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?

This.

ive been in stepgrandaughter and step grandsons life since they were very small and I would never treat them any differently.

yes I’m aware I do feel a little differently towards them but I’d never make it obvious, I have her for sleepovers with the others and both get the same spent on them for Xmas and birthdays that I do for my bio gf,

how can I sit there and treat them less favourably in front of the others how mean

I can understand your feelings,mine were the opposite ,my sister is my sister and the culture in our family is we are family and we share and are treated equally.
Funnily enough we still do share a lot even today as adults but people are different and i appreciate others may take a different view to me.
Thats why i said the key is the Son and DIL opinion and later the grandaughters.

My overall take is that your DIL is expecting rather alot of you with the support that you've been giving so far.

I do think that you should babysit both children but perhaps be less available - offer up a date night, for example. but not as much ad hoc babysitting. Re. Gifts. I'd discuss Christmas presents with your son and DIL and ask what everyone else is giving - if the other GP's are giving a bike, for example, you're not going to duplicate that, but you may get your younger GD a bike when the time comes.

Be very careful because if you go too far you'll end up being banned from seeing your granddaughter

You can’t help how you feel but it’s a bit mean op. I would start with trying to involve the older sibling more. How do you think people who adopt learn to love? It sounds like you are quite dismissive of a young child. Your son chose to marry a ready made family and she is his step daughter. It’s going to cause issues as the children grow older and your dil will notice. I think it’s time you started to try harder.

And if you were the child watching her sister go to private school and have horse riding lessons and trips to Disney that you didn't get because you had different grandparents. How would you have felt then?

The issue with this desire to have kids in blended families having the exact same experience is that there is literally no way they will have the exact same experiences in everything, none at all.

I grew up as a stepchild and even as a child I knew my step grandparents were not my real grandparents because I also had my grandparents. They treated me nicely but there's a difference between buying both kids ice cream etc and paying for private school or some people on mumsnet are how going as far as demanding that inheritance is shared equally across maternal and step grandchildren.

OP stopping the gave parents paying for private school for one child means that child now losses out because they are trying to make things equal but the reality is they are not making the same demands of the other wt of grandparents. There's a literal no scenario where all sets of grandparents will agree to do the same things for their real and step grandchildren and I think we need to start managing our expectations because in the push to equalize things what happens is eg her child will end up losing out on a relationship with her own grandparents while the other child will still have their relationship with their grandparents.

Unfortunately we seem to be having more and more blended families creating a bigger mess and drama.

Really? I never felt like that at all. I adored my big sister and hated it when people treated her as lesser.

they also have different dads.

You realise that both dads won't have the same finance and probably the same ideas and won't treat their own daughter in the same way?

Always the same on these threads, with GPs - always the DIL who is being helped, being grabby, entitled etc. What about your son, surely you're helping him with the childcare just as much as you're helping your DIL? They are one family. Or doesn't he want to look after a non-blood-related child either? It's always the DIL who gets the blame for asking, yet the kids have 2 parents, or 3 in this case including your son as step dad.

Will this childs parents also do the same for OP's grandchild, do you think?

I had a step-grandparent through a different situation (married my bio grandparent before I was born) and when they died the grief was just as painful as if they had been related to me.
I think step relationships all depends on so many factors, there's no rule for how it should go. Two is very young for a child to enter your life.

But the OP's DGD will not be in their house or in their company. The older child will go to visit them separately from the rest of the family. If the step GD was never going to see the OP, be in her house or have her visit her home, then the issue would not arise in the fist place.

If the OP wants a 'grandparent' relationship, then to some extent it has to be a grandparent relationship with the whole family, including her DIL's older child. The step GD should not be expected to have this random older woman that she has no link or relationship with foisted on her in her own home or to be dragged to visit her house for family occasions. It's too confusing for her. Either she has a 'grandparent' or she does not.

If I was the mother, I'd say to the OP - yes, you can choose only to be a grandparent to the younger child if you like but then you can't be a grandparent in my house and my older child and I are not visiting your house either, because my child (who you've chosen is not your grandchild) has no link to you and no obligation to spend time with you.

Ooft. This makes me feel so sad.
On dads side I have 2 cousins. One was actually a stepcousin from a family situation like yours.
My grandma and wider family welcomed her with open arms. She was never anything but my cousin too. Yeah she had her own mum and grandparents (who were peripherally involved) but given she'd lived with her dad and stepmum (my dads sister) since age 2, they were always just a family unit.
40 years on, who visits my grandma in the care home the most of all? The grandkid who isn't biologically related. And no, there will be no inheritance.
You can feel how you feel, but don't make it so blindingly obvious to a child who has no say in the matter.

Well, if you think about it, imagine if your husband left you or passed away, and you met someone new, and he was never 'blood', so never included in anything... You're not really in the right here, in some respects. She is legally the daughter of your son and his wife, so you are legally the grandma, but not biologially. I think the only issue is if the parents died, the grandparents would have to decide who cares for which child, but other than that, I thik it's all one. Remember that the two daughters are sisters, so making one faviourite may harm their relationship dynamic too.

Why not give both girls identical value gifts for birthdays and Christmas, but put money in a savings account for your granddaughter?

If you wanted to provide extra funds towards school fees, then give it to the parents to subsidise both children, rather than say it’s only to be allocated to one.

I know the older girl has other relatives, and maybe they also would contribute in similar ways.

When the girls are older, they will acknowledge that they may have different experiences/holidays/gifts etc., but whilst they are little, they just won’t understand why you treat them so differently. Your son and DIL will respect you for being fair.

It may be impossible to have the same feelings for children who aren’t related to you by blood, but surely you want the girls to grow up happily as sisters without jealousy? Please don’t be the one who is responsible for bad feelings in the family.

Think about how much you love and adore your own granddaughter then imagine another set of adults were treating her that way.

I’m a bit on the fence and I think it does depend on her own grandparents and their level of involvement. At a minimum I think a decent birthday and Xmas gift (doesn’t have to the same but I think buying one a bike and the other a jigsaw is just mean).

I also think you need to separate doing your DIL/Son a favour by babysitting both and spending quality time with your grandaughter. My view would be to maintain the best family relationships you do a mix of both. Also the more time you spend with DILs daughter the better you will know her - there’s a very good chance you may grow to love her (perhaps not the way you love your grandaughter but wouldn’t it be a shame to deny yourself another fulfilling and happy relationship for the sake of making some pancakes and giving a more generous gift).

I think you are going to create such an unpleasant dynamic going forward. How awful for that little girl to know that she is not considered to be family. As others have said, don't be surprised if DIL ends up pulling back because she is unhappy with how her children are being treated, and you end up seeing even less of your 'real' grand daughter. This other little girl is the sister of your 'real' grand daughter, and she shouldn't be treated as less.

Give your head a wobble, OP, how you could do this to a little girl is beyond me.

As the stepchild/half sister I know from experience that your new family can genuinely love you, but their feelings will be quite tangibly different to those they feel for their bio family. I think the MN expectation that this shouldn’t be so is utterly disingenuous and rooted in some sort of fairytale land (I noted the Cinderella reference early on - despite the fact the the older/step grandchild is NOT an orphan, but has their own father and extended family in addition to a mother and now half sister).

Why should loving someone else’s child be expected any more than loving your parents in law, their siblings or even to continue to love your partner/spouse after many years? It’s generally accepted that most people can’t, and these are long term adult relationships.

We romanticise a child’s need for love from every single adult in its life - and this is nuts. They need to be cared for, kept safe, have parents who let them know they are loved and supported, but where - as is the case here - this child has an established extended family on her father’s side, WHY is OP obligated to manufacture feelings and a connection that, I assume, DiL’s ExP’s family will not be expected to reciprocate for the newborn?

@NotHerGran I’d feel the same. Unless this was a child being adopted by your DS and raised exclusively by him as his own child along side his bio child, I see DiL’s expectations as being unreasonable.

It's ok to feel the way you do. But it's not kind to behave in a way that will possibly end up causing resentment between the two sisters one day. She's an innocent young child who won't understand why she's being treated differently even if it's explained to her.

You’re not unreasonable to feel the way you do, but you’re unreasonable to show it.

It will lead to division and conflict and affect your relationship with your DIL and ultimately your grandaughter.

For your own sake, try to treat the girls equally.

It doesn’t change anything- OP has been in this child’s life since she was 2 and has actively decided not to love a young child who is part of her son’s family.
Who does that?

I think you’re opening yourself up to being the grandparent that’s excluded.
If your DIL’s parents and ex PIL treat the girls the same then I wouldn’t blame your DIL for fostering these relationships over one where one of her DD’s is made to feel excluded

Yanbu to feel differently
Yabu to behave differently.
The private school is a different issue really, but park visits, cake baking,babysitting should be for them both.
I expect your DGD will adore her big sister and mother
You doing anything that goes against that will result in you seeing your DGG less, I expect your DIL wont stand for it so less contact with you will be the result