contingent on attitudes to another child is asking for trouble.

OP does DC1 actually want to go? I think that information has to form part of the decision process.

@MarieBaronelovechild

Are you the poster who has posted about your in-laws being quite well off and were paying for an expensive hobby for your step-daughter but not your shared daughter. You wanted neither girl to do the hobby.

That's in broad strokes-I can't recall exactly-but that's the gist of it.

I hate all this ‘well they’re not their biological relative’ rubbish and ‘they don’t have to take the child if they don’t want to’ crap. There’s many things that we don’t ‘have’ to do in life but surely it’s about being kind and choosing to do the right thing when we can. My elder children were step children and this would have broken their heart. I was a therapist and these are the sorts of things that I would hear adults say from their childhood that convinced them that they weren’t good enough. Of course nobody has to invite the elder, non-biological grandchild. Of course she can be singled out and left behind, but what sort of people willingly do that to an 8 year old. I don’t care whether she does have her own paternal family
to take her, it’s petty, spiteful and mean and it says more about them than anything else.

Some people just suck! She's a child and a sister to your youngest, what do they mean they can't bond with your youngest if the older child is there? Would that be an excuse if she was a full cousin? No. You have an in law problem and your husband needs to sort it.

If we go to sister’s house, her daughter isn’t encouraged to play or include my eldest who is same age.

If they got on well, then there wouldn't be any encouragement needed. And in general, two 9yos who see a bit of each other normally would gravitate to each other, rather than play with younger ones, so I'd assume from this they really don't get on. That isn't necessarily anyone's fault, or that they argue, simply they're very different or like different things to do. That happens.
When my family all meet up, I can tell you after the initial greetings who tends to end up together because they have the most in common. No fallings out or arguments, simply who they get on best with so will choose to do/talk with those people.

In which case I don't think it's fair to expect MIL to take them. If they normally just pitched in with cousins, joined in without any intervention then you could think they'd be little extra work, so no hassle to include them.

I'd say anyway wouldn't it be nice for oldest to have you for a week on her own. plan some fun things to do and the youngest can go off with her cousins.
My dc all loved to have time with me on their own, and would have thought they'd got the better of the deal there.

Yes I would find this really upsetting too. I have 2 step kids and my parents and my in laws treat all of our kids the same.

You have to wonder about the emotional intelligence of people who try to separate kids from one another

My closest grandparent has always be my gran she is my granddad's second wife and not my mum's mother, she didn't even come into my mum's life until my mum was 14/15. Gran's view is if you marry a man with children you accept them and their offspring as family. I'm very grateful for that, she is wonderful. She also had 2 biological daughters of her own and I am close to my aunties and their children, my cousins. My DS is very good friends with my cousin's son. None of us blood related. My grandfather died a few years ago and so did her first husband (the father of my aunts) when she had a big celebration for a milestone birthday we were all invited, all children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, step or otherwise. It was a fantastic weekend.

I don't have step children but if my son ever marries someone and has step children, I will follow my gran's lead

She is not their family. Just because your husband has chosen to marry someone with a child from a previous relationship and take her on doesn’t automatically mean that everyone connected to her has to do the same.

Your daughter has her family on your side and her father’s side. Do you expect your youngest to go anywhere your eldest goes with her father’s family? No you wouldn’t, so why do you want special treatment here.

Your eldest daughter and youngest daughter have different relatives it’s a fact. Stop trying to force relationships on people based on how you feel about individuals and expecting everyone else to feel the same.

Everyone on MN will say “they’re not their GC so they don’t have to be nice to them or include them as they have no real relationship” and I always think they are the people that would have, as children, said “you’re not really part of the family because you’re adopted”.

YANBU to be upset.

And to be clear your husband doesn’t get to decide what happens with your youngest it should be a joint decision.

You could look at it another way. Imagine telling your ex partner that he can only take his child away on the condition he also takes the child you have with your current partner

The two things I don't understand.

1. Why DH and/or you don't have a conversation with MIL. Yes it might be a tad awkward but you really shouldn't send kids away for a week with anyone you can't have a slightly awkward conversation with.
2. Why MIL didn't say "I'd like to take DD2Name away" in the first place, if that was what she meant.

Regarding the £400, there's no such thing as a free lunch, is there?!

I think in this scenario, where your eldest calls your in laws by their names, where her dad is present in her life and she sees his family and your youngest stays at home, it’s fair that your in laws see her as having her paternal family be with her dad rather than her step dad.

I think you’re unreasonable in wanting them to take her on as an equal to your youngest, and definitely unreasonable to want them to take her away to save you stress!! She’s your child, you deal with her.

If your DH thinks it’s fine for his mum to take her this year to save the money, and your DD is fine with that, I’d send her and be grateful to them for it. Don’t presume they owe this every year though. You can’t make them take on your child as their own grandchild when she isn’t. You blended your family, not them. They had no choice in the matter.

In future try to set it up so that your eldest has a week with her dad/her cousins/her grandparents when your youngest has a week with hers.

I think the problem is, the way they communicate with you about things like this that just doesn't land well or come across as very thoughtful. Am I right that you have posted about various other incidents regarding his family?

I think you can feel a lot of guilt for a child when a marriage breaks down (thinking about your ex), and then this situation feels like further rejection. It could come across in a more thoughtful way.

If my son lives with and loves a kid for X years then damn right I’m going to include them in my home. Whoever makes him happy will get my vote.
I’ll follow his lead, not MN.

It’s strange, because when a MIL posts about her DIL not wanting to spend time with her, or included her in everything she does with her own mother, I never see ‘wElL yOU aren’T hER fAMIly’ 🙄🙄