To not feel the same about DIL’s DD as my own granddaughter?

[NotHerGran]

I know this may sound awful, but I genuinely don’t know if I’m being unreasonable.

My youngest son married a woman who already had a 2 year old daughter. We helped with the wedding and contributed towards the deposit for their house.

They now have a daughter together, who is 7 months old, and we absolutely adore her. My husband and I are lucky enough to have plenty of time and the means to be very involved grandparents. We have her for at least a few hours each weekend, buy her lovely things, and are more than happy to help financially when needed. We bought her a beautiful pram, for example, and if her parents ever wanted help with private school or something similar, we’d be in a position to do that too. Our door is always open to her.

I also try not to intrude on their little family bubble so we would never invite ourselves over and I’ve made it clear that I won’t expect to be invited, but whenever they do want me there, I’ll always come and prioritise it over other plans. They’ve asked me many times to come over to cook dinner, look after my granddaughter while DIL has a shower, nap or goes for coffee with friends, to allow them to have a “date night” or simply to help with something, and I’m always happy to do it. I’ve never expected anything in return - time with my granddaughter is a gift in itself.

The problem is that my DIL now expects us to do the same for her older daughter. She has 2 other sets of grandparents who are both involved, but apparently this isn’t enough. In fairness, they live further away - I’m 10 minutes walk and her parents about an hour drive. She gets upset that we don’t buy her daughter gifts in the same way, and now wants us to take her when we have our granddaughter.

We do give her little gifts. I’ll happily buy her a nice puzzle for her birthday, for example, and she’s always welcome in our home. But there is a difference between that and what we would naturally do for our own granddaughter. If our granddaughter were turning 5, we’d probably buy her a lovely new bike with all the accessories, rather than a £20 birthday present. I don’t expect her daughter’s dad to have any responsibility towards my granddaughter either, and that seems perfectly natural to me — she isn’t his child

I don’t dislike the little girl at all, but she isn’t my grandchild and I don’t feel the same responsibility towards her. I’m happy to be kind to her, include her in family things and make her feel welcome, but I don’t want to become her grandparent or regular childcare.

I also don’t want to create an expectation that because we have the time and money, we’re automatically responsible for providing the same for every child in the family.

AIBU to feel that there is a difference between my granddaughter and my DIL’s daughter?

OP please don't kid yourself you are being of any help whatsoever by looking after one child and not both 🙄 Who has a lie in when they've got a 4 year old in the house? It's nice you want to take out your DGD but you're still leaving DS and DIL with a small child so that is not a break.

Fair enough you feel like this, absolutely not fair enough you seem determined to make it very obvious to a small child who had naff all say in her family setup, including having you and your son suddenly in her face. Especially you, who describes her as a "chore".

Behave how you like but you seem to be on a fast track to pissing off your DIL which might very swiftly mean she won't want your around either of her girls. That's certainly how I'd feel. You sound like you'd almost be enjoying watching granddaughter unwrap a bike for Xmas whilst the sister gets a £20 voucher.

This reminds me a lot of the thread where a grandparent asked the stepgrandchild to leave a family photo so she could just have her grandchildren in it. I mean come on 🤦

I'd love to see the reaction on here if ex-wives were expected to treat the children of their ex the same way as they treat their own.

To make sure all children feel equal, not "othered" and one child doesn't get less treats/ supports etc.. because their half-siblings have an entire other family while the youngest only have their mum and dad. So ALL children should get identical value gifts, supports etc.

Does it sound ridiculous? Of course it does.

I know. But I didn’t just mean legally but also emotionally, socially etc.

So should the eldest dads family be buying the youngest unrelated child gifts of the same value as their own grandchild?

Again, a very strange disbalance of power in this post - a cowering, worried grandparent is weighing up her options and possible sanctions for non-compliance.
How old are you? How many good years have you left? Why can't you just go on a cruise? Read a book - wait for them to crawl to you, asking to see them. What is this nonsense? You have already brought your son up - everything you are doing now for the little one is a MASSIVE unearned favour. And what is this shitty 'deserved lie-in' - don't YOU deserve a lie-in?
Go enjoy yourself, and for goodness' sake, stop presenting unpaid nanny services you perform as a massive bonus for you. It is pathetic.

It's normal no?
YANBU.

That girl will have her own grandparents. To treat them the same gives step GD an advantage as she has other grandparents too. As long as you are loving and kind, it's fine. Fairness is not to treat all the same.

I'm prepared to put money on it that the OP's son being called "Mike" and not "Dad" by his stepdaughter does not mean he isn't treating her as if she's his own. It sounds more like he doesn't want the child to forget her own Dad and doesn't want the bio dad to feel pushed aside.

OP is framing this very carefully, isn't she?

Grabby? It's got nothing to do with grabby. This isn't about material stuff.

It sounds like you get to spend a fair amount of time with your GD so I think you're being unreasonable in the way you are saying you would miss moments with her if the SGD was there. If you take her out every Saturday morning I would definitely think about taking her sister once a month or so. For one thing it might be nice for you to see the bond between them.

Obviously you can't force yourself to feel a certain way but you sound like you're very GD focussed rather than family focussed.

Someone up thread made a good point as well, if your ambivalence towards your son's step daughter causes an issue you will be the one who loses the most if they want to keep you at arms length.

Why do people keep saying this?

The new 7mo. baby has no relationship to her mum’s ex.

The 5yo does have a relationship with her mum’s partner who she lives with as a family unit.

Of course it helps.
when the older child is with her own dad, and paternal grand-parents...

Are they expected to take the younger child too? Instead of letting her be with her own grand-parents?

This. Your DIL won’t allow her older DD to be made to feel unhappy and unloved in her own home. You won’t be 8nvited.

It’s fine not to feel the same if you don’t ever show that. Not treating them the same isn’t ok. That’s absolutely going to cause a rift. And you are related to her, she’s your DGDs sibling. It’s not a blood relation but still a relation, living in the same household as your DGD.

Posts like this are exactly why I would never remarry or have more children if my marriage broke down. Blended families almost never work and it’s almost always the children who suffer. People kid themselves otherwise but I’ve yet to see one where all children come out the other side happy.

But she's not the grandchild of the OP ( the eldest). And the youngest is not the grandchild of the eldest paternal grandparents

Why do people keep saying that the child is 2 years old? The clue is in the original post!

By the way, I think that on presents you can probably give one big present and not to the other BUT ONLY if you carefully coordinate so that you know elder DSGD is getting a big present from her side of the family or her dad that younger DD wouldn’t get similar. This involves all families buying into the blend and cooperating. Not going it alone

I personally think it’s the babysitting and every day that this probably falls down on. Unless you are doing this when elder girl is with her dad or genuinely at an activity. Once the baby stage wears off, mum will want the two girls to prioritise time together and won’t want one child babysat so much

She will see your son as a father figure though.

It’s understandable to feel as you do, but you should just push yourself to treat them the same.

That poor little girl.

What about flipping it a bit and supporting the family unit, rather than trying to make a beeline for 'your' grandchild?

We have a lot of mixed/blended family on my DHs side, and something I have noticed is that the grandparents/aunts/uncles who are welcoming and loving to all of the children seem to reap what they sow. Maybe change your frame of mind, see both girls as your granddaughters (now you've got two, how lucky!) and try that on for size. I think you may have a way happier older age if you decide to root for the family as a whole. The sisters will be in each other's lives for the majority of their own lives and if you could help to foster a really strong bond that would be quite a legacy to leave!

It's not about 'oh they already have 2 sets of grandparents' - it's about the people in their lives, and whether they love them or not. Why because she already has her' quota of grandparents' in your eyes does that stop you from forming a bond, loving her and her being part of your family? If my husbands family treated his step children differently from they ones we have together, they would not be around any of them.

Your son might only be known as “Mike” but I imagine he does the school run, or clubs at weekends and will look after the girls without favouritism as a unit. If he didn’t, he’ll royally mess up.

of course you can’t help your feelings but you seem to be pretty determined to display them at every opportunity: a bike for one kid and a puzzle for the other, and all the rest of it. it sounds like you are putting your feelings first all the time at the moment.

the only sensible thing to do is have a conversation with your DS. Ask him how the family wants to handle gifts as the kids get older, say you are minded to be generous to your DGD but want to give only basic civil gifts to SGD. See if that’s ok because the other grandparents can match it for SGD. Or if not maybe you put some money in an account that DGD gets when she is 18. Or DGD gets expensive gifts that aren’t obviously expensive to a small child. Or something. it might even be, that in-family fairness isn’t important to him.

you can try to spend more time with your DGD when the SGD is with her dad and his side of the family so that the difference in attitude isn’t displayed so obviously to the 5 year old.

basically your feelings are what they are, you can’t find love in your heart if it’s not there. But you can choose how you display it so that you don’t make a 5 year old unhappy and drive a wedge between sisters.

the people saying that the 5 year old is “grabby” are out of their minds.

I'm kind of with you OP and totally understand your feelings. I do feel though that you could give more than you currently are, and include this child (what age is she now? and sorry if you've already said) more actively in your family. As posters have said, she is your grandaughter's half sister, and indeed your son's adopted(?) daughter..

The issue here is that 'blended' families are necessarily more complicated in some respects, with children coming and going between households for different periods of time with different people performing parental roles. You can only perform a parental role for children who live in your household for at least some of the time, really, and as far as possible children living in the same household should be treated fairly by the adults within that household, although of course it's hard always to treat everyone equally and resentment creeps in when (as is often the case) one parent (usually the father) is exploiting the other adult in the household (often step-mum) to care for the children. So it's all very difficult and often less than ideal.

With grandparents, it's simpler. If two children live in the same household and are brought up as siblings, then the parents can decide it's not in their interests to be treated in an obviously different way by grandparents and limit contact. By contrast, you can't stop your child going to visit their other parent in a household where they're treated differently and lesser than step or half siblings, unfortunately, and vice versa.

OP please don't kid yourself you are being of any help whatsoever by looking after one child and not both 🙄

If it’s not helpful why have the baby’s parents been asking OP to come and take baby or to watch her whilst a parent runs the older child to school?