Favourite grandchildren

[WaterlooSunset]

Do your parents show favouritism towards one branch of the family over the oethers? Mine do and I'm not sure what to do about it. It's not that thay are unkind to any of their grandkids, they are very fair in many ways and make a determined effort to be seen to be fair. Which makes it harder to approach them about it, as I'm sure they would be very hurt if I mentioned it.

It's not the presents they buy for each of them (in this regard they are scrupulously even-handed)- it's the time they spend with their other grandchildren and the affection they display towards them. They show genuine interest and concern in my brother's children in a way that they do not to my daughter or her other couisins. My daughetr and her cousins are at an age where they have started noticing and find it hurtful. DD had mentioned it to me and I find it hard to justify their behaviour to her. What do you advise?

It is really hard when the children notice it.

This sort of behaviour will have shown it's self in the generation before, it is an old nasty habbit your parents have.

You can't control these people and their behaviour.

Have you thought about spending time with people who make you feel good about yourselves rather than the grandparents who lower self esteem?

Just because someone is old and family it does not mean you have to hang around them and allow them to hurt your children.

Were your brothers kids the first set? Do u live further away? It must be very uncomfortable for you, I've seen this a number of times... My mum clearly prefers my older dd it drives everyone potty and is very hard to talk about.

i feel awful because i think preference is shown to my DD. my sister has a 3mo dd and lives a bit away and my mum went up this week to spend some time and help her babysit tomorrow night etc, today she phoned me up asking for me to bring my DD up to her. I said no making up some excuse but i thought that she should spend sometime with DN esp as she is always seeing my DD.

It's inevitable I suppose that within families, members find that they have more in common with certain other family members, maybe kindred spirits, etc.

I don't know how old your children are, or the others that you refer to, but are they at an age where they take an interest in their grandparents rather than just take on a passive role?

The grandparents obviously aren't setting out to hurt their grandchildren and perhaps don't realise that it's becoming a little obvious. Perhaps you could have a tactful word with them and give them examples of where it's caused problems, if you think that would help?

My sister's kids get shedloads more time with my folks than my own, but that's just geography - they're a mile down the road, we're 200+ miles away. Gets me down sometimes that my boys won't necessarily have the same kind of relationship (although tbf you can hardly tell when they're all together!), but it's not mum and dad's fault.

It is uncomfortable, but even mentioning it to them tactfully would be hard, as I they would be hurt - and I know they don't think they do it! A lot of it is quite subtle - like the language they use to talk about them - as well as the more obvious stuff and I'd find it very hard to explain.

As far as the geography is concerned, I used to blame that, as my brother lived very close - but the preference continued after he reloacted, too.

My mum favours my children over my brother's.

It's vastly unfair and awkward and embarassing.

When they were very young I'd speak to my brother about it to show I was aware and didn't encourage it, but to be honest it didn't help at all as it just made the issue, well, more of an issue.

All I do now is make sure I make a fuss of my bro's kids when we're all together and pointedly say things such as 'Grandma, did you hear what Bro's dd did last week?' etc to try and constantly remind her to act interested in all of them!

Stupid cow (my mum that is).

I know exactly what u mean about language that's what my mum is like re my two dds. We've sort of spoken about it and I would say it helped a bit but you can't force it and obviously wouldn't want to would you? I would say that if they were geographically closer to your brother originally, they had chance to naturally build a more day to day familiar relationship with his kids which will have stayed one he moved - it doesn't just evaporate once they go further away because it's probably a strong enough relationship to have lasted. That's very nice for them but not much help to you, other than that I feel it is definitely not personal to you and your kids, but circumstantial, and absolutely not deliberate by your parents.

I think it's just a different kind of relationship, like for your kids seeing them has always been more of an occasional treat perhaps? Or alternatively that those close affectionate bonds have taken longer to form due to not seeing them as much when they were very little.

This is how you could approach it with your parents - say you think they are lovely grandparents but that you are really struck with the familiarity and closeness between them and your brothers kids, you think it's lovely and feel that you'd like to work on your kids seeing more of them so they can really know each other like that. It's not an accusation, it's an observation, and your intentions are positive.

It will never be exactly the same as they are with your dns because like I said I think that comes from seeing a lot of each other in the very early years, but it would be off your chest then and you'd be working on it?

My PIL favour SIL's children massively over my two even though they are the ones at distance and they have a better relationship with them because they spend concentrated periods of time with them/holiday with them etc. I hacks me off big time and I raised it a couple of years ago after a particularly nasty episode involving my m/c and SIL's pregnancy and needless to say they denied it. Its not material things its more in the way that OP has mentioned - spending every christmas with them as opposed to two hours every other one with mine, taking weeks off work to go to their house and look after them and days out etc which they don't do with mine.

My dd1 had a very strange relationship with FIL for about 3-4 years, which I believe was based on the way he acted around his other gd. It was as though she sensed it.

You say it is difficult to mention it to them as they would be hurt. But your DD is hurt by it, so why not tell them.

At Christmas, with all GC in house, FiL shouted "DG2 stop it, you used to be my favorite, but you're not anymore". All parents a bit embarrassed, especially as I though DS (only GS) was favorite!

DG1 (DG2 sister) old enough to understand, very upset.